The video

Directed by Joe Pytka and produced by Vincent Joliet, the ‘Free As A Bird’ video won the 1997 Grammy award for Best Short Form Music Video.

The video took the perspective of a flying bird, and featured a great many references to Beatles songs and aspects of their past.

The promo was seemingly designed to ensnare Beatles obsessives, some of whom spent a great many hours spotting hidden meanings in the imagery. Here are just some of them – there are quite possibly many more, and Apple Corps have indicated that there are more than 80 in total.

  1. The sound of a bird’s wings flapping, similar to the original version of ‘Across The Universe’.
  2. Above a fireplace, a clock displays five o’clock as the day begins (‘She’s Leaving Home’).
  3. Elsewhere in the video, various clocks appear but the same time is never shown twice (‘Any Time At All’).
  4. Photographs of Beatles as children – so much younger than today – are on the mantle above the fireplace (‘Help!’).
  5. In front of the picture of George is an old brown shoe.
  6. A cat sleeps on an armchair (‘I’m Only Sleeping’).
  7. A scene of the Liverpool docks features rain.
  8. People leaving work (‘A Hard Day’s Night’).
  9. The Beatles walk past. They reappear throughout the video (‘Here, There And Everywhere’).
  10. The bouncer outside the Cavern Club has a flat top (‘Come Together’).
  11. He forces people to wait.
  12. A policeman ushers others to the back of the line (‘Get Back’).
  13. A woman in the queue wears red (‘Yes It Is’).
  14. As the camera swings inside the club, it passes through a woman at the entrance (‘I’m Looking Through You’).
  15. The entrance to Strawberry Field. The camera then pans from the top to the bottom of a tree – it must be high or low (‘Strawberry Fields Forever’).
  16. A man from the Liverpool Egg Co delivers eggs (the ‘eggman’ from ‘I Am The Walrus’).
  17. Children running – ‘See how they run’ (‘Lady Madonna’ and ‘I Am The Walrus’).
  18. Two of the children hold hands (‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’).
  19. Maxwell’s Hardware is on the row of shops (‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’).
  20. Next door is a shop called Dylan’s (‘Yer Blues’).
  21. A pretty nurse sells poppies from tray, near a barber shop showing photographs (‘Penny Lane’).
  22. To her left is a barrow in the market place (‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’).
  23. There is a cigarette machine to the right of the barber’s (‘I’m Only Sleeping’).
  24. A man wearing a hat holds a bent-backed tulip (‘Glass Onion’).
  25. The barber says goodbye to a man with a briefcase. Another man tips his hat in greeting (‘Hello, Goodbye’).
  26. A small sign in a shop window behind two pretty women says ‘Help’.
  27. A child whispers into the ear of another (‘Do You Want To Know A Secret’).
  28. John Lennon and Yoko Ono embrace in a car (‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?’).
  29. In a bakery window is a cake, with ‘Happy ‘Birthday’’ written on it.
  30. The cake also has the numbers six and four (‘When I’m Sixty-Four’).
  31. George Harrison walks into the Apple headquarters, which has a sign outside saying ‘Dr Robert’.
  32. A crowd of people standing and staring at a car crash, as in ‘A Day In The Life’.
  33. The scene also contains a fire engine (‘Penny Lane’) and policemen in a row (‘I Am The Walrus’).
  34. People run quickly (‘Run For Your Life’).
  35. A helter skelter slide appears.
  36. A kite is shown, representing Mr Kite.
  37. Children in pig masks (‘Piggies’).
  38. The children run down an alley (‘Long Tall Sally’).
  39. A sunflower, growing ‘so incredibly high’ (‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’).
  40. A ladder leading into an open window, into which a female vanishes (‘She Came In Through The Bathroom Window’).
  41. The camera pans through a window, on which sits a lizard (‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’).
  42. A man types at a desk (‘Paperback Writer’).
  43. Behind the man a clock shows 10:10 (‘One After 909’).
  44. On a nearby table is a book by Edgar Alan Poe (‘I Am The Walrus’), a copy of the Daily Mail (also ‘Paperback Writer’), some green apples (representing Apple).
  45. A box of ‘Savoy Truffle’ chocolates is also on the table.
  46. Cigarette butts in an ashtray, with one cigarette burning (‘I’m So Tired’, ‘I Am The Walrus’).
  47. The Daily Mail carries a headline about 4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire (‘A Day In The Life’).
  48. On the floor to the right is a portrait of the Queen (‘Penny Lane’, ‘Her Majesty’).
  49. A picture of Chairman Mao (‘Revolution’ and ‘Revolution 1’) is in the bottom left corner of the window.
  50. Workers are fixing a hole in a roof.
  51. A Blue Meanie (from the Yellow Submarine film) looks out from the hole.
  52. There is a toy monkey by the side of the hole (‘Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey’).
  53. A newspaper taxi (‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’) arrives.
  54. On the left side of the road a bulldog is being walked (‘Hey Bulldog’).
  55. In the background another picture of Chairman Mao is carried across the road (‘Revolution’, ‘Revolution 1’).
  56. John and Yoko dance a waltz (‘I’m Happy Just To Dance With You’).
  57. The Blue Meanie makes a return appearance (he sleeps in a hole in the road, as in ‘Mean Mr Mustard’).
  58. The ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ coach can briefly be seen in the distance.
  59. A succession of people walk past, including a hunter and his mother, representing ‘The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill’. The elephant was reportedly Starr’s idea; the Indian swami playing the sitar was requested by Harrison.
  60. Brian Epstein puts on a scarf to leave (‘I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party’).
  61. Stuart Sutcliffe is shown in a recreation of the Sgt Pepper cover.
  62. Sunlight streams through the glass dome in the roof (‘Here Comes The Sun’, ‘The Inner Light’).
  63. A statue of the Virgin Mary moves, representing Mother Mary from ‘Let It Be’ (“Mother Mary comes to me”).
  64. A shot of the gravestone of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ is followed by a priest walking from the grave.
  65. A sheepdog (‘Martha My Dear’) runs past.
  66. A long and winding road vanishes in the distance.
  67. McCartney dances on a hill (‘The Fool On The Hill’).
  68. Below him, a woman carries a suitcase (‘She’s Leaving Home’).
  69. ‘Lovely Rita’, meter maid, walks by the Abbey Road zebra crossing.
  70. A Rolls-Royce car drives past (‘Baby You’re A Rich Man’).
  71. Footage from the backstage theatre scenes in the A Hard Day’s Night film.
  72. Watching the man with a ukulele is a figure dressed as a joker (‘I Am The Walrus’).


sp_BlogLink Join the Fab Forum discussion on Free As A Bird »
Published: |