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Paul is dead

April 29, 2024

"Paul Is Dead" redirects here. For the graphic novel, see Paul Is Dead (comics). For the Miracles episode, see Paul is Dead (Miracles episode).
"William Shears" redirects here. For the industrialist, see James Shears and Sons.

"Paul is dead" is an urban legend and conspiracy theory alleging that English pop musician Paul McCartney of the Beatles died in 1966 and was secretly replaced by a look-alike. The rumour began circulating in 1966, gaining broad popularity in September 1969 following reports on American college campuses.

McCartney in 1966. The urban legend alleges that McCartney died in November 1966 and was replaced by a stand-in.

According to the theory, McCartney died in a car crash, and to spare the public from grief, the surviving Beatles, aided by Britain's MI5, replaced him with a McCartney look-alike, subsequently communicating this secret through subtle details of their albums. Proponents perceived clues among elements of Beatles songs and cover artwork; clue-hunting proved infectious, and by October 1969 had become an international phenomenon. Rumours declined after Life published an interview with McCartney in November 1969.

The phenomenon was the subject of analysis in the fields of sociology, psychology and communications during the 1970s. McCartney parodied the hoax with the title and cover art of his 1993 live album, Paul Is Live. The legend was among ten of "the world's most enduring conspiracy theories" according to Time in 2009.

Beginnings edit

Although rumours that Paul McCartney was ill existed since early 1966,[1] reports about McCartney's death only started circulating in September of that year. According to the Beatles' press officer Tony Barrow, who wrote about it in his book John, Paul, George, Ringo and Me, he began receiving a number of calls from Fleet Street newspapers asking whether McCartney had been killed in a car crash, to which he replied that he had recently spoken with McCartney.[2] For the rest of 1966, the rumour was eclipsed by similar reports that Paul McCartney was working on a solo project and that the Beatles were splitting up,[3] which were backed by their disappearance from the public eye and the postponement of their scheduled tours in late 1966.[4]

In early 1967, the rumour resurfaced in London, this time claiming that Paul McCartney had been killed in a traffic accident while driving along the M1 motorway on the 7th of January of that year.[5] The rumour was acknowledged and rebutted in the February issue of The Beatles Book.[5] McCartney then alluded to the rumour during a press conference held around the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in May.[6][better source needed]

The Beatles' producer George Martin claimed that, during the Beatles’ visit to Denver, Colorado, "a number of people pretending to be Beatles" were employed by the promoters of the band's concerts in order to distract the crowds of fans from the real Beatles, while they were exiting a hotel.[7] According to journalist Maureen Cleeve, who wrote about it in the June 1966 issue of RAVE Magazine,[8] such a tactic was used when the Beatles first played in Baltimore, in 1964. As a result, stories began to circulate that the Beatles had sent four lookalikes to perform on stage on one of their American tours.[9][10] Both Paul McCartney and George Harrison later refuted these claims.

Despite the Beatles dismissing such accusations, they soon began accompanying the notion that Paul had died. By late 1967, it was further stated that the Beatles covered up Paul's death by employing a Paul McCartney impersonator to stand in for him.[11] For example, journalist Jay Marks was attending Paul's engagement party in 1967 when a friend of the band told him that Paul McCartney had been replaced.[12]

By the mid-1960s, the Beatles were known for sometimes including backmasking in their music.[13] Analysing their lyrics for hidden meaning had also become a popular trend in the US.[14] In November 1968, their self-titled double LP (also known as the "White Album") was released containing the track "Glass Onion". John Lennon wrote the song in response to "gobbledygook" said about Sgt. Pepper. In a later interview, he said that he was purposely confusing listeners with lines such as "the Walrus was Paul" – a reference to his song "I Am the Walrus" from the 1967 EP and album Magical Mystery Tour.[15]

 
"Revolution 9" (section)
The allegedly backmasked section of "Revolution 9"
"Revolution 9" (section) (reversed)
The same section reversed, which some believe sounds like "turn me on, dead man"
Problems playing these files? See media help.

On 17 September 1969, Tim Harper, an editor of the Drake Times-Delphic, the student newspaper of Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, published an article titled "Is Beatle Paul McCartney Dead?" The article addressed a rumour being circulated on campus that cited clues from recent Beatles albums, including a message interpreted as "Turn me on, dead man", heard when the White Album track "Revolution 9" is played backwards. Also referenced was the back cover of Sgt. Pepper, where every Beatle except McCartney is photographed facing the viewer, and the front cover of Magical Mystery Tour, which depicts one unidentified band member in a differently coloured suit from the other three.[16] According to music journalist Merrell Noden, Harper's Drake Times-Delphic was the first to publish an article on the "Paul is dead" theory.[17][nb 1] Harper later said that it had become the subject of discussion among students at the start of the new academic year, and he added: "A lot of us, because of Vietnam and the so-called Establishment, were ready, willing and able to believe just about any sort of conspiracy."[17]

In late September 1969, the Beatles released the album Abbey Road as they were in the process of disbanding.[20] On 10 October, the Beatles' press officer, Derek Taylor, responded to the rumour stating:

Recently we've been getting a flood of inquiries asking about reports that Paul is dead. We've been getting questions like that for years, of course, but in the past few weeks we've been getting them at the office and home night and day. I'm even getting telephone calls from disc jockeys and others in the United States.[21][22]

Throughout this period, McCartney felt isolated from his bandmates in his opposition to their choice of business manager, Allen Klein, and distraught at Lennon's private announcement that he was leaving the group.[23][24] With the birth of his daughter Mary in late August, McCartney had withdrawn to focus on his family life.[25] On 22 October, the day that the "Paul is dead" rumour became an international news story,[26] McCartney, his wife Linda and their two daughters travelled to Scotland to spend time at his farm near Campbeltown.[27]

Growth edit

On 12 October 1969, a caller to Detroit radio station WKNR-FM told disc jockey Russ Gibb about the rumour and its clues.[17] Gibb and other callers then discussed the rumour on air for the next hour,[28] during which Gibb offered further potential clues.[29] Two days later, The Michigan Daily published a satirical review of Abbey Road by University of Michigan student Fred LaBour, who had listened to the exchange on Gibb's show,[17] under the headline "McCartney Dead; New Evidence Brought to Light".[30][31] It identified various clues to McCartney's alleged death on Beatles album covers, particularly on the Abbey Road sleeve. LaBour later said he had invented many of the clues and was astonished when the story was picked up by newspapers across the United States.[32] Noden writes that "Very soon, every college campus, every radio station, had a resident expert."[17] WKNR fuelled the rumour further with its two-hour programme The Beatle Plot, which first aired on 19 October. This show has been called "infamous", a "fraud" and a "mockumentary". It brought enormous worldwide publicity to Gibb and WKNR.[33]

The story was soon taken up by more mainstream radio stations in the New York area, WMCA and WABC.[34] In the early hours of 21 October, WABC disc jockey Roby Yonge discussed the rumour on-air for over an hour before being pulled off the air for breaking format. At that time of night, WABC's signal covered a wide listening area and could be heard in 38 US states and, at times, in other countries.[35] Although the Beatles' press office denied the rumour, McCartney's atypical withdrawal from public life contributed to its escalation.[36] Vin Scelsa, a student broadcaster in 1969, later said that the escalation was indicative of the countercultural influence of Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, since: "Every song from them – starting about late 1966 – became a personal message, worthy of endless scrutiny ... they were guidelines on how to live your life."[17]

WMCA dispatched Alex Bennett to the Beatles' Apple Corps headquarters in London on 23 October,[37] to further his extended coverage of the "Paul is dead" theory.[34][38] There, Ringo Starr told Bennett: "If people are gonna believe it, they're gonna believe it. I can only say it's not true."[37] In a radio interview with John Small of WKNR, Lennon said that the rumour was "insane" but good publicity for Abbey Road.[39][nb 2] On Halloween night 1969, WKBW in Buffalo, New York, broadcast a program titled Paul McCartney Is Alive and Well – Maybe, which analysed Beatles lyrics and other clues. The WKBW DJs concluded that the "Paul is dead" hoax was fabricated by Lennon.[41]

Before the end of October 1969, several record releases had exploited the phenomenon of McCartney's alleged demise.[34] These included "The Ballad of Paul" by the Mystery Tour;[42] "Brother Paul" by Billy Shears and the All Americans; "So Long Paul" by Werbley Finster, a pseudonym for José Feliciano;[43] and Zacharias and His Tree People's "We're All Paul Bearers (Parts One and Two)".[44] Another song was Terry Knight's "Saint Paul",[34] which had been a minor hit in June that year and was subsequently adopted by radio stations as a tribute to "the late Paul McCartney".[45][nb 3] A cover version of "Saint Paul" by New Zealand singer Shane reached the top of that nation's singles charts.[47] According to a report in Billboard magazine in early November, Shelby Singleton Productions planned to issue a documentary LP of radio segments discussing the phenomenon.[48] In Canada, Polydor Records exploited the rumour in their artwork for Very Together, a repackaging of the Beatles' pre-fame recordings with Tony Sheridan, using a cover that showed four candles, one of which had just been snuffed out.[49]

Premise edit

 
The "funeral procession" on the cover of Abbey Road

Many versions of this theory have arisen since its initial exposure to the public, but most proponents of the theory maintain that, on 9 November 1966 (alternatively, the 11th of September of the same year),[50][better source needed] McCartney had an argument with his bandmates during a Sgt. Pepper recording session and drove off angrily in his car, distracted by a meter maid ("Lovely Rita"), not noticing that the traffic lights had changed ("A Day In The Life"), crashed, and was decapitated ("Don't Pass Me By").[34][51] A funeral service for Paul was held, with eulogies by George ("Blue Jay Way") and Ringo ("Don't Pass Me By"), followed by a procession (Abbey Road's front cover), with Lennon as the priest officiating his funeral and burying him (the alleged "I Buried Paul" statement in "Strawberry Fields Forever"). To spare the public from grief, or simply as a joke, the surviving Beatles replaced him with the winner of a McCartney look-alike contest.[34] This scenario was facilitated by the Beatles' recent retirement from live performance and by their choosing to present themselves with a new image for their next album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (which began recording later that month).[52]

In LaBour's telling, the stand-in was an "orphan from Edinburgh named William Campbell" whom the Beatles then trained to impersonate McCartney.[17] Others contended that the man's name was Bill Shepherd,[53] later abbreviated to Billy Shears,[54] and the replacement was instigated by Britain's MI5 out of concern for the severe distress McCartney's death would cause the Beatles' audience.[55] In this latter telling, the surviving Beatles were said to be wracked with guilt over their actions, and therefore left messages in their music and album artwork to communicate the truth to their fans.[55][56]

A DJ put all those signs together: Paul with no shoes [on the cover of Abbey Road] ... and the Volkswagen Beetle. Then there was Magical Mystery Tour, where we three had red roses and he had a black one. It was just madness ... There was no way we could prove he was alive.[40]

—Ringo Starr

Dozens of supposed clues to McCartney's death have been identified by fans and followers of the legend. These include messages perceived when listening to songs being played backwards and symbolic interpretations of both lyrics and album cover imagery.[57][58] Two frequently cited examples are the suggestions that the words "I buried Paul" are spoken by Lennon in the final section of the song "Strawberry Fields Forever", which the Beatles recorded in November and December 1966 (Lennon later said that the words were actually "Cranberry sauce"), and that the words "number nine, number nine" in "Revolution 9" (from the "White Album") became "turn me on, dead man, turn me on, dead man" when played backwards. A similar reversal at the end of "I'm So Tired" (another "White Album" track) yielded "Paul is dead man, miss him, miss him, miss him…".[59][60]

Another example is the interpretation of the Abbey Road album cover as depicting a funeral procession: Lennon, dressed in white, is said to symbolise the heavenly figure; Starr, dressed in black, symbolises the undertaker; George Harrison, in denim, represents the gravedigger; and McCartney, barefoot and out of step with the others, symbolises the corpse.[30] The number plate of the white Volkswagen Beetle in the photo – containing the characters LMW 281F (mistakenly read as "28IF") – was identified as further "evidence".[17][61] "28IF" represented McCartney's age "if" he had still been alive (although McCartney was 27 when the album was recorded and released)[36] while "LMW" stood for "Linda McCartney weeps" or "Linda McCartney, widow" (although McCartney and the then-Linda Eastman had not yet met in 1966, the year of Paul's alleged death).[62][63][nb 4] That the left-handed McCartney held a cigarette in his right hand was also said to support the idea that he was an impostor.[34]

Rebuttal edit

 
The magazine report that rebutted the rumour

On 21 October 1969, the Beatles' press office again issued statements denying the rumour, deeming it "a load of old rubbish"[64] and saying that "the story has been circulating for about two years – we get letters from all sorts of nuts but Paul is still very much with us".[65] On 24 October, BBC Radio reporter Chris Drake was granted an interview with McCartney at his farm.[27] McCartney said that the speculation was understandable, given that he normally did "an interview a week" to ensure he remained in the news.[66] Part of the interview was first broadcast on Radio 4, on 26 October,[67] and subsequently on WMCA in the US.[66] According to author John Winn, McCartney had conceded to the interview "in hopes that people hearing his voice would see the light", but the ploy failed.[66][nb 5]

McCartney was secretly filmed by a CBS News crew as he worked on his farm. As in his and Linda's segment in the Beatles' promotional clip for "Something", which the couple filmed privately around this time, McCartney was unshaven and unusually scruffy-looking in his appearance.[68] His next visitors were a reporter and photographer from Life magazine. Irate at the intrusion, he swore at the pair, threw a bucket of water over them and was captured on film attempting to hit the photographer. Fearing that the photos would damage his image, McCartney then approached the pair and agreed to pose for a photo with his family and answer the reporter's questions, in exchange for the roll of film containing the offending pictures.[69] In Winn's description, the family portrait used for Life's cover shows McCartney no longer "shabbily attired", but "clean-shaven and casually but smartly dressed".[68]

Following the publication of the article and the photo, in the issue dated 7 November,[68] the rumour started to decline.[17] In the interview, McCartney said the rumor was "bloody stupid" and went on to say:

Perhaps the rumour started because I haven't been much in the press lately. I have done enough press for a lifetime, and I don't have anything to say these days. I am happy to be with my family and I will work when I work. I was switched on for ten years and I never switched off. Now I am switching off whenever I can. I would rather be a little less famous these days.[70]

Aftermath edit

In November 1969, Capitol Records sales managers reported a significant increase in sales of Beatles catalogue albums, attributed to the rumour.[71] Rocco Catena, Capitol's vice-president of national merchandising, estimated that "this is going to be the biggest month in history in terms of Beatles sales".[34][71] The rumour benefited the commercial performance of Abbey Road in the US, where it comfortably outsold all of the band's previous albums.[72] Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour, both of which had been off the charts since February, re-entered the Billboard Top LPs chart,[34] peaking at number 101 and number 109, respectively.[73]

A television special dedicated to "Paul is dead" was broadcast on WOR in New York on 30 November.[32] Titled Paul McCartney: The Complete Story, Told for the First and Last Time, it was set in a courtroom and hosted by celebrity lawyer F. Lee Bailey,[43] who cross-examined LaBour,[32] Gibb and other proponents of the theory, and heard opposing views from "witnesses" such as McCartney's friend Peter Asher, brother Mike McCartney and Allen Klein.[34] Bailey left it to the viewer to determine a conclusion.[34] Before the recording, LaBour told Bailey that his article had been intended as a joke, to which Bailey sighed and replied, "Well, we have an hour of television to do; you're going to have to go along with this."[32]

It was a bit weird meeting people shortly after that, because they'd be looking at the back of my ears, looking a bit through me. And it was weird doing the "I really am him" stuff.[40]

—Paul McCartney

McCartney returned to London in December. Bolstered by Linda's support, he began recording his debut solo album at his home in St John's Wood.[74] Titled McCartney, and recorded without his bandmates' knowledge,[75][76] it was "one of the best-kept secrets in rock history" until shortly before its release in April 1970, according to author Nicholas Schaffner, and led to the announcement of the Beatles' break-up.[77] In his 1971 song "How Do You Sleep?", in which he attacked McCartney's character,[78] Lennon described the theorists as "freaks" who “was right when they said you was dead".[79] The rumour was also cited in the hoax surrounding the Canadian band Klaatu,[80] after a January 1977 review of their debut album 3:47 EST sparked rumours that the group were in fact the Beatles.[81] In one telling, this theory contended that the album had been recorded in late 1966 but then mislaid until 1975, at which point Lennon, Harrison and Starr elected to issue it in McCartney's memory.[80]

LaBour later became notable as the bassist for the western swing group Riders in the Sky, which he co-founded in 1977. In 2008, he joked that his success as a musician had extended his fifteen minutes of fame for his part in the rumour to "seventeen minutes".[82] In 2015, he told The Detroit News that he is still periodically contacted by conspiracy theorists who have attempted to present him with supposed new developments on the McCartney rumours.[83]

Analysis and legacy edit

Author Peter Doggett writes that, while he thinks the theory behind "Paul is dead" defied logic, its popularity was understandable in a climate where citizens were faced with conspiracy theories insisting that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 was in fact a coup d'état.[84] Schaffner said that, given its origins as an item of gossip and intrigue generated by a select group in the "Beatles cult", "Paul is dead" serves as "a genuine folk tale of the mass communications era".[18] He also described it as "the most monumental hoax since Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast persuaded thousands of panicky New Jerseyites that Martian invaders were in the vicinity".[18]

In his book Revolution in the Head, Ian MacDonald says that the Beatles were partly responsible for the phenomenon due to their incorporation of "random lyrics and effects", particularly in the White Album track "Glass Onion" in which Lennon invited clue-hunting by including references to other Beatles songs.[13] MacDonald groups it with the "psychic epidemics" that were encouraged by the rock audience's use of hallucinogenic drugs and which escalated with Charles Manson's homicidal interpretation of the White Album and Mark David Chapman's religion-motivated murder of Lennon in 1980.[85]

During the 1970s, the phenomenon became a subject of academic study in America in the fields of sociology, psychology and communications.[86] Among sociological studies, Barbara Suczek recognised it as, in Schaffner's description, a contemporary reading of the "archetypal myth wherein the beautiful youth dies and is resurrected as a god".[18] Psychologists Ralph Rosnow and Gary Fine attributed its popularity partly to the shared, vicarious experience of searching for clues without consequence for the participants. They also said that for a generation distrustful of the media following the Warren Commission's report, it was able to thrive amid a climate informed by "The credibility gap of Lyndon Johnson's presidency, the widely circulated rumors after the Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy assassinations, as well as attacks on the leading media sources by the yippies and Spiro Agnew".[18]

American social critic Camille Paglia locates the "Paul is dead" phenomenon to the Ancient Greek tradition symbolised by Adonis and Antinous, as represented in the cult of rock music's "pretty, long-haired boys who mesmerize both sexes", and she adds: "It's no coincidence that it was Paul McCartney, the 'cutest' and most girlish of the Beatles, who inspired a false rumor that swept the world in 1969 that he was dead."[87]

"Paul is dead" has continued to inspire analysis into the 21st century, with published studies by Andru J. Reeve, Nick Kollerstrom and Brian Moriarty, among others, and exploitative works in the mediums of mockumentary and documentary film.[55] Writing in 2016, Beatles biographer Steve Turner said, "the theory still has the power to flare back into life."[54] He cited a 2009 Wired Italia magazine article that featured an analysis by two forensic research consultants who compared selected photographs of McCartney taken before and after his alleged death by measuring features of the skull.[54] According to the scientists' findings, the man shown in the post-November 1966 images was not the same.[54][88][nb 6]

Similar rumours concerning other celebrities have been circulated, including the unsubstantiated allegation that Canadian singer Avril Lavigne died in 2003 and was replaced by a person named Melissa Vandella.[89][90] In an article on the latter phenomenon, The Guardian described the 1969 McCartney hoax as "Possibly the best known example" of a celebrity being the focus of "a (completely unverified) cloning conspiracy theory".[89] In 2009, Time magazine included "Paul is dead" in its feature on ten of "the world's most enduring conspiracy theories".[56]

In popular culture edit

There have been many references to the legend in popular culture, including the following examples.

  • The June 1970 issue of the DC Comics title Batman (#222) had a story titled "Dead ... Till Proven Alive" in which it was rumoured that Saul from the band the Oliver Twists was deceased and replaced with a double. On the cover of the comic book, Robin is holding an album that mimics the back of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.[91][92]
  • The 1972 National Lampoon comedy album Radio Dinner has several announced "clues" placed throughout, including backmasked segments and notes in the album's gatefold, all parodying the hoax.[93][94]
  • In the Rutles' 1978 television film satirising the Beatles' history, All You Need Is Cash, the identity of the alleged dead band member was transferred to the George Harrison character, Stig O'Hara, who was supposed to have died "in a flash fire at a water bed shop" and been replaced by a Madame Tussauds wax model. Building on Harrison's reputation as the "Quiet Beatle", the "Stig is dead" theory was supported by his lack of dialogue in the film[95] and clues such as his trouser-less appearance on the cover of the Rutles' Shabby Road album.[96]
  • On the February 13th, 1993 episode of Saturday Night Live, Paul McCartney was interviewed on The Chris Farley Show, a recurring sketch where Chris Farley nervously asked questions of his guests, usually on if they remembered parts of their career. Regarding the "Paul Is Dead" rumours, Farley outlined the urban legend, then asked "That was, um, a hoax, right?" Paul responded by saying "Yeah. I wasn't really dead."
  • McCartney titled his 1993 live album Paul Is Live in reference to the hoax.[97] He also presented it in a sleeve that parodied the Abbey Road cover and its clues.[98]
  • The 1995 video for "Free as a Bird" – a song recorded by Lennon in the late 1970s and completed by McCartney, Harrison and Starr for the band's Anthology project – references "Paul is dead", among other myths relating to the Beatles' impact during the 1960s. According to author Gary Burns, the video indulges in the same "semiological excess" as the 1969 hoax and thereby "spoof[s]" obsessive clue-hunting.[99]
  • In the 1995 episode of The Simpsons, "Lisa the Vegetarian", Paul McCartney guest stars and mentions that if his song "Maybe I'm Amazed" is played backwards, it contains a recipe for lentil soup. The song plays over the end credits, and, if played backwards, it not only contains the aforementioned recipe, but also Paul himself saying "oh, and by the way, I'm alive".[100]
  • In 2010, American author Alan Goldsher published the mashup novel Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion, which depicts all of the Beatles as zombies except Ringo Starr.[101]
  • A 2010 mockumentary, Paul McCartney Really Is Dead: The Last Testament of George Harrison, purports to tell the story of George Harrison, believing himself to be on his deathbed after being stabbed on Dec. 30, 1999,[102] revealing that Paul had died in a car crash with a girl named Rita and that British intelligence agencies had orchestrated a coverup through which Paul was replaced by a lookalike. The film is narrated by a voice actor purporting to be George Harrison, describing over archival footage and reenactment the clues left behind in songs and album art that Paul was dead.[103][nb 7]
  • In 2015, the indie rock band EL VY released a song called "Paul Is Alive", which contains lyrics referencing Beatlemania[108] and partly addresses the 1969 rumour.[109]
  • A 2018 comedy short film, Paul Is Dead, depicts a version of events where McCartney dies during a musical retreat and is replaced by a look-alike named Billy Shears.[110]
  • A graphic novel co-created by Paolo Baron and Ernesto Carbonetti called Paul is Dead was published in English by Image Comics in 2020.

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ Writing in 1977, author Nicholas Schaffner said the theory has been traced to a student thesis at Ohio Wesleyan University and to a prank article published in the student newspaper for Northern Illinois University.[18] The university eventually retracted the article in 2023 due to the false and plagiarized nature of its content, writing an apology to McCartney for their role in propagating the hoax.[19]
  2. ^ Estranged from McCartney, Lennon said: "Paul McCartney couldn't die without the world knowing it. The same as he couldn't get married ... [or] go on holiday without the world knowing it. It's just insanity – but it's a great plug for Abbey Road."[40]
  3. ^ A Capitol Records recording artist, Knight had been present during the White Album session when Starr temporarily left the band,[45] in August 1968.[46] In the song, the singer conveys his fears that the Beatles were about to disband.[45]
  4. ^ The fact that he would have been 27 in late 1969, rather than 28, was dismissed with the rationale that, in the Hindu tradition, infants were one year old at birth.[17]
  5. ^ In the 2000 book The Beatles Anthology, McCartney says that his reaction to the rumour's growth had been: "Well, we'd better play it for all it's worth. It's publicity, isn't it?"[40]
  6. ^ In his article on the legacy of "Paul is dead", for Dawn in January 2017, Anis Shivani wrote that the narrative has grown, in the manner of JFK's assassination, to incorporate related conspiracy theories. In this expanded narrative, Lennon's murder in 1980, Harrison's near-fatal stabbing in 1999, and the death of Beatles associate Mal Evans in 1976 are all credited to forces protecting the "truth" behind "Paul is dead".[55]
  7. ^ The film Paul McCartney Really Is Dead: The Last Testament of George Harrison was directed by Joel Gilbert, who only admitted that this film and another entitled Elvis Found Alive were works of fiction after they were released; Gilbert is a known conspiracy theorist who has produced other films furthering baseless claims related to the parentage of Barack Obama and another claiming that Michelle Obama's life story is a falsehood, and another that a single witness may have lied in the leadup-to and during the trial of George Zimmerman in the Killing of Trayvon Martin.[104][105] Gilbert has also spread false claims about the shooting of Ralph Yarl in 2023,[106] that Bill Clinton sired a son with a prostitute, that the 2016 death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was murder, that the father of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz was somehow involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.[107]

References edit

  1. ^ "My Broken Tooth - by Paul McCartney". The Paul McCartney project. Retrieved 24 March 2024.
  2. ^ Barrow, Tony (2005). John, Paul, George, Ringo & me : the real Beatles story. Internet Archive. London : Andre Deutsch. ISBN 978-0-233-00140-1.
  3. ^ "Brian Epstein denies The Beatles are splitting". The Paul McCartney project. Retrieved 8 March 2024.
  4. ^ Geller, Debbie (17 April 2024). In my life : The Brian Epstein story. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-26564-9.
  5. ^ a b Yoakum, Jim (May–June 2000). "The Man Who Killed Paul McCartney". Gadfly Online. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
  6. ^ Moriarty, Brian (1999). . ludix.com. Archived from the original on 8 March 2023. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
  7. ^ "All You Need Is Ears | PDF | Sound Recording And Reproduction | Johann Sebastian Bach". Scribd. Retrieved 24 March 2024.
  8. ^ "RAVE Magazine, June 1966" (PDF).
  9. ^ Beatles Los Angeles Press Conference 1966, retrieved 24 March 2024
  10. ^ George Harrison & Ravi Shankar - The Dick Cavett Show (1971), retrieved 24 March 2024
  11. ^ Davies, Hunter (2007). The Beatles, football and me. Internet Archive. London : Headline Review. ISBN 978-0-7553-1403-4.
  12. ^ 11 RobyYonge, retrieved 24 March 2024
  13. ^ a b MacDonald 1998, pp. 16, 273–75.
  14. ^ Schaffner 1978, p. 115.
  15. ^ The Beatles 2000, p. 306.
  16. ^ Schmidt, Bart (18 September 2009). "It Was 40 Years Ago, Yesterday ..." Drake University: Cowles Library blog. Retrieved 19 September 2010.
  17. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Noden, Merrell (2003). "Dead Man Walking". Mojo Special Limited Edition: 1000 Days of Revolution (The Beatles' Final Years – Jan 1, 1968 to Sept 27, 1970). London: Emap. p. 114.
  18. ^ a b c d e Schaffner 1978, p. 128.
  19. ^ CBS Chicago Team (26 September 2023). "LOCAL NEWS Illinois student newspaper retracts 1969 story on false rumors of Paul McCartney's death". CBS News Chicago. Paramount Global. CBS. Retrieved 27 September 2023.
  20. ^ Miles 2001, pp. 353, 354.
  21. ^ "Paul McCartney Asserts He's 'Alive and Well'". Courier-Post. Camden, New Jersey. 10 October 1969.
  22. ^ "Beatle Paul McCartney Is Really Alive". Lodi News-Sentinel. UPI. 11 October 1969. p. 5.
  23. ^ Sounes 2010, pp. 261, 263–64.
  24. ^ Rodriguez 2010, pp. 1, 396, 398.
  25. ^ Miles 1997, p. 559.
  26. ^ Winn 2009, p. 332.
  27. ^ a b Miles 2001, p. 358.
  28. ^ Morris, Julie (23 October 1969). "The Beatle Paul Mystery – As Big as Rock Music Itself". Detroit Free Press. p. 6.
  29. ^ Winn 2009, p. 241.
  30. ^ a b LaBour, Fred (14 October 1969). "McCartney Dead; New Evidence Brought to Light". The Michigan Daily. p. 2.
  31. ^ Gould 2007, pp. 593–94.
  32. ^ a b c d Glenn, Allen (11 November 2009). . Michigan Today. Archived from the original on 28 December 2010.
  33. ^ Coley, Sam (2021). Music Documentaries for Radio. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781000463989.
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Bibliography edit

  • The Beatles (2000). The Beatles Anthology. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books. ISBN 0-8118-2684-8.
  • Burns, Gary (2000). "Refab Four: Beatles for Sale in the Age of Music Video". In Inglis, Ian (ed.). The Beatles, Popular Music and Society: A Thousand Voices. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-22236-9.
  • Castleman, Harry; Podrazik, Walter J. (1976). All Together Now: The First Complete Beatles Discography 1961–1975. New York, NY: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-25680-8.
  • Clayson, Alan (2003). Paul McCartney. London: Sanctuary. ISBN 1-86074-482-6.
  • Doggett, Peter (2011). You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup. New York, NY: It Books. ISBN 978-0-06-177418-8.
  • Draper, Jason (2008). A Brief History of Album Covers. London: Flame Tree Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84786-211-2.
  • Gould, Jonathan (2007). Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain and America. London: Piatkus. ISBN 978-0-7499-2988-6.
  • Hoffmann, Frank W.; Bailey, William G. (1990). Arts & Entertainment Fads. Binghamton, NY: The Haworth Press. ISBN 0-86656-881-6.
  • MacDonald, Ian (1998). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties. London: Pimlico. ISBN 978-0-7126-6697-8.
  • McKinney, Devin (2003). Magic Circles: The Beatles in Dream and History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-01202-X.
  • Miles, Barry (1997). Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now. New York, NY: Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 978-0-8050-5248-0.
  • Miles, Barry (2001). The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years. London: Omnibus Press. ISBN 0-7119-8308-9.
  • Patterson, R. Gary (1998). The Walrus Was Paul: The Great Beatle Death Clues. New York, NY: Fireside. ISBN 0-684-85062-1.
  • Rodriguez, Robert (2010). Fab Four FAQ 2.0: The Beatles' Solo Years, 1970–1980. Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books. ISBN 978-1-4165-9093-4.
  • Schaffner, Nicholas (1978). The Beatles Forever. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-055087-5.
  • Sounes, Howard (2010). Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-723705-0.
  • Turner, Steve (2016). Beatles '66: The Revolutionary Year. New York, NY: Ecco. ISBN 978-0-06-247558-9.
  • Winn, John C. (2009). That Magic Feeling: The Beatles' Recorded Legacy, Volume Two, 1966–1970. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press. ISBN 978-0-307-45239-9.

External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Paul is dead.
  • National Post's guide to "Paul is dead" clues, May 2017
  • "The 70 Greatest Conspiracy Theories in Pop-Culture History", Vulture, October 2016

April 29, 2024
paul, dead, paul, dead, redirects, here, graphic, novel, paul, dead, comics, miracles, episode, paul, dead, miracles, episode, william, shears, redirects, here, industrialist, james, shears, sons, urban, legend, conspiracy, theory, alleging, that, english, mus. Paul Is Dead redirects here For the graphic novel see Paul Is Dead comics For the Miracles episode see Paul is Dead Miracles episode William Shears redirects here For the industrialist see James Shears and Sons Paul is dead is an urban legend and conspiracy theory alleging that English pop musician Paul McCartney of the Beatles died in 1966 and was secretly replaced by a look alike The rumour began circulating in 1966 gaining broad popularity in September 1969 following reports on American college campuses McCartney in 1966 The urban legend alleges that McCartney died in November 1966 and was replaced by a stand in According to the theory McCartney died in a car crash and to spare the public from grief the surviving Beatles aided by Britain s MI5 replaced him with a McCartney look alike subsequently communicating this secret through subtle details of their albums Proponents perceived clues among elements of Beatles songs and cover artwork clue hunting proved infectious and by October 1969 had become an international phenomenon Rumours declined after Life published an interview with McCartney in November 1969 The phenomenon was the subject of analysis in the fields of sociology psychology and communications during the 1970s McCartney parodied the hoax with the title and cover art of his 1993 live album Paul Is Live The legend was among ten of the world s most enduring conspiracy theories according to Time in 2009 Contents 1 Beginnings 2 Growth 3 Premise 4 Rebuttal 5 Aftermath 6 Analysis and legacy 7 In popular culture 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References 11 Bibliography 12 External linksBeginnings editAlthough rumours that Paul McCartney was ill existed since early 1966 1 reports about McCartney s death only started circulating in September of that year According to the Beatles press officer Tony Barrow who wrote about it in his book John Paul George Ringo and Me he began receiving a number of calls from Fleet Street newspapers asking whether McCartney had been killed in a car crash to which he replied that he had recently spoken with McCartney 2 For the rest of 1966 the rumour was eclipsed by similar reports that Paul McCartney was working on a solo project and that the Beatles were splitting up 3 which were backed by their disappearance from the public eye and the postponement of their scheduled tours in late 1966 4 In early 1967 the rumour resurfaced in London this time claiming that Paul McCartney had been killed in a traffic accident while driving along the M1 motorway on the 7th of January of that year 5 The rumour was acknowledged and rebutted in the February issue of The Beatles Book 5 McCartney then alluded to the rumour during a press conference held around the release of Sgt Pepper s Lonely Hearts Club Band in May 6 better source needed The Beatles producer George Martin claimed that during the Beatles visit to Denver Colorado a number of people pretending to be Beatles were employed by the promoters of the band s concerts in order to distract the crowds of fans from the real Beatles while they were exiting a hotel 7 According to journalist Maureen Cleeve who wrote about it in the June 1966 issue of RAVE Magazine 8 such a tactic was used when the Beatles first played in Baltimore in 1964 As a result stories began to circulate that the Beatles had sent four lookalikes to perform on stage on one of their American tours 9 10 Both Paul McCartney and George Harrison later refuted these claims Despite the Beatles dismissing such accusations they soon began accompanying the notion that Paul had died By late 1967 it was further stated that the Beatles covered up Paul s death by employing a Paul McCartney impersonator to stand in for him 11 For example journalist Jay Marks was attending Paul s engagement party in 1967 when a friend of the band told him that Paul McCartney had been replaced 12 By the mid 1960s the Beatles were known for sometimes including backmasking in their music 13 Analysing their lyrics for hidden meaning had also become a popular trend in the US 14 In November 1968 their self titled double LP also known as the White Album was released containing the track Glass Onion John Lennon wrote the song in response to gobbledygook said about Sgt Pepper In a later interview he said that he was purposely confusing listeners with lines such as the Walrus was Paul a reference to his song I Am the Walrus from the 1967 EP and album Magical Mystery Tour 15 nbsp Revolution 9 section source source track track The allegedly backmasked section of Revolution 9 Revolution 9 section reversed source source track The same section reversed which some believe sounds like turn me on dead man Problems playing these files See media help On 17 September 1969 Tim Harper an editor of the Drake Times Delphic the student newspaper of Drake University in Des Moines Iowa published an article titled Is Beatle Paul McCartney Dead The article addressed a rumour being circulated on campus that cited clues from recent Beatles albums including a message interpreted as Turn me on dead man heard when the White Album track Revolution 9 is played backwards Also referenced was the back cover of Sgt Pepper where every Beatle except McCartney is photographed facing the viewer and the front cover of Magical Mystery Tour which depicts one unidentified band member in a differently coloured suit from the other three 16 According to music journalist Merrell Noden Harper s Drake Times Delphic was the first to publish an article on the Paul is dead theory 17 nb 1 Harper later said that it had become the subject of discussion among students at the start of the new academic year and he added A lot of us because of Vietnam and the so called Establishment were ready willing and able to believe just about any sort of conspiracy 17 In late September 1969 the Beatles released the album Abbey Road as they were in the process of disbanding 20 On 10 October the Beatles press officer Derek Taylor responded to the rumour stating Recently we ve been getting a flood of inquiries asking about reports that Paul is dead We ve been getting questions like that for years of course but in the past few weeks we ve been getting them at the office and home night and day I m even getting telephone calls from disc jockeys and others in the United States 21 22 Throughout this period McCartney felt isolated from his bandmates in his opposition to their choice of business manager Allen Klein and distraught at Lennon s private announcement that he was leaving the group 23 24 With the birth of his daughter Mary in late August McCartney had withdrawn to focus on his family life 25 On 22 October the day that the Paul is dead rumour became an international news story 26 McCartney his wife Linda and their two daughters travelled to Scotland to spend time at his farm near Campbeltown 27 Growth editOn 12 October 1969 a caller to Detroit radio station WKNR FM told disc jockey Russ Gibb about the rumour and its clues 17 Gibb and other callers then discussed the rumour on air for the next hour 28 during which Gibb offered further potential clues 29 Two days later The Michigan Daily published a satirical review of Abbey Road by University of Michigan student Fred LaBour who had listened to the exchange on Gibb s show 17 under the headline McCartney Dead New Evidence Brought to Light 30 31 It identified various clues to McCartney s alleged death on Beatles album covers particularly on the Abbey Road sleeve LaBour later said he had invented many of the clues and was astonished when the story was picked up by newspapers across the United States 32 Noden writes that Very soon every college campus every radio station had a resident expert 17 WKNR fuelled the rumour further with its two hour programme The Beatle Plot which first aired on 19 October This show has been called infamous a fraud and a mockumentary It brought enormous worldwide publicity to Gibb and WKNR 33 The story was soon taken up by more mainstream radio stations in the New York area WMCA and WABC 34 In the early hours of 21 October WABC disc jockey Roby Yonge discussed the rumour on air for over an hour before being pulled off the air for breaking format At that time of night WABC s signal covered a wide listening area and could be heard in 38 US states and at times in other countries 35 Although the Beatles press office denied the rumour McCartney s atypical withdrawal from public life contributed to its escalation 36 Vin Scelsa a student broadcaster in 1969 later said that the escalation was indicative of the countercultural influence of Bob Dylan the Beatles and the Rolling Stones since Every song from them starting about late 1966 became a personal message worthy of endless scrutiny they were guidelines on how to live your life 17 WMCA dispatched Alex Bennett to the Beatles Apple Corps headquarters in London on 23 October 37 to further his extended coverage of the Paul is dead theory 34 38 There Ringo Starr told Bennett If people are gonna believe it they re gonna believe it I can only say it s not true 37 In a radio interview with John Small of WKNR Lennon said that the rumour was insane but good publicity for Abbey Road 39 nb 2 On Halloween night 1969 WKBW in Buffalo New York broadcast a program titled Paul McCartney Is Alive and Well Maybe which analysed Beatles lyrics and other clues The WKBW DJs concluded that the Paul is dead hoax was fabricated by Lennon 41 Before the end of October 1969 several record releases had exploited the phenomenon of McCartney s alleged demise 34 These included The Ballad of Paul by the Mystery Tour 42 Brother Paul by Billy Shears and the All Americans So Long Paul by Werbley Finster a pseudonym for Jose Feliciano 43 and Zacharias and His Tree People s We re All Paul Bearers Parts One and Two 44 Another song was Terry Knight s Saint Paul 34 which had been a minor hit in June that year and was subsequently adopted by radio stations as a tribute to the late Paul McCartney 45 nb 3 A cover version of Saint Paul by New Zealand singer Shane reached the top of that nation s singles charts 47 According to a report in Billboard magazine in early November Shelby Singleton Productions planned to issue a documentary LP of radio segments discussing the phenomenon 48 In Canada Polydor Records exploited the rumour in their artwork for Very Together a repackaging of the Beatles pre fame recordings with Tony Sheridan using a cover that showed four candles one of which had just been snuffed out 49 Premise edit nbsp The funeral procession on the cover of Abbey Road Many versions of this theory have arisen since its initial exposure to the public but most proponents of the theory maintain that on 9 November 1966 alternatively the 11th of September of the same year 50 better source needed McCartney had an argument with his bandmates during a Sgt Pepper recording session and drove off angrily in his car distracted by a meter maid Lovely Rita not noticing that the traffic lights had changed A Day In The Life crashed and was decapitated Don t Pass Me By 34 51 A funeral service for Paul was held with eulogies by George Blue Jay Way and Ringo Don t Pass Me By followed by a procession Abbey Road s front cover with Lennon as the priest officiating his funeral and burying him the alleged I Buried Paul statement in Strawberry Fields Forever To spare the public from grief or simply as a joke the surviving Beatles replaced him with the winner of a McCartney look alike contest 34 This scenario was facilitated by the Beatles recent retirement from live performance and by their choosing to present themselves with a new image for their next album Sgt Pepper s Lonely Hearts Club Band which began recording later that month 52 In LaBour s telling the stand in was an orphan from Edinburgh named William Campbell whom the Beatles then trained to impersonate McCartney 17 Others contended that the man s name was Bill Shepherd 53 later abbreviated to Billy Shears 54 and the replacement was instigated by Britain s MI5 out of concern for the severe distress McCartney s death would cause the Beatles audience 55 In this latter telling the surviving Beatles were said to be wracked with guilt over their actions and therefore left messages in their music and album artwork to communicate the truth to their fans 55 56 A DJ put all those signs together Paul with no shoes on the cover of Abbey Road and the Volkswagen Beetle Then there was Magical Mystery Tour where we three had red roses and he had a black one It was just madness There was no way we could prove he was alive 40 Ringo Starr Dozens of supposed clues to McCartney s death have been identified by fans and followers of the legend These include messages perceived when listening to songs being played backwards and symbolic interpretations of both lyrics and album cover imagery 57 58 Two frequently cited examples are the suggestions that the words I buried Paul are spoken by Lennon in the final section of the song Strawberry Fields Forever which the Beatles recorded in November and December 1966 Lennon later said that the words were actually Cranberry sauce and that the words number nine number nine in Revolution 9 from the White Album became turn me on dead man turn me on dead man when played backwards A similar reversal at the end of I m So Tired another White Album track yielded Paul is dead man miss him miss him miss him 59 60 Another example is the interpretation of the Abbey Road album cover as depicting a funeral procession Lennon dressed in white is said to symbolise the heavenly figure Starr dressed in black symbolises the undertaker George Harrison in denim represents the gravedigger and McCartney barefoot and out of step with the others symbolises the corpse 30 The number plate of the white Volkswagen Beetle in the photo containing the characters LMW 281F mistakenly read as 28IF was identified as further evidence 17 61 28IF represented McCartney s age if he had still been alive although McCartney was 27 when the album was recorded and released 36 while LMW stood for Linda McCartney weeps or Linda McCartney widow although McCartney and the then Linda Eastman had not yet met in 1966 the year of Paul s alleged death 62 63 nb 4 That the left handed McCartney held a cigarette in his right hand was also said to support the idea that he was an impostor 34 Rebuttal edit nbsp The magazine report that rebutted the rumour On 21 October 1969 the Beatles press office again issued statements denying the rumour deeming it a load of old rubbish 64 and saying that the story has been circulating for about two years we get letters from all sorts of nuts but Paul is still very much with us 65 On 24 October BBC Radio reporter Chris Drake was granted an interview with McCartney at his farm 27 McCartney said that the speculation was understandable given that he normally did an interview a week to ensure he remained in the news 66 Part of the interview was first broadcast on Radio 4 on 26 October 67 and subsequently on WMCA in the US 66 According to author John Winn McCartney had conceded to the interview in hopes that people hearing his voice would see the light but the ploy failed 66 nb 5 McCartney was secretly filmed by a CBS News crew as he worked on his farm As in his and Linda s segment in the Beatles promotional clip for Something which the couple filmed privately around this time McCartney was unshaven and unusually scruffy looking in his appearance 68 His next visitors were a reporter and photographer from Life magazine Irate at the intrusion he swore at the pair threw a bucket of water over them and was captured on film attempting to hit the photographer Fearing that the photos would damage his image McCartney then approached the pair and agreed to pose for a photo with his family and answer the reporter s questions in exchange for the roll of film containing the offending pictures 69 In Winn s description the family portrait used for Life s cover shows McCartney no longer shabbily attired but clean shaven and casually but smartly dressed 68 Following the publication of the article and the photo in the issue dated 7 November 68 the rumour started to decline 17 In the interview McCartney said the rumor was bloody stupid and went on to say Perhaps the rumour started because I haven t been much in the press lately I have done enough press for a lifetime and I don t have anything to say these days I am happy to be with my family and I will work when I work I was switched on for ten years and I never switched off Now I am switching off whenever I can I would rather be a little less famous these days 70 Aftermath editIn November 1969 Capitol Records sales managers reported a significant increase in sales of Beatles catalogue albums attributed to the rumour 71 Rocco Catena Capitol s vice president of national merchandising estimated that this is going to be the biggest month in history in terms of Beatles sales 34 71 The rumour benefited the commercial performance of Abbey Road in the US where it comfortably outsold all of the band s previous albums 72 Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour both of which had been off the charts since February re entered the Billboard Top LPs chart 34 peaking at number 101 and number 109 respectively 73 A television special dedicated to Paul is dead was broadcast on WOR in New York on 30 November 32 Titled Paul McCartney The Complete Story Told for the First and Last Time it was set in a courtroom and hosted by celebrity lawyer F Lee Bailey 43 who cross examined LaBour 32 Gibb and other proponents of the theory and heard opposing views from witnesses such as McCartney s friend Peter Asher brother Mike McCartney and Allen Klein 34 Bailey left it to the viewer to determine a conclusion 34 Before the recording LaBour told Bailey that his article had been intended as a joke to which Bailey sighed and replied Well we have an hour of television to do you re going to have to go along with this 32 It was a bit weird meeting people shortly after that because they d be looking at the back of my ears looking a bit through me And it was weird doing the I really am him stuff 40 Paul McCartney McCartney returned to London in December Bolstered by Linda s support he began recording his debut solo album at his home in St John s Wood 74 Titled McCartney and recorded without his bandmates knowledge 75 76 it was one of the best kept secrets in rock history until shortly before its release in April 1970 according to author Nicholas Schaffner and led to the announcement of the Beatles break up 77 In his 1971 song How Do You Sleep in which he attacked McCartney s character 78 Lennon described the theorists as freaks who was right when they said you was dead 79 The rumour was also cited in the hoax surrounding the Canadian band Klaatu 80 after a January 1977 review of their debut album 3 47 EST sparked rumours that the group were in fact the Beatles 81 In one telling this theory contended that the album had been recorded in late 1966 but then mislaid until 1975 at which point Lennon Harrison and Starr elected to issue it in McCartney s memory 80 LaBour later became notable as the bassist for the western swing group Riders in the Sky which he co founded in 1977 In 2008 he joked that his success as a musician had extended his fifteen minutes of fame for his part in the rumour to seventeen minutes 82 In 2015 he told The Detroit News that he is still periodically contacted by conspiracy theorists who have attempted to present him with supposed new developments on the McCartney rumours 83 Analysis and legacy editAuthor Peter Doggett writes that while he thinks the theory behind Paul is dead defied logic its popularity was understandable in a climate where citizens were faced with conspiracy theories insisting that the assassination of President John F Kennedy in 1963 was in fact a coup d etat 84 Schaffner said that given its origins as an item of gossip and intrigue generated by a select group in the Beatles cult Paul is dead serves as a genuine folk tale of the mass communications era 18 He also described it as the most monumental hoax since Orson Welles War of the Worlds broadcast persuaded thousands of panicky New Jerseyites that Martian invaders were in the vicinity 18 In his book Revolution in the Head Ian MacDonald says that the Beatles were partly responsible for the phenomenon due to their incorporation of random lyrics and effects particularly in the White Album track Glass Onion in which Lennon invited clue hunting by including references to other Beatles songs 13 MacDonald groups it with the psychic epidemics that were encouraged by the rock audience s use of hallucinogenic drugs and which escalated with Charles Manson s homicidal interpretation of the White Album and Mark David Chapman s religion motivated murder of Lennon in 1980 85 During the 1970s the phenomenon became a subject of academic study in America in the fields of sociology psychology and communications 86 Among sociological studies Barbara Suczek recognised it as in Schaffner s description a contemporary reading of the archetypal myth wherein the beautiful youth dies and is resurrected as a god 18 Psychologists Ralph Rosnow and Gary Fine attributed its popularity partly to the shared vicarious experience of searching for clues without consequence for the participants They also said that for a generation distrustful of the media following the Warren Commission s report it was able to thrive amid a climate informed by The credibility gap of Lyndon Johnson s presidency the widely circulated rumors after the Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F Kennedy assassinations as well as attacks on the leading media sources by the yippies and Spiro Agnew 18 American social critic Camille Paglia locates the Paul is dead phenomenon to the Ancient Greek tradition symbolised by Adonis and Antinous as represented in the cult of rock music s pretty long haired boys who mesmerize both sexes and she adds It s no coincidence that it was Paul McCartney the cutest and most girlish of the Beatles who inspired a false rumor that swept the world in 1969 that he was dead 87 Paul is dead has continued to inspire analysis into the 21st century with published studies by Andru J Reeve Nick Kollerstrom and Brian Moriarty among others and exploitative works in the mediums of mockumentary and documentary film 55 Writing in 2016 Beatles biographer Steve Turner said the theory still has the power to flare back into life 54 He cited a 2009 Wired Italia magazine article that featured an analysis by two forensic research consultants who compared selected photographs of McCartney taken before and after his alleged death by measuring features of the skull 54 According to the scientists findings the man shown in the post November 1966 images was not the same 54 88 nb 6 Similar rumours concerning other celebrities have been circulated including the unsubstantiated allegation that Canadian singer Avril Lavigne died in 2003 and was replaced by a person named Melissa Vandella 89 90 In an article on the latter phenomenon The Guardian described the 1969 McCartney hoax as Possibly the best known example of a celebrity being the focus of a completely unverified cloning conspiracy theory 89 In 2009 Time magazine included Paul is dead in its feature on ten of the world s most enduring conspiracy theories 56 In popular culture editThere have been many references to the legend in popular culture including the following examples The June 1970 issue of the DC Comics title Batman 222 had a story titled Dead Till Proven Alive in which it was rumoured that Saul from the band the Oliver Twists was deceased and replaced with a double On the cover of the comic book Robin is holding an album that mimics the back of Sgt Pepper s Lonely Hearts Club Band 91 92 The 1972 National Lampoon comedy album Radio Dinner has several announced clues placed throughout including backmasked segments and notes in the album s gatefold all parodying the hoax 93 94 In the Rutles 1978 television film satirising the Beatles history All You Need Is Cash the identity of the alleged dead band member was transferred to the George Harrison character Stig O Hara who was supposed to have died in a flash fire at a water bed shop and been replaced by a Madame Tussauds wax model Building on Harrison s reputation as the Quiet Beatle the Stig is dead theory was supported by his lack of dialogue in the film 95 and clues such as his trouser less appearance on the cover of the Rutles Shabby Road album 96 On the February 13th 1993 episode of Saturday Night Live Paul McCartney was interviewed on The Chris Farley Show a recurring sketch where Chris Farley nervously asked questions of his guests usually on if they remembered parts of their career Regarding the Paul Is Dead rumours Farley outlined the urban legend then asked That was um a hoax right Paul responded by saying Yeah I wasn t really dead McCartney titled his 1993 live album Paul Is Live in reference to the hoax 97 He also presented it in a sleeve that parodied the Abbey Road cover and its clues 98 The 1995 video for Free as a Bird a song recorded by Lennon in the late 1970s and completed by McCartney Harrison and Starr for the band s Anthology project references Paul is dead among other myths relating to the Beatles impact during the 1960s According to author Gary Burns the video indulges in the same semiological excess as the 1969 hoax and thereby spoof s obsessive clue hunting 99 In the 1995 episode of The Simpsons Lisa the Vegetarian Paul McCartney guest stars and mentions that if his song Maybe I m Amazed is played backwards it contains a recipe for lentil soup The song plays over the end credits and if played backwards it not only contains the aforementioned recipe but also Paul himself saying oh and by the way I m alive 100 In 2010 American author Alan Goldsher published the mashup novel Paul Is Undead The British Zombie Invasion which depicts all of the Beatles as zombies except Ringo Starr 101 A 2010 mockumentary Paul McCartney Really Is Dead The Last Testament of George Harrison purports to tell the story of George Harrison believing himself to be on his deathbed after being stabbed on Dec 30 1999 102 revealing that Paul had died in a car crash with a girl named Rita and that British intelligence agencies had orchestrated a coverup through which Paul was replaced by a lookalike The film is narrated by a voice actor purporting to be George Harrison describing over archival footage and reenactment the clues left behind in songs and album art that Paul was dead 103 nb 7 In 2015 the indie rock band EL VY released a song called Paul Is Alive which contains lyrics referencing Beatlemania 108 and partly addresses the 1969 rumour 109 A 2018 comedy short film Paul Is Dead depicts a version of events where McCartney dies during a musical retreat and is replaced by a look alike named Billy Shears 110 A graphic novel co created by Paolo Baron and Ernesto Carbonetti called Paul is Dead was published in English by Image Comics in 2020 See also editOutline of the Beatles The Beatles timelineNotes edit Writing in 1977 author Nicholas Schaffner said the theory has been traced to a student thesis at Ohio Wesleyan University and to a prank article published in the student newspaper for Northern Illinois University 18 The university eventually retracted the article in 2023 due to the false and plagiarized nature of its content writing an apology to McCartney for their role in propagating the hoax 19 Estranged from McCartney Lennon said Paul McCartney couldn t die without the world knowing it The same as he couldn t get married or go on holiday without the world knowing it It s just insanity but it s a great plug for Abbey Road 40 A Capitol Records recording artist Knight had been present during the White Album session when Starr temporarily left the band 45 in August 1968 46 In the song the singer conveys his fears that the Beatles were about to disband 45 The fact that he would have been 27 in late 1969 rather than 28 was dismissed with the rationale that in the Hindu tradition infants were one year old at birth 17 In the 2000 book The Beatles Anthology McCartney says that his reaction to the rumour s growth had been Well we d better play it for all it s worth It s publicity isn t it 40 In his article on the legacy of Paul is dead for Dawn in January 2017 Anis Shivani wrote that the narrative has grown in the manner of JFK s assassination to incorporate related conspiracy theories In this expanded narrative Lennon s murder in 1980 Harrison s near fatal stabbing in 1999 and the death of Beatles associate Mal Evans in 1976 are all credited to forces protecting the truth behind Paul is dead 55 The film Paul McCartney Really Is Dead The Last Testament of George Harrison was directed by Joel Gilbert who only admitted that this film and another entitled Elvis Found Alive were works of fiction after they were released Gilbert is a known conspiracy theorist who has produced other films furthering baseless claims related to the parentage of Barack Obama and another claiming that Michelle Obama s life story is a falsehood and another that a single witness may have lied in the leadup to and during the trial of George Zimmerman in the Killing of Trayvon Martin 104 105 Gilbert has also spread false claims about the shooting of Ralph Yarl in 2023 106 that Bill Clinton sired a son with a prostitute that the 2016 death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was murder that the father of U S Senator Ted Cruz was somehow involved in the assassination of John F Kennedy 107 References edit My Broken Tooth by Paul McCartney The Paul McCartney project Retrieved 24 March 2024 Barrow Tony 2005 John Paul George Ringo amp me the real Beatles story Internet Archive London Andre Deutsch ISBN 978 0 233 00140 1 Brian Epstein denies The Beatles are splitting The Paul McCartney project Retrieved 8 March 2024 Geller Debbie 17 April 2024 In my life The Brian Epstein story Macmillan ISBN 978 0 312 26564 9 a b Yoakum Jim May June 2000 The Man Who Killed Paul McCartney Gadfly Online Retrieved 27 September 2018 Moriarty Brian 1999 Who Buried Paul ludix com Archived from the original on 8 March 2023 Retrieved 27 September 2018 All You Need Is Ears PDF Sound Recording And Reproduction Johann Sebastian Bach Scribd Retrieved 24 March 2024 RAVE Magazine June 1966 PDF Beatles Los Angeles Press Conference 1966 retrieved 24 March 2024 George Harrison amp Ravi Shankar The Dick Cavett Show 1971 retrieved 24 March 2024 Davies Hunter 2007 The Beatles football and me Internet Archive London Headline Review ISBN 978 0 7553 1403 4 11 RobyYonge retrieved 24 March 2024 a b MacDonald 1998 pp 16 273 75 Schaffner 1978 p 115 The Beatles 2000 p 306 Schmidt Bart 18 September 2009 It Was 40 Years Ago Yesterday Drake University Cowles Library blog Retrieved 19 September 2010 a b c d e f g h i j Noden Merrell 2003 Dead Man Walking Mojo Special Limited Edition 1000 Days of Revolution The Beatles Final Years Jan 1 1968 to Sept 27 1970 London Emap p 114 a b c d e Schaffner 1978 p 128 CBS Chicago Team 26 September 2023 LOCAL NEWS Illinois student newspaper retracts 1969 story on false rumors of Paul McCartney s death CBS News Chicago Paramount Global CBS Retrieved 27 September 2023 Miles 2001 pp 353 354 Paul McCartney Asserts He s Alive and Well Courier Post Camden New Jersey 10 October 1969 Beatle Paul McCartney Is Really Alive Lodi News Sentinel UPI 11 October 1969 p 5 Sounes 2010 pp 261 263 64 Rodriguez 2010 pp 1 396 398 Miles 1997 p 559 Winn 2009 p 332 a b Miles 2001 p 358 Morris Julie 23 October 1969 The Beatle Paul Mystery As Big as Rock Music Itself Detroit Free Press p 6 Winn 2009 p 241 a b LaBour Fred 14 October 1969 McCartney Dead New Evidence Brought to Light The Michigan Daily p 2 Gould 2007 pp 593 94 a b c d Glenn Allen 11 November 2009 Paul Is Dead Said Fred Michigan Today Archived from the original on 28 December 2010 Coley Sam 2021 Music Documentaries for Radio Taylor amp Francis ISBN 9781000463989 a b c d e f g h i j k Schaffner 1978 p 127 Why Did WABC Have Such a Great Signal Musicradio 77 WABC Retrieved 5 August 2007 a b Sounes 2010 p 262 a b Winn 2009 p 333 McKinney 2003 p 291 Winn 2009 pp 332 33 a b c d The Beatles 2000 p 342 Bisci John WKBW Paul McCartney Is Alive And Well Maybe 1969 ReelRadio Retrieved 15 May 2019 Castleman amp Podrazik 1976 p 281 a b McKinney 2003 p 292 Clayson 2003 p 118 a b c Terry Knight Speaks Blogcritics 2 March 2004 Archived from the original on 25 October 2011 MacDonald 1998 p 271 Saint Paul Shane 1969 NZ On Screen Retrieved 10 October 2022 McCartney Death Gets Disk Coverage Dearth Billboard 8 November 1969 p 3 Schaffner 1978 p 130 The Life and Death of Paul McCartney 1942 1966 A Very Goodreads Retrieved 5 April 2023 Hoffmann amp Bailey 1990 pp 165 66 Gould 2007 p 593 Uharriet Thomas E 9 September 2009 The Memoirs of Billy Shears MACCA CORP Peppers Press ISBN 9781959517009 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint date and year link a b c d Turner 2016 p 368 a b c d Shivani Anis 15 January 2017 Paul is Dead The Conspiracy Theory That Won t Go Away Dawn Retrieved 28 September 2018 a b Separating Fact from Fiction Paul Is Dead Time July 2009 Retrieved 28 September 2018 Patterson 1998 pp 193 97 Clayson 2003 pp 117 18 MacDonald 1998 p 273fn Yorke Ritchie 7 February 1970 A Private Talk With John Rolling Stone p 22 The Beatles 2000 pp 341 342 Wawzenek Brian 15 May 2017 THE DAY PAUL MCCARTNEY MET LINDA EASTMAN Ultimate Classic Rock Retrieved 22 November 2022 Draper 2008 p 76 Beatle Spokesman Calls Rumor of McCartney s Death Rubbish The New York Times 22 October 1969 p 8 Phillips B J 22 October 1969 McCartney Death Rumors The Washington Post p B1 a b c Winn 2009 p 334 Miles 2001 p 359 a b c Winn 2009 p 335 Sounes 2010 pp 262 63 Neary John 7 November 1969 The Magical McCartney Mystery Life pp 103 06 a b Burks John 29 November 1969 A Pile of Money on Paul s Death Rolling Stone pp 6 10 Schaffner 1978 pp 126 27 Castleman amp Podrazik 1976 p 361 Sounes 2010 p 264 Doggett 2011 pp 111 121 Rodriguez 2010 p 2 Schaffner 1978 p 135 Rodriguez 2010 p 399 Sounes 2010 p 290 a b Raymond Adam K 23 October 2016 The 70 Greatest Conspiracy Theories in Pop Culture History Vulture Retrieved 16 November 2019 Schaffner 1978 pp 189 90 LaBour Fred 1 August 2008 True Westerners Fred Labour Too Slim of Riders in the Sky True West Magazine Retrieved 28 June 2016 Rubin Neal 10 September 2015 Paul McCartney still isn t dead Neither is the story The Detroit News Retrieved 27 June 2016 Doggett 2011 p 107 MacDonald 1998 pp 273 75 Schaffner 1978 pp 128 29 Paglia Camille Winter 2003 Cults and Cosmic Consciousness Religious Vision in the American 1960s Arion A Journal of Humanities and the Classics 3rd 10 3 61 62 Carlesi Gabriella et al 2009 Chiedi chi era quel Beatle Wired Italia a b Cresci Elena 16 May 2017 Why fans think Avril Lavigne died and was replaced by a clone named Melissa guardian co uk Retrieved 1 October 2018 Estatie Lamia 15 May 2017 The Avril Lavigne conspiracy theory returns bbc co uk Retrieved 1 October 2018 Cronin Brian 27 December 2017 Batman and Robin Broke up the Beatles CBR com Retrieved 7 September 2021 Gatevackes William 10 November 2009 The Four Color Adventures of the Fab Four The Beatles and Comic Books PopMatters Retrieved 7 September 2021 Radio Dinner LP liner notes US Blue Thumb Records 1972 ASIN B001BKLFIE Clue Number Five II Tim 4 6 Clue Number Six R I P P Mc Bangs Lester November 1972 Album Review National Lampoon Radio Dinner Creem Rodriguez 2010 p 308 Idle Eric 1978 The Rutles Story The Rutles LP booklet Warner Bros Records p 16 Clayson 2003 p 228 Doggett 2011 p 339 Burns 2000 pp 180 81 Mirkin David 2005 Commentary for Lisa the Vegetarian in The Simpsons The Complete Seventh Season DVD 20th Century Fox Flood Alison 31 July 2009 The Beatles flesh out zombie mash up craze The Guardian Retrieved 10 January 2016 Lyall Sarah 31 December 1999 George Harrison Stabbed in Chest by an Intruder The New York Times Retrieved 21 April 2023 Joel Gilbert director 2010 Paul McCartney Really Is Dead The Last Testament of George Harrison The Glenn Show Revisiting the Trayvon Martin Case Part 1 with John McWhorter YouTube Archived from the original on 11 December 2021 The Glenn Show Revisiting the Trayvon Martin Case Part 2 with John McWhorter YouTube Archived from the original on 11 December 2021 JoelSGilbert 19 April 2023 Register Tweet via Twitter Milbank Dana 1 November 2016 Latest from the Trump conspiracy factory Bill Clinton s black son The Washington Post Retrieved 21 April 2023 Van Nguyen Dean 7 October 2015 EL VY post lyric video for new single Paul Is Alive NME Retrieved 24 July 2017 WCYT staff 16 November 2015 EL VY Return to the Moon wcyt org Retrieved 30 September 2018 Paul Is Dead A Comedy Short Film Inspired by the Classic Bizarre Rock amp Roll Conspiracy Theory urbanistamagazine uk 30 September 2018 Retrieved 5 February 2019 Bibliography editThe Beatles 2000 The Beatles Anthology San Francisco CA Chronicle Books ISBN 0 8118 2684 8 Burns Gary 2000 Refab Four Beatles for Sale in the Age of Music Video In Inglis Ian ed The Beatles Popular Music and Society A Thousand Voices New York NY St Martin s Press ISBN 978 0 312 22236 9 Castleman Harry Podrazik Walter J 1976 All Together Now The First Complete Beatles Discography 1961 1975 New York NY Ballantine Books ISBN 0 345 25680 8 Clayson Alan 2003 Paul McCartney London Sanctuary ISBN 1 86074 482 6 Doggett Peter 2011 You Never Give Me Your Money The Beatles After the Breakup New York NY It Books ISBN 978 0 06 177418 8 Draper Jason 2008 A Brief History of Album Covers London Flame Tree Publishing ISBN 978 1 84786 211 2 Gould Jonathan 2007 Can t Buy Me Love The Beatles Britain and America London Piatkus ISBN 978 0 7499 2988 6 Hoffmann Frank W Bailey William G 1990 Arts amp Entertainment Fads Binghamton NY The Haworth Press ISBN 0 86656 881 6 MacDonald Ian 1998 Revolution in the Head The Beatles Records and the Sixties London Pimlico ISBN 978 0 7126 6697 8 McKinney Devin 2003 Magic Circles The Beatles in Dream and History Cambridge MA Harvard University Press ISBN 0 674 01202 X Miles Barry 1997 Paul McCartney Many Years from Now New York NY Henry Holt amp Company ISBN 978 0 8050 5248 0 Miles Barry 2001 The Beatles Diary Volume 1 The Beatles Years London Omnibus Press ISBN 0 7119 8308 9 Patterson R Gary 1998 The Walrus Was Paul The Great Beatle Death Clues New York NY Fireside ISBN 0 684 85062 1 Rodriguez Robert 2010 Fab Four FAQ 2 0 The Beatles Solo Years 1970 1980 Milwaukee WI Backbeat Books ISBN 978 1 4165 9093 4 Schaffner Nicholas 1978 The Beatles Forever New York NY McGraw Hill ISBN 0 07 055087 5 Sounes Howard 2010 Fab An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney London HarperCollins ISBN 978 0 00 723705 0 Turner Steve 2016 Beatles 66 The Revolutionary Year New York NY Ecco ISBN 978 0 06 247558 9 Winn John C 2009 That Magic Feeling The Beatles Recorded Legacy Volume Two 1966 1970 New York NY Three Rivers Press ISBN 978 0 307 45239 9 External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Paul is dead National Post s guide to Paul is dead clues May 2017 The 70 Greatest Conspiracy Theories in Pop Culture History Vulture October 2016 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Paul is dead amp oldid 1221325548, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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