Paul is dead
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"Paul is dead" is an urban legend alleging that Paul McCartney of the British rock band the Beatles died in 1966 and was replaced by a look-alike and sound-alike. McCartney is alive and well as of 2007.
Evidence for McCartney's death consists of "clues" found among the Beatles' many recordings, most of which are treated as if they were deliberately placed by the Beatles or others—as if McCartney's death was a puzzle to be deciphered by the public. They include statements allegedly heard when a song is played backwards, symbolism found in obscure lyrics, and ambiguous imagery on album covers.
It is often unclear whether proponents spread this story as a joke or as a real conspiracy theory. The rumour has been the topic of much sociological examination because its development, growth, and rebuttal took place very publicly, due to the Beatles' enormous popularity.
Many fans have claimed that the rumour was a hoax perpetrated by the Beatles, either as a joke, or to stimulate record sales (the initial call placed to Russ Gibb coincided with the release of Abbey Road). This has been denied numerous times by all four band members.
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[edit] Background
The rumours surrounding McCartney began in earnest on October 12, 1969, when someone telephoned Russ Gibb (a radio DJ on WKNR-FM in Dearborn, Michigan serving the Detroit market). Identifying himself as "Tom" (allegedly Tom Zarski of Eastern Michigan University), the caller announced that McCartney was dead. He also asked Gibb to play "Revolution 9" backwards. Gibb thought he heard "Turn me on, dead man."[1]
Fred Labour, a junior at the University of Michigan, published a review of Abbey Road called "McCartney Dead; New Evidence Brought to Light", itemizing various "clues" of McCartney's death on Beatles album covers, in the October 14, 1969 issue of the Michigan Daily. Terry Knight, a former Detroit DJ and then singer on Capitol Records, had visited the Beatles in London for the August 1968 session during which Ringo Starr walked out. Although Terry's song, "Saint Paul", was written about the impending breakup of the Beatles, it was picked up by radio stations in autumn 1969 as a tribute to "the late" Paul McCartney.[2] Gibb also produced (with John Small and Dan Carlisle) The Beatle Plot, an hour-long radio show on the rumour. The show aired on WKNR-FM in late 1969 and has been repeated in the years since on Detroit radio.
The rumour gained momentum when Roby Yonge, an overnight disc jockey on the huge Top 40 station WABC AM in New York, discussed it on October 21, 1969. Yonge was immediately fired for making the broadcast.[3] WABC, a 50,000-watt clear channel station, could be heard clearly in 38 states, and as far as Africa's Atlantic coast.[4] Soon, national and international media picked up on the story and a new "Beatle craze" took off. The rumour eventually became a full-fledged conspiracy theory.
The most thorough account of the history and origin of the rumour has been assembled by American journalist Andru J. Reeve in his 2004 book Turn Me On, Dead Man (ISBN 1-4184-8294-3).
[edit] The story of the alleged death
The most common tale is that on Wednesday, November 9, 1966 at 5 am, McCartney, while working on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, stormed out of a recording session after an argument with the other Beatles and rode off in his Austin-Healey. "He didn't notice that the lights had changed" ("A Day in the Life") because he was busy watching the pretty girl on the pavement ("Lovely Rita") after narrowly missing her dressed in blue (she's the blur on the back of Abbey Road) jaywalking ("Blue Jay Way"). He then crashed into a light pole (a car crash sound is heard in "Revolution 9") and, dying from massive head injuries, his hair and face burned (having "lost (his) hair" according to "Don't Pass Me By", although that is not the context of the song as a whole). He was pronounced dead on a "Wednesday morning at 5 o'clock as the day begins" (the day and time mentioned in "She's Leaving Home"), and nobody found out this because on "Wednesday morning papers didn't come" ("Lady Madonna"). A funeral procession was held days later (as implied in the Abbey Road album cover), with Lennon presiding over the service and gravedigger Harrison burying the body.
There is no evidence of any sort of car crash in which McCartney was involved, although during the first week of January 1967, McCartney's custom-made Mini Cooper was wrecked by a friend on the M1 Motorway outside London. McCartney was involved in a moped crash on December 26, 1965, which resulted in the scar on his lip that can be seen on promotional videos for the "Paperback Writer"/"Rain" single, made shortly after the crash, in May 1966. According to McCartney, his desire to hide the scar on his lip was the impetus to grow a moustache; at about the same time the other three Beatles grew moustaches as well—in time for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
At the time of his 1965 moped crash, McCartney was riding along with Tara Browne, a Guinness heir. Browne was killed a year later in a car crash, and it is this incident that is the source of the "He blew his mind out in a car" line in "A Day In The Life"[citation needed].
According to believers, McCartney was replaced with the winner of a McCartney look-alike contest. The name of this look-alike has been recorded as William Shears Campbell, Billy Shears (the name of the fictitious leader of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band), William Sheppard (based on the inspiration for song "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill"), or some combination of the names.
Some students of the bass guitar have claimed a marked difference between the style and quality of Paul's playing between earlier Beatles albums and later ones. This can be linked to a change in both style (influenced by Brian Wilson's melodic bass lines) and recording technique; prior to 1966 he often recorded his bass live, but around that year he began to overdub the bass parts with direct injection recording techniques, giving him a greater ability to form melodic bass lines. Additionally, according to McCartney in a 1988 Musician Magazine interview, the change in his bass playing coincided with a change in instruments. In 1966, Rickenbacker presented Paul with a left-handed 4001 bass guitar (they had originally tried to sell him one in 1964), which he started using more around the time of Revolver.
[edit] Clues
Numerous clues pointing to the alleged death have been drawn from The Beatles' discography. For many of these clues and explanations of some of them by opponents, see:
- "Paul is Dead" clues from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
- "Paul is Dead" clues from Magical Mystery Tour
- "Paul is Dead" clues from The White Album
- "Paul is Dead" clues from Abbey Road
- "Paul is Dead" clues from Let It Be
- Beatles albums with few "Paul is Dead" clues
[edit] Other references
Longtime "Paul Is Dead" expert Joel Glazer wrote a 1977 treatise which included a theory suggesting John Lennon's love of wordplay and clever studio editing may have been responsible for the more bizarre clues in later albums. However, after Charles Manson claimed the Beatles were hiding references to an upcoming racial war in their albums, the band members may have chosen not to reveal the joke at all.
During the Magical Mystery Tour film, Vivian Stanshall of the Bonzo Dog Band performs a song entitled "Death Cab for Cutie", a satirical song about a fatal car accident. McCartney was known as—and even described himself in an interview as—"the cute one".
Lennon joked about the rumour in the years following its initial growth and, in his solo years, referred to it in his vengeful song to McCartney entitled "How Do You Sleep?" from the 1971 Imagine album, commenting, "Those freaks was right when they said you was dead."
McCartney also parodied the rumour with his 1993 live album and tour, Paul Is Live, the cover of which is a replica of the Abbey Road cover with the "LMW 281F" license plate changed to "51 IS", 51 being McCartney's age at the time of the album's release. Also, he appears with his shoes on and holding, by a leash in his left hand, one of the puppies that his sheepdog Martha gave birth to.
On the DVD extras for the seventh season of The Simpsons, there is a recipe for lentil soup (read by McCartney, referenced in the episode in which he appears), which concludes with the words "Oh, and by the way, I'm alive."
In a 1987 edition of American Top 40, host Casey Kasem revisited the "Paul Is Dead" era as a related story to the Bananarama song "I Heard a Rumour", which was ranked in the Top 10 at that time. Kasem reviewed the better known clues. The following year, Dick Clark featured a similar story on Rock, Roll and Remember. His playing of the song "Strawberry Fields Forever" in which John Lennon allegedly says "I buried Paul" at the conclusion of the song (once it begins playing backward) led to this version being released on certain Beatles compilations.
The Star Trek Customizable Card Game Alternative Universe expansion set's "Paul Rice" card reads "daed si luaP" ("Paul is Dead" backwards) next to the copyright information (which, ironically, the card's depicted character actually is).
[edit] Internet
With the advent of the Internet, the "Paul is Dead" rumours have found new life. Several websites have sprung up claiming that photographic evidence proves that the McCartney before and after late 1966 couldn't be the same man. Some of these new theories postulate that McCartney was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, the Illuminati, or even the other Beatles. It has also spawned ridicule and parody, including a 1994 Usenet piece entitled "Everyone BUT Paul is Dead"[5] part 2 of the myth, Some websites which state the 'Paul is Dead' rumours:
- http://www.paul-is-dead.com/
- http://digilander.libero.it/jamespaul/fc1.html Especially good for Facial Comparisons
- http://www.beatlesagain.com/bpidnew.html Features Song snippets with the Paul is Dead 'hidden clues', (song files are in Real Audio format)
- http://iamthebeatles.com/article1044.html
[edit] Satiric or other references
- The June 1970 issue of the DC Comics title Batman parodied the rumour with a story entitled "Dead...Till Proven Alive" in which it is rumored that "Saul" from the band the Oliver Twists was deceased and replaced with a double. Also, the cover of the album that Robin is holding in the comic's cover (after which the story was named) seems to be a play on the back cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (in which the seemingly deceased member is facing backwards, like Paul was); the album's title on the cover (Dead Till Proven Alive) matches the title of the story. Frank Robbins' story concludes with the interesting twist that Saul was drawing attention to himself, because he was the only one who was still alive.
- The "Dirk is Deaf" theory uses similar 'clues' to prove that Dirk McQuickly, the "Paul" character within the Rutles, was hit by an ice cream truck, resulting in his deafness. The Rutles' movie All You Need Is Cash also parodies the theory directly through the 'Stig is Dead' theory (referring to the "George" character), and subsequent attempts by Barry (the "Ringo" character) to start his own 'Barry is Also Dead' rumour.
- When Paul McCartney performed in a skit on the television show Saturday Night Live in 1993, Chris Farley's character says to McCartney:
-
- Remember when you were in the Beatles and you were supposed to be dead, and there were all these clues and everything and everyone thought you were dead... That was a hoax, right?"
- Paul replies, "Yeah. I wasn't really dead."[6]
- In the introduction to The Simpsons second-season "Treehouse of Horror" episode, the cemetery includes a grave for Paul McCartney along with Elvis and supposed Simpson ancestors.
- When McCartney guest-starred on The Simpsons in "Lisa the Vegetarian", he claimed there was a vegetarian hidden message in "Maybe I'm Amazed". Indeed, over the closing credits the song played and with a backmasked lentil soup recipe. At the end, he says "Oh, and by the way, I'm alive."
- In the episode "D'oh-in In the Wind", a psychedelic version of the regular theme is played during the credits by Yo La Tengo, over which Homer says: "I buried Flanders!". Years earlier, Yo La Tengo had a song called Paul is Dead on their album Electr-O-Pura.
- In John Safran's Music Jamboree, there was a segment about the conspiracy, followed by a mock George Harrison-is-dead conspiracy, after his death in 2001, using clues like the Time article detailing his death. At the end of the segment the text "Did you know: Ringo Starr and John Lennon are the only surviving members of the Beatles" appears on screen.
- The Onion's Our Dumb Century collection includes a fake headline from January 21, 1981 that reads, "Secret Album-Cover Clues Reveal John Lennon Is Dead."
- The band SR-71 released a song called "Paul McCartney" on their debut album Now You See Inside which references that Paul is dead.
- The Union Underground wrote a song called "Turn Me On, Mr. Dead Man", a reference to the "Revolution 9" clue "Turn me on, dead man".
- "You Turn Me On", a song by Beat Happening, contains the lyrics "Turn me on, dead man," repeated multiple times throughout the chorus.
- Five Iron Frenzy's "Get Your Riot Gear", from their Quantity Is Job 1 EP, contains the backmasked message "Brad is dead. Lets kill Brad." The next song on the album, "The Untimely Death of Brad", tells a story about a false rumor that their trumpet player has died.
- The band Game Theory released a song called "Turn Me On, Dead Man" on their album Lolita Nation, also a reference to the "Revolution 9" clue "Turn me on, dead man", that features reversed humming and guitar playing.
- In the film Sleepless in Seattle, Tom Hanks' character, Sam Baldwin, comes home to find his son, Jonah, listening to an album and declaring "Dad, this is incredible. If you play it backward it says 'Paul is dead.'"
- In a comedy bit as an ersatz DJ ca. 1970, George Carlin declared, "Alright, here's John Lennon's latest record that, when you play it backwards at slow speed, it fucks up your needle!"
- A station identification for VH1 Classic depicts a moment, labeled as being from 1969, when a listener to the song "Revolution 9" manually spins the album backward, revealing the "Turn me on, dead man" clue.
- In the song "Readers Digest" from the album Only Visiting This Planet (1972) Jesus rocker Larry Norman sings/recites:
-
- Dear John, who's more popular now? I´ve been listening to some of Paul's new records. Sometimes I think he really is dead.
- "Who's more popular now?" probably refers to Lennon's famous claim that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus.
- On one episode of the series Mystery Science Theatre 3000, a record player runs backward in one scene of the movie. Crow immediately says "Paul is a dead man! Miss him! Miss him!" when this occurs.
- A web essay written by Jemima & Carl-Henrik Hammarlund in 1999 spoofed this theory by claiming that Agnetha Fältskog, the blond singer from ABBA, had been dead since 1979 and was replaced by a lookalike. [7]
- In October 1974, the National Lampoon Radio Hour aired a skit titled "Rip Van Ripple" which told the story of a reporter picking-up a hippie hitchhiker who had apparently gotten wasted in 1966 and passed out for 8 years.
- Hitchhiker: I guess that means my Jimi Hendrix tickets aren't any good.
- Reporter: I'll say. Hendrix is dead.
- Hitchhiker: Jimi's dead?
- Reporter: Yeah, Janis Joplin too.
- Hitchhiker: Ahhh!
- Reporter: Jim Morrison too.
- Hitchhiker: Ahhh!
- Reporter: And Jim Croce.
- Hitchhiker: Ahhh! Jim Croce? Who's Jim Croce? Hey, is Paul McCartney still dead?
- Reporter: No, he's alive again.
[edit] Samples
- "Revolution 9" (file info) — play in browser (beta)
- 32 second sample; the first sixteen seconds played forwards, then backwards.
- Problems listening to the file? See media help.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Patterson, R. Gary (1998). The Walrus Was Paul: The Great Beatle Death Clues. Fireside Publishing. ISBN 0-684-85062-1.
[edit] External links
- Officially Pronounced Dead? Website that offers over 330 clues.
- Jeff Milner's Backmasking Site Forward and reverse audio examples of I'm So Tired and Revolution 9
- Who Buried Paul McCartney? Dutch Documentary by Wouter van Opdorp explores the true story behind the Paul-is-Dead tale
- Hints of What Was There asks, "given all the 'Paul Is Dead' clues, is there another interpretation?"
- Paul Is Dead rumour including audio clippings
- More on the Rumour
- Photographic analysis of Paul before and after his alleged death
- Paul is dead FAQ (rec.music.beatles)
- IMDb entry on "Paul Is Dead", the German film based on a boy's finding out about the rumor and search for the murderer
- Paul Is Dead - 1969 Report - Beatles A 1969 late-night radio broadcast on WABC in New York City, in which the DJ describes "something strange going on about Paul of The Beatles."
- "Paul is Alive" lyrics for and audio clips of the hidden recipe in the Simpsons episode "Lisa The Vegetarian"
