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; as of June 2008, McCartney is, in fact, one of two surviving members of the group.
The legend hinges on circumstancial "clues" found among the Beatles' many recordings, allegedly deliberately placed by The Beatles or others. Hundreds of such clues have been cited at various times; they include statements heard when a song is played backwards, symbolism found in obscure lyrics, and ambiguous imagery on album covers. Several of these clues have become better-known among the public than others, such as the fact that McCartney is the only barefooted Beatle and is out of step with the others on the cover of Abbey Road.
It is often unclear whether proponents spread this story as a joke or as a real conspiracy theory. The rumour has been the subject of much sociological examination, since its development, growth, and rebuttal took place very publicly; this is due to the Beatles' enormous popularity and propensity for hidden messages and double meanings in their songs, album titles and artwork.[example needed]
Some have claimed that the hoax was perpetrated by The Beatles themselves, either as a joke or to stimulate record sales. This has been denied numerous times by all four band members.[citation needed]
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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[1] 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."[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.
Fred Labour and John Gray, juniors 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.[3] Terry Knight, a former Detroit DJ and then singer on Capitol Records, had visited the Beatles in London for the August 1968 "White Album" 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.[4]
The rumour gained momentum when Roby Yonge, an overnight disc jockey on the Top 40 station WABC in New York, discussed it "incoherently" on October 21, 1969. Yonge was immediately fired for making the broadcast.[5][6] WABC, a 50,000-watt clear channel station, could be heard clearly in 38 states, and as far as Africa's Atlantic coast.[7] Soon, national and international media picked up on the story and a new "Beatle craze" took off.
The rumour is the subject of several books, including American journalist Andru J. Reeve's 1994 book Turn Me On, Dead Man (ISBN 1-4184-8294-3) and English author Benjamin Fitzpatrick's 1997 book, 'Rumours from John, George, Ringo and Me'.
"Paul is dead" analyst Joel Glazier hypothesized[8] in a 1978 treatise that John Lennon's love of wordplay and studio editing may have been responsible for some clues in later albums, but that after cult-leader Charles Manson claimed The Beatles were hiding references to an upcoming racial war in their song "Helter Skelter", the band members chose not to reveal the joke.
The advent of the Internet gave "Paul is dead" rumours new life. Several websites have sprung up claiming that photographic evidence proves that the McCartney before and after late 1966 could not be the same man.
[edit] The story of the alleged death
The most common tale is that on Wednesday, 9 November 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, which he subsequently crashed.[5]
The story was largely pieced together by fans from the lyrics of several Beatles songs. The most common narrative includes the following pieces of evidence:
- "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 (the eponymous meter maid of "Lovely Rita") after narrowly missing her dressed in blue (she's said to be the blur on the back of Abbey Road) jaywalking ("Blue Jay Way").
- He then crashed into a lamp-post (a car crash sound is heard in "Revolution 9" and "A Day in the Life").
- He was pronounced dead on a "Wednesday morning at 5 o'clock as the day begins" ("She's Leaving Home")
- Nobody found out this because the news was withheld: "Wednesday morning papers didn't come" ("Lady Madonna").
- A funeral procession was held days later, as was supposedly implied on the Abbey Road album cover by the Beatles' clothing. (John Lennon dressed all in white, like a clergyman. Ringo Starr wore a black suit like an undertaker would. Paul McCartney wore a suit without shoes, a common custom for corpses being buried, and walked out of step with the other Beatles. George Harrison's denim outfit resembled that of a gravedigger.)
- Adding fuel to the legend is the ending of "Strawberry Fields Forever." Some believed John said "I buried Paul" in a slow deep voice over the final refrain. He later refuted that, stating that he said "cranberry sauce."
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 the song "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill"), or some combination of the names.
There is no evidence of any 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 a chipped tooth and 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.
[edit] References by The Beatles
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- 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."[9]
- McCartney himself 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" (giving rise to the "28 IF (he'd lived) rumour and LMW meaning Linda McCartney Weeps) 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.
- When 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 like if you play that one song backwards it says 'Paul is dead', and everyone thought that you were dead or something... That was a hoax, right?" McCartney replies, "Yeah, I wasn't really dead."
[edit] Satirical or other references
- The June 1970 issue of the DC Comics title Batman, written by Frank Robbins, 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. A twist ending revealed that an accident had killed every member of the Oliver Twists but Saul. The album that Robin is holding on the cover of the comic book mimics the back cover image on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
- WMCA radio released a pinback promotional button for their station that read "Paul Lives WMCA Swings".
- The Rutles, a parody of The Beatles, included a couple of "Paul is dead" parodies.
- A 1983 Saturday Night Live sketch with Eddie Murphy claiming he was the original fifth Beatle spoofed the backward message. [1].
- The Simpsons television show has included many references to it.[10] When McCartney guest-starred on The Simpsons in "Lisa the Vegetarian", he claimed there was a vegetarian hidden message in "Maybe I'm Amazed". Over the closing credits the song played with a backmasked lentil soup recipe. At the end, he says "Oh, and by the way, I'm alive." Also, on one of their annual Treehouse of Horror Halloween episodes, McCartney's name appears on a grave seen in the opening.
- John Safran's Music Jamboree contains a segment about the conspiracy, followed by a mock George Harrison-is-dead conspiracy, following Harrison's death in 2001.
- 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."
- 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.'"[11]
- In episode 819 of the series Mystery Science Theater 3000, a record player runs backward in a scene of the movie Invasion of the Neptune Men. Crow quips "Paul is a dead man! Miss him! Miss him!".
- 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 gotten wasted in 1966 and passed out for 8 years.
- Hitchhiker: Hey, is Paul McCartney still dead?
- Reporter: No, he's alive again.
- 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.
- 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". The following year, Dick Clark featured a similar story on Rock, Roll and Remember.
- An extended version of the theme to the animated sitcom King Of The Hill features a few seconds of silence at the end, followed by Dale Gribble saying "Hank is a dead man. Miss him, miss him."
- The Batman Adventures Annual 2 from 1995, written by Paul Dini, features Ra's Al Ghul saying an incantation in order to summon the demon Hahhk. Each phrase is a pop culture reference written backwards, among them "Luap Deirub I!" or "I Buried Paul!"
- On December 18, 2007, U.S. Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee joked that his Christmas commercial contained the phrase "Paul is dead!" (referring to Ron Paul) if played backwards.
- Many bands have referenced the rumour on their music:
- 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.
- Game Theory released a song called "Turn Me On, Dead Man" on their album Lolita Nation.
- "December Is for Cynics" by the band The Matches contains the lyrics "But Snopes.com said if you play/'Strawberry Fields' the wrong way/You can hear Lennon's ghost say/'I buried Paul.'"
[edit] Clues
- See main article: Clues that Paul is dead
Numerous clues pointing to the alleged death have been drawn from The Beatles' discography.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ In June, 2003, WKNR located and identified Zarski as the "Tom" who contacted Gibb. Zarski wrote his recollections of the contact, which recollections were published on WKNR's web site.
- ^ reverse speech on records reversespeech.com - Retrieved: 5 August 2007
- ^ McCartney interview - barefoot: Jan 31, 1974 rollingstone.com - Retrieved: 5 August 2007
- ^ Tribute to "the late" Paul McCartney furious.com - Retrieved: 5 August 2007
- ^ a b Yonge pulled off the air tesco.net- Retrieved: 9 August 2007
- ^ Roby Yonge: Disc Jockey mac.com - Retrieved: 5 August 2007
- ^ Musicradio 77 WABC musicradio77.com - Retrieved: 5 August 2007
- ^ Joel Glazier, "Paul Is Dead... Miss Him, Miss Him," Strawberry Fields Forever #51 (1978), pp. 21-22.
- ^ ten wackiest pranks: Mar 27, 2001 rollingstone.com - Retrieved: 5 August 2007
- ^ The Simpsons & Beatles’ references snpp.com - Retrieved: 5 August 2007
- ^ Sleepless in Seattle script imsdb.com - Retrieved: 5 August 2007
[edit] References
- Reeve, Andru J. [1993] (2004). Turn Me On, Dead Man: The Beatles and the "Paul is Dead" Hoax. AuthorHouse Publishing. ISBN 1-4184-8294-3.
- 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?
- The Rotten Apple Series
- A video of the Beatles song Revolution 9 Backmasked. Contains many Paul Is Dead clues, including the audio of the alleged car crash
- Features Song snippets with 'hidden clues'
- Article
- Paul is Dead Hoax Allegedly first website dedicated to the Paul is Dead Hoax.
- 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
- Hints of What Was There
- Who Buried Paul? Lecture includes images and audio clips
- More on the Rumour
- Photographic analysis of Paul before and after his alleged death
- Site refuting the above photographic analysis
- 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 rumour and search for the murderer
- Is Paul Dead? Turn me on dead man! The Original Radio Show
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