Have you heard that Justin Bieber is a lizard? Or that rap icon Jay-Z is a time-travelling wizard? No? What about the island that Notorious BIG and 2Pac are living on? Or even that legendary Stevie Wonder can see? No, those neither? According to the internet, this is all true. Some people claim to have proof and believe them. These are just modern examples of musical conspiracies that can be found just by doing some basic web research. Although the internet is where a lot of these crazy conspiracies thrive, the rumour mill has been churning ever since music has been played. It wouldn’t be surprising that during the Renaissance period, people didn’t think Beethoven was deaf.
So, with all this talk about musical conspiracies, this edition is going to talk of one of the biggest musical conspiracies. About one of the biggest bands of well, ever. One of the most famous people in the music industry and how it’s been covered up all these years. This week The Beat Marches On to the 9th November 1966, the day Paul McCartney allegedly died.
The Story
During a recording session for the next album Sgt Peppers Lonely Harts Club Band, Paul and Ringo Starr or depending on which source you use, it could be John Lennon, got into an argument and in a fit of rage McCartney stormed out and angrily drove away in his Austin-Healey. It was on a Wednesday at five o’clock.
Apparently while taking his drive, the bass player decided to pick up a hitchhiker named Rita, who according to reports was either a lady of the night or a fan who didn’t realize it was one of the most famous people on the planet until midway through their journey. The female passenger got hysterical which distracted the Beatle and crashed the car. Both were killed instantly and for the importance of the story, McCartney was decapitated, or his head was caved in.
After the accident, the three remaining members were left with a difficult decision. Carry on or split up. The Beatles have just released their game-changing albums Rubber Soul and Revolver and were on the cusp of rewriting history with the upcoming album Sgt Peppers. Deciding what to do they were given a helping hand no less by MI5.
The spy agency got involved by telling the rest of the band that they needed to carry on because it would be a threat to the well-being of their legions of fans. They anticipated that mass suicides would break out due to the tragedy. A pact was made by MI5 and the Beatles to not let the news get out and replace their now former bass player with a look-a-like.
In a recent contest held by a radio station, William Shears Campbell was the winner and sounded so much like their bandmate that the other three decided to hire him as the new Paul. There was one issue, however, he didn’t look like the cute Beatle. MI5 had a plan for that though, they had sophisticated plastic surgeons who could transform the contest winner into a fake Paul or Faul.
It was easy to hide Campbell from the spotlight during his recovery because the band had stopped touring and continued as a studio band. Once it was complete, he looked exactly like the recently deceased McCartney apart from a scar just above the lip. To hide the scar, he grew a moustache, and the switch was complete.
For the next two and a half years nobody had a clue that the switch happened. The Beatles were making music and films, still doing interviews and being the cheeky chappies that we know them to be.
In September 1969 a college newspaper in Iowa became the first to report that Paul had died and been replaced by a look-a-like. The author of the article, Tim Harper, said he wrote it for entertainment purposes and not fact. He also said that he heard it from a friend, who heard it from another friend on the West Coast of America. The big momentum shift happened on a Michigan radio show when a caller told the disc jockey, Russ Gibb, to play a song from the ‘White Album’ called ‘Revolution 9’, and he said to play it backwards, which said ‘Turn me on dead man’
Another student newspaper, this one based in Michigan as well, took the evidence heard on the show and made a parody article about the whole Paul is dead story. The writer, Fred LaBour even claimed to create the character of William Campbell (Shears was added later by other theorists) None of the readers realised the parody of the article and then the whole world was gripped by the rumour.
The story was all over the covers of magazines and radio shows were doing special programs on the phenomenon. DJs were calling anyone who knew the fab four for any truth in the story including ‘God’ himself Eric Clapton who is quoted on a radio show ‘You know I haven’t seen him for a few weeks’ Eventually a press release by the band stated that the story was a myth and has no truth to it.
It wasn’t until a Life magazine interview with the man himself at his farm in Scotland that the rumours started to die down. Two journalists from the magazine trespassed onto his residence and photographed one of the only times that McCartney had been angry, but he was promised that the photographs would get destroyed if he’d agree to an interview. He was the cover story, titled ‘The Case of the Missing Beatle-Paul is very much alive’ which killed the death story completely.
Evidence
There is a lot of overwhelming evidence or depending on which way you look at it, coincidences that are clues that the Beatles were leaving about McCartney’s death. Some as early as the next release the following year of the alleged event.
The first hints of the message the rest of the band were trying to get to their ‘smart’ fans were from the first recorded single that included the fake Paul, the double A-side ‘Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever’ On the latter song if you play the end backwards then you hear ‘I Buried Paul’ or is it ‘Cranberry Sauce’
The cover art of Sgt Peppers Lonely Harts Club Band is plagued with clues all over the place. Front and back. For a start doesn’t the whole cover photo look like the band and their distinguished guests are at a funeral? And have you seen the yellow flowers underneath the Beatles flower arrangement that looks like a left-handed bass? If you place a mirror across the middle of the bass drum horizontally, then ‘1 One 1X He Die’ appears. Depending on who you ask within this conspiracy community it means the three ones are George, John and Ringo and the X indicates Paul’s demise. Or it’s the date of the incident the Eleventh month and the Ninth day, he died.
On the inner sleeve of the album McCartney or Campbell is seen wearing an old Canadian police uniform with an emblem on the left sleeve which had the initials of OPD or Officially Pronounced Dead, it didn’t because of a bad camera angle it looked like OPD it said OPP or Ontario Provincial Police. On the back sleeve, the band is pictured with the original three facing the camera and Paul or William looking in the other direction. George’s thumb is pointing to a significant lyric of ‘Wednesday morning at Five o’clock’ From the song ‘She’s Leaving Home’ The significance? The date the accident occurred was on a Wednesday at five o’clock.
She’s Leaving Home was not the only song on the album that had easter eggs. The song that most fans hold in the highest of regard ‘A Day in the Life has a clue about the tragedy ‘He didn’t know that the lights had changed’ not to mention the line before ‘He blew his mind out in a car’ Not mention the female victim in the crash was Rita and there’s a song on the album called ‘Lovely Rita’
The next album ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ didn’t have as many clues on the cover as Sgt Peppers but there was another one with mirrors. If you put a mirror halfway down the Beatles logo, then it has an apparent phone number to a London mortuary. A video from ‘You’re Mother Should Know’ has the four members performing in tuxedos with a carnation in the top pocket. The ‘founding’ members have red flowers and McCartney’s is black.
The White Album has some references in certain songs too. At the end of ‘I’m So Tired’ you can hear John say ‘Monsieur, Monsieur, How about another one?’ but play it backwards and It says ‘Paul is Dead Man, Miss him, Miss Him, Miss him’ In Ringo’s first composition ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ There’s a line ‘I’m sorry that I doubted you, I was so unfair, You were in a car crash, And you lost your hair’ and of course, there’s the song that started the whole melodrama of ‘Revolution 9’ which as well as the dead man stuff there are references to car crashes with explosions.
The most famous of all the references is the penultimate album ‘Abbey Road’, especially the cover art. The iconic photo of the Fab Four crossing on the most famous zebra crossing in the world is a clue in itself. Look at the four of them, we have John in all white dressed as a priest, Ringo in all black as an undertaker, Paul as the dead person in barefoot wrong-footed to the others and a cigarette in his right hand (He was left-handed) and at the back, George in all denim and was the grave digger. There was a clue in the back too. The Volkswagen Beetle on the left-hand side has the licence plate number LMW 281F. The first three letters stood for Linda McCartney Weeps and the last three digits and number inferred 28 IF indicating that if McCartney was alive at the album’s release, he would be 28. It would make sense if the I wasn’t a 1. And if the theorists weren’t a year out.
What Really Happened
On November 9th 1966 Paul McCartney wasn’t even in the country. He was on holiday with his then-girlfriend, Jane Asher, travelling through France and Kenya. He was involved in a crash in December 1965 but he wasn’t in an Austin Healey, he was on a moped and chipped his tooth and had a cut above his lip, hence the groovy new moustache for the Sgt Peppers photoshoot.
The Mini he owned was written off in a car crash, but he wasn’t involved. He was travelling in Mick Jaggers Mini when an assistant of a friend drove and wrote off the car. The incident was even mentioned in the Beatles’ monthly magazine dismissing that Paul was in the car.
When the rumour was at full steam in 1969 Paul had faded away from the limelight at this time. He just married Linda Eastman and wanted to be a family man, so moved to a farm in Scotland to avoid the distractions of London. It was ill timing of the rumours gathering momentum and Paul choosing to reduce his time in the limelight.
The absurdity of rumours of Paul McCartney’s death and replacement is ridiculous. Firstly, anyone who was involved with the replacement not just in the band, but the medical staff and MI5 personnel would have said something in the past 60 years. Secondly, do you think someone anti-government like John Lennon would go along with the plan? Throughout the early 1970s, Lennon was a thorn in the US government’s side so much so that they tried to revoke his citizenship.
There are so many holes in the theory thought up by people that there is nothing definite. The conspiracists can’t even agree on who Paul argued with when he allegedly stormed out of the studio. The clues aren’t exactly obvious either and, feels very 2+2=5. It feels by the time Abbey Road was released that the band heard about the rumour the band played on it, being the cheeky chappies that they are. With everyone looking for clues the album sales grew even bigger than before.
Who knows, the conspiracy could be right and all the non-believers have eggs on their faces. Maybe all the other stories mentioned at the start are true, maybe the Earth is flat and 9/11 was an inside job etc, etc. We will never know the truth and we just will believe whatever gets us through.
The Beat Marches On is a music blog written by Jimmy Whitehead. Jimmy has been blogging for six years specialising in Sports (especially American Football). If you want to follow Jimmy on Twitter: @Jimmy_W1987
The Beat Marches On has a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/The-Beat-Goes-On-Blog-107727714415791 and a Twitter page: @TheBeatGoesOnB1
The websites used for research were:
Paul Is Dead: The Truth Behind The Conspiracy Theory (allthatsinteresting.com)
The ‘Paul is dead’ myth | The Beatles Bible
Paul is Dead: Turn Me On Dead Man | The Unredacted
There were a couple of podcasts used in research, Paul or Nothing. They have a three-part special on the story and the Ain’t It Scary? With Sean and Carry episode 62
If you want to request a story for The Beat Marches On blog, then you can contact jwhiteheadjournalism@gmail.com. We cannot guarantee that the story will be published but will be considered
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