Thursday, 4 May 2023

Paul is dead

 

"Paul is dead" is an urban legend and conspiracy theory alleging that English 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.

According to the theory or rumour, 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 magazine published an interview with McCartney in November 1969.

The phenomenon was the subject of analysis in the fields of sociologypsychology, 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 magazine in 2009.



 on 9 November 1966 (alternatively, the 11th of September of the same year)  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").

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.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).


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



 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, out of step with the others, symbolises the corpse.

 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".

"28IF" represented McCartney's age "if" he had still been alive (although McCartney was 27 when the album was recorded and released)

 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).

That the left-handed McCartney held a cigarette in his right hand was also said to support the idea that he was an impostor.