HISTORY's Moment in Media: Life Magazine Publishes Cover Story Debunking Famous "Paul Is Dead" Rumor

quotIt39s all bloody stupidquot McCartney told the publication not unreasonablyFor the previous month or so McCartney39s ongoing existence had been less certain It was the bout of hysteria primarily driven by American college students and seemingly centered at midwestern campuses that has since been known as the quotPaul Is Deadquot hoaxIt seems to have all started in midSeptember 1969 at Drake University in Des Moines Iowa where the school newspaper the TimesDelphic published a frontpage exposamp233 with the provocative headline quotIs Beatle Paul McCartney Deadquot In it student reporter Tim Harper catalogued the rumors and alleged hints about Paul39s demise that were then circulating and would soon become canonThe story went big on October 12 when someone according to some reports a student at Eastern Michigan University called into Detroit39s WKNR and told DJ Russ Gibb to play the quotnumber nine number ninequot intro to quotRevolution 9quot a John Lennon composition from the White Album which had been released a year earlier backward What did Gibb and his listeners hear quotTurn me on dead manquot just as the TimesDelphic had reportedAnd according to the rumors that began to circulate this was just the tip of the iceberg The conspiracy as catalogued a few days later in The Harvard Crimson and summarizing reporting from The Michigan Daily went something like this On a rainy night in 1966 McCartney had driven off from the Abbey Road studios and was killed in a car wreck Determined to keep the Beatles going his bandmates hired someone to play him Lennon George Harrison and Ringo Starr felt guilty about the ruse so they planted hints in the songs and albums released since then quotTurn me on dead manquot was just one of themSeveral more clues appeared on the cover of Abbey Road which was released just as the rumor was gaining steam The Fab Four photographed crossing the street were in fact a funeral procession or so the story went Lennon at the front and wearing all white was the preacher Starr in black was the undertaker McCartney out of step with the others was the corpse and Harrison wearing blue jeans like a laborer was the gravedigger McCartney carried a cigarette in his right hand but everyone knew he was a lefty so it was a sure sign that it wasn39t really him And the VW Bug39s license plate included 28IF because if he were alive he would have been 28 years oldMore clues abounded On the cover of Sgt Pepper39s Lonely Hearts Club Band McCartney39s patch says OPD officially pronounced dead At the end of quotStrawberry Fields Foreverquot Lennon says quotI buried Paulquot The word quotWalrusquot gets a lot of play According to the rumor it is Greek for corpse It is not And then there39s Lennon39s song quotI Am the Walrusquot Even Lennon39s lyrics to quotGlass Onionquot quotHere39s another clue for you all The Walrus was Paulquot The supposed cause of McCartney39s deadly crash may or may not have been a lovely hitchhiker named Rita as in the song quotLovely Ritaquot he blew his mind out in a car so to speak as in the quotDay in the Lifequot lyrics and with the news of his death successfully suppressed on a Tuesday night the quotWednesday papers didn39t comequot lyrics from quotLady MadonnaquotNone of this was true McCartney was 27 The OPD badge was from the Ontario Police Department Lennon says quotcranberry saucequot at the end of quotStrawberry Fieldsquot quotWalrusquot is not Greek for corpse And so on The Beatles39 management loudly denied the claims but people continued to believe them After all no one had seen McCartney If he was alive why didn39t he come out in front of the public and say soMcCartney and his family were in seclusion in Scotland after Mary39s birth Life which was one of the world39s dominant publications at the time sent its London correspondent and a photographer to find them Showing up unannounced they caught him off guard After throwing a bucket of water on them he agreed to an interview to put an end to the silliness And he confessed to being tired of all the media attentionquotPerhaps the rumor started because I haven39t been much in the press latelyquot he said quotI have done enough press for a lifetime and I don39t 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 daysquotMcCartney also said something else five months before the band would announce their breakup quotThe Beatle thing is overquot he said quotIt has been exploded partly by what we have done and partly by other peoplequotNo one much noticed that part Even then fake news had a way of crowding out the real newsClick the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the 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HISTORY's Moment in Media: Life Magazine Publishes Cover Story Debunking Famous "Paul Is Dead" Rumor

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HISTORY's Moment in Media: Life Magazine Publishes Cover Story Debunking Famous "Paul Is Dead" Rumor

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