Tales from the Turntable: Paul is Dead! 

Welcome back, UConn! This week’s story is one that I’ve kept in the back of my mind since I started this column last semester. Since it’s the beginning of a new year, I’ve decided it’s time to talk about one of the most infamous rumors in all of pop culture. In late 1966, a rumor began steadily spreading across London, alleging that Paul McCartney had died in a car crash earlier that year. While beginning as a baseless claim, in the following years after the release of Beatles albums like “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Magical Mystery Tour,” many began suspecting the band of hinting at McCartney’s demise in their music. 

1966 was a tumultuous year for the Fab Four, as they infamously announced their retirement from touring. Personal struggles, an increasing usage of drugs and a yearning for something new lead the band to attempt a total revitalization of their music and image. This period of heavy change likely fueled early “Paul is dead” rumors, which began picking up traction quickly in the following years, before exploding in popularity once it hit universities in the United States. 

Once the rumor had hit the U.S., thousands of eager Beatles fans were quick to analyze their experimental music for any clues. “Revolution 9” off their 1968 self-titled double LP was quickly thought to contain the most damning evidence. The track, an eight-and-a-half minute musique-concrete song, merely contained the words “number nine” repeated in between ambient humming and distorted samples of other songs. When reversed, “number nine” sounds like the phrase “turn me on, dead man.” This technique of analyzing speech played in reverse was pioneered during the rumor’s heyday. The technique, later coined “backmasking,” would soon be used to analyze a myriad of different audio and video recordings, ranging from other music to presidential speeches.  

Backmasking was quickly debunked as merely pseudoscience by scientists and skeptical fans across the world, but many still point to hidden backwards messages as concrete proof of McCartney’s death. Some claimed to hear clues in songs played forwards, too, like the 1967 single “Strawberry Fields Forever.” The song was notable for being incredibly cryptic and drenched in drug-fueled psychedelia, with its outro in specific being the target of conspiracy theorists. In the noisy outro, the heavily distorted voice of John Lennon can be heard saying “I buried Paul.” In reality, Lennon says “Cranberry sauce,” but the misheard line was quickly adopted into the rumor’s canon anyway.  

One of the more popular versions of the theory states that McCartney was quickly replaced by a look-alike from Edinburgh named Billy Shears, who was referenced in “With a Little Help from My Friends.” The theory states that the band trained Shears to act, sound and play like McCartney, with some citing a stark contrast in his bass playing style between 1966 and 1967 as evidence.  

As the Beatles came to an end, so did the rumor for the most part. Though it did cause a profound annoyance to the band’s public relations team at the time, the theory was relegated to a footnote in 60s pop culture after their breakup. Even decades later, references to the theory crop up in media time and time again, often appearing as an inside joke for Beatles fans. While certainly not the latest big celebrity rumor, the “Paul is dead” theory certainly had the biggest impact in recent history.