Beginnings
A rumour that Paul McCartney had been killed in a car crash circulated in London after a January 1967 traffic accident involving his car. The rumour was acknowledged and rebutted in the February issue of The Beatles Book fanzine, but it is not known whether the rumour of 1969 is related to it. In the autumn of 1969, the Beatles, having just released their Abbey Road album, were in the process of disbanding; McCartney's public engagements were few and he was spending time at his Scottish retreat with his new wife Linda to contemplate his forthcoming solo career.
On 17 September 1969, an article titled "Is Beatle Paul McCartney Dead?" was published in the student newspaper of Drake University in Iowa. The article described a rumour that had been circulating on campus that Paul was dead. At that point the rumour included numerous clues from recent Beatles albums, including the "turn me on, dead man" message heard when "Revolution 9" from the White Album is played backwards. In wire reports published as early as 11 October, Beatles press officer Derek Taylor responded to the rumour saying "Recently we've been getting a flood of inquiries asking about reports that Paul is dead. We've been getting questions like that for years, of course, but in the past few weeks we've been getting them at the office and home night and day. I'm even getting telephone calls from disc jockeys and others in the United States."
Read more about this topic: Paul Is Dead
Famous quotes containing the word beginnings:
“[Many artists], even the greatest ones, are not sure of their own existence. So they search for proof, they judge, they condemn. It strengthens them, it is the beginnings of existence. They are alone!”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“These beginnings of commerce on a lake in the wilderness are very interesting,—these larger white birds that come to keep company with the gulls.”
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“Those newspapers of the nation which most loudly cried dictatorship against me would have been the first to justify the beginnings of dictatorship by somebody else.”
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