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:
“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.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Let us, then, take our compass; we are something, and we are not everything. The nature of our existence hides from us the knowledge of first beginnings which are born of the nothing; and the littleness of our being conceals from us the sight of the infinite. Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“The beginnings of altruism can be seen in children as early as the age of two. How then can we be so concerned that they count by the age of three, read by four, and walk with their hands across the overhead parallel bars by five, and not be concerned that they act with kindness to others?”
—Neil Kurshan (20th century)