From: dmac@julia.math.ucla.edu (saki)
Subject: Musings on the Paul Is Dead scheme
Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 05:54:46 GMT

In rec.music.beatles, miller@hpscit.sc.hp.com (Phil Miller) writes:
[quoting me re: the obvious]

>> But that's really the important question. The "backwards message", such
>> as it is, *seems* like "Paul is dead, miss him, miss him" to those who
>> already know what they should be hearing...but play it for someone outside
>> the whole "Paul Is Dead" context and it can sound utterly incomprehensible.

>    Ah, baloney, Saki.  The backwards message between "I'm So Tired" and
>"Blackbird" is the great smoking gun in the whole "Paul is Dead" ploy
>that the Beatles put on everyone.  

Sorry, Mr. Miller. Your gun is stone-cold. What looks like smoke is the
dust of dead theories. :-)

It's curious, nevertheless, why you'd consider *this* the clue to end 
all clues. Why this one? Why not something with actual documentation 
attached to it?

The cover of "Abbey Road" is supposed to have a veritable plethora of
Paul-Is-Dead pointers, and here we even have a sketch in Paul's (or
"Paul's") own hand for the cover layout. Of course there's nothing to
indicate that Paul actually set-dressed the picture to resemble a
march to the Netherworld---no actual notations saying "Make sure to
remind me to take off my sandals because dead men don't wear shoes...."

You get the picture.

Trouble is, wherever you go among the cornucopia of clues, you run into
similar problems. What seems, to you, like a dead (no pun intended) perfect
illustration of the Beatles' "ploy" (John's muttering between "I'm So
Tired" and "Blackbird") has a meaning when played forward as well,
according to Lewisohn's transcription ("Monsieur, Monsieur, how about 
another one?") This is not at all senseless gibberish.

It could easily refer to John's asking for another take, another ciggie,
another hit---who knows? But it makes it much more likely that its
backward sound is random. And you fail to address my earlier point: that
whatever it *sounds like* when played backwards could be variable, 
depending upon the ears that hear it.

These days---some twenty-three years after the appearance of this
irrepressible myth---there are better questions to ask. Why does this
story persist? It's not much like the sorts of urban legends one finds
in modern life. There are no "vanishing hitchhikers" who turn out to
be ghostly apparitions of John Lennon, for instance. The most persistent
folklore I can recall about the Fabs is the story that "someone" (a
friend of a friend of a friend...the usual UL-source) was at a
party where someone else asked if Paul wasn't in some group before
Wings. That presupposes that anyone these days remembers Wings. :-)

The various legends surrounding the genesis of the Boys---their haircuts,
their Hamburg attachments, their rise to fame---have either been lately
confirmed by documentation or debunked by same.

But the "Paul Is Dead" story seems too big to defeat with facts. And
it appears facts aren't the issue, anyway.

Most Fabs fans these days are pretty well convinced that the original
Paul is alive. What originated as a story about Paul's "death" has
nowadays transformed itself (not without help) into a belief that
the Beatles perpetuated upon an unsuspecting public a myth so
convoluted that "clues" are virtually endless. Without the
merest hint of veracity, source, or documentation, it is often
proclaimed that the Beatles must have been behind all this. After 
all, the clues are there! Aren't they?

Of course not everyone believes this is the case. Some of us rely on
denials from the principals...or one of them, anyway. John was asked
outright, by a Rolling Stone interviewer in 1970, whether there were
"any of those things really on the albums that were said to be there".
John's reply: "No. That was bullshit, the whole thing was made up." He
*did* admit that the group put in the "tit, tit, tit" as a deliberate
joke in "Girl", but that was the totality of secret messages, backwards
or otherwise, in the Beatles oeuvre ("Rolling Stone", January 4, 1971).

I'm sure this is a fertile field for folklorists, who study these
trends for a living. One article I've seen about the phenomenon is
Barbara Suczek's "The Curious Case of the 'Death' of Paul McCartney"
in Urban Life & Culture, Vol. 1, Number 1 (1972). Even in this early
work, Suczek picks up on the odd fact that true believers of this
scheme are mightily piqued when confronted with denials---whether
from John, Paul, or mere doubters like me. The suggestion that some
reliable evidence is necessary to prove the Beatles originated this
this hoax is, to ardent PID-fans, ludicrous. As Suczek points out,
"Evidence was the whole point! [Believers] were fortified, bulwarked,
armed to the teeth with evidence: they had a veritable overkill of
evidence."

And evidence seems to point, according to Suczek, right back to the
Fabs---at least that's what the PID proponents say. Otherwise,
one must suppose, the whole thing really *is* a massive joke, 
played by some anonymous wit who's still enjoying the stir he's
created. Heaven forfend that the joke should be on the innocent
Beatles fan. Even the suggestion causes tempers to bristle. To
wit: "The fact of the matter was that each public would accept
as credible evidence only such data as suited the logic of its
cognitive system and thus it was that the more McCartney's
death was denied, including by himself, the more the tension
and hostility seemed to increase, feeding in and out of the
intrefactional dispute" (Suczek, p. 30).

So it's *got* to be true...or else everyone's wasted a passel
of energy on the subject!

At this point in her article, Suczek wanders into musings on
Dionysian elements in the McCartney ressurection myth, which is
less relevant to today's PID folklore. I think she just misses
the more interesting hypothesis for the perpetuation of this
legend. It's not that people really believe Paul is dead; it's
more or less a belief that one can share the joke with the Fabs
themselves, through these clues cleverly planted by their own
hand (for so it must be) from 1966 onward.

It's a big puzzle; and the Beatles relied on us, being True
Fans, to cling tenaciously to the clues till the story was
revealed. What a concept. That's even better than a concept-
album! What other pop group planned such a hoax---and a long-
lived one at that---of such remarkable proportions? It's like
a search for the grail. And once PID enthusiasts get a taste
for the hunt, they're not going to let go. The more random,
disconnected, and illogical the clues, the better. That makes
the game more of a challenge!

>So at this late date have any of the perpetrators involved in this
>hoax ever admitted to doing so?  If they haven't, therein lies the real
>mystery.  Why would this be a take-it-to-the-grave secret?

That's a much better question. And it surprises me that some
enterprising student of urban myth hasn't taken on the job.

There actually *are* a few clues that point to the PID scheme's
origination in the American midwest. The Oct. 22, 1969 San
Francisco Chronicle and the Nov. 22, 1969 New York Times
both name a U. of Mich. then-undergrad named Fred LaBour
was said to have written a paper connecting the now-famous
random clues; the Times also pointed to three DJs from 
WKNR-FM in Detroit, whom they named as the real source
for the legend. And "Rolling Stone" Magazine that same
month claimed that LaBour was not the first to propound
the theory, which arose in *September 1969* in a student
newspaper at Illinois University. Are there any other
claimants, I wonder? 

So where's this Mr. LaBour (or is it Doctor LaBour) today?
What about the unnamed disc-jockeys? Or the editors of
the Northern Star at Illinois U.? Spirited away, one and
all, like Paul McCartney, to be replaced by lookalikes?
Victims of the modern age? Drug casualties? Religious
fundamentalists? Silenced into speechlessness by the
Beatles' henchmen? :-) An enterprising researcher should
be able to track down at least *one* of these sources.
Then maybe the mystery would be revealed...and someone
would have a dandy dissertation topic for their trouble. :-)

Any takers?

--
"What makes this foursome's history quite unprecedented is the fact that
two of the boys write (with an output rate which is prolific-plus!) all
the songs which The Beatles take to the top of the hit parade."
-----------------------------------------------saki (dmac@math.ucla.edu)
Newsgroups: rec.music.beatles