McCartney Dead; New Evidence Brought to Light

**McCartney Dead; New Evidence Brought to Light** is a single released by Fred "Too Slim" LaBour in November, 2014. The song is based on the "Paul is dead" urban legend which was perpetuated and popularized by an article which LaBour had wrote as a student at the University of Michigan in 1969.

## Lyrics

*Back in time*

*October, 1969*

*Well I was listing to the radio*

*When a man called in the DJ's show*

*And said "Hey, what's going on with Paul?"*

*"His boutonniere's black and the others are red"*

*"There's a weird hand up over his head"*

*"And his voice sounds different now, and that ain't all..."*

*Listen close to the fade-out on Strawberry Fields*

*Somebody clearly says "I buried Paul"*

*Well the timing was right that fateful night*

*Because the Michigan Daily had assigned me to write a story*

*An Abbey Road reviеw*

*So with my Beatles records linеd up in a row*

*I concocted a cockamamie scenario that Paul was dead*

*And it was all true*

*"We lost him in a car wreak" so I said*

*And he was officially pronounced dead*

*Or OPD, like on his Sergeant Pepper's pin*

*I invented William Campbell, who got the call*

*To replace the late, great Sir Paul*

*Because he resembled and kinda sounded like him*

*Now The Beatles decided to spread the news*

*Of Paul's demise by hiding clues*

*On album covers and in the songs they wrote*

*And why? Because John Lennon said*

*"Even though our dear Paul is dead*

*He always did enjoy a little joke"*

*Well my clues poured out in rapid succession*

*Abbey Road's cover clearly a funeral procession*

*And Paul was barefoot, like they bury people in England, I allowed*

*But the height of my satirical streak*

*When I said "walrus" meant "corpse" in Greek*

*And by then, I was laughing right out loud*

*Yep, I went through my albums song by song*

*Makin' up bullshit all night long*

*And thinkin' the world at large would share my mirth*

*'Till the morning edition hit the fan*

*And I became a semi-famous man*

*And my ridiculous story went around the Earth*

*Yep, I went viral before viral was viral*

*It even got to Scotland*

*"No, I'm not dead" said giant of twentieth century music McCartney*

*"Who is the idiot in America who started this rubbish?"*

*Well I'm the guy who did it, Paul McCartney*

*The guy who wrote that you were dead and gone*

*And I truly meant no harm when I said you'd bought the farm*

*And I'm glad I got to tell you in this song*

*Well this reluctant semi-celebrity*

*Joined F. Lee Baily on TV*

*And slipped back into blessed anonymity*

*And mostly now I just amuse my kids*

*With the tangled tale of what I did*

*And how I'm a footnote of a footnote in Fab Four history*

*And no I never met Paul but if I do*

*I believe we'll share a laugh or two*

*Cause I think he gets the joke and understands*

*That I sold millions of Beatles records*

*To weeping fans who played 'em backwards*

*Just looking for clues like*

*"Turn me on, dead man"*

*"Turn me on, dead man"*

*"Turn me on, dead man"*

*"Turn me on, dead man"*

*And I've always thought the least that Apple Corps Limited could do is send me a fruit basket, or a gift card, or something! All they'd have to do is address it to...*

*That guy who did it, Paul McCartney*

*The guy who said that you were dead and gone*

*Paul, I truly meant no harm when I said you'd bought the farm*

*And I'm glad I got to tell you in this song*

(SPOKEN)

*So what did I learn from my fifteen minuets of fame*

*Which I've managed to doggedly stretch into seventeen*

*"Be careful what you write, somebody might believe it!"*

## Notes

* The song's title comes from the headline of LaBour's infamous *Michigan Daily* article.
* While intended to promote LaBour's solo album (*Say No More, It's Freddie LaBour*), the song was released a year after the album had already come out.