The Beatles and the Paul McCartney Hoax :: Research Papers Paul mcCartney Essays

I read the news today, oh boy, about a lucky man who made the grade...he blew his mind out in a car. He didn't notice that the lights had changed.(the Beatles, 1967) These lyrics proved to fans that Paul McCartney had indeed died in a tragic auto accident in late 1966. Some people were skeptical about the explanation, but upon investigating the album covers and the lyrics of the Beatles' songs, the story seems to make sense. Some of the lyrics have to be a twisted in order to make sense in the prank, but after an explanation, the clues are perfectly coherent. For thirty-one years, the "Paul Death Hoax" has intrigued a horde of Beatles' fans and fanatics alike. While it's difficult to point to an absolute point of origination, there is no evidence whatsoever that the Beatles themselves had anything to do with the story, although many claim that the Beatles intended it to be a joke the their fans. However, clues, which seem so cleverly arranged, are random coincidences or inaccurate interpretations of existing facts, and all Beatles have denied that they were in any way involved with the deceit. This leads people to believe that maybe Paul did die in that alleged accident. In the late summer 1969, the Northern Illinois University campus newspaper, Northern Star, obtained a list of clues from a student who wrote a research paper on the hoax. (Saki) Russell Gibb, a disc jockey for the Detroit radio station, WNKR, then got a copy of it from a friend of his, and on his radio show, proceeded to read them and even make up his own on the spot. Within a few days, Gibb and his coworkers were astonished to see that newspapers and reporters took his on-air joke too seriously and spread the story more widely. (Saki) More clues came about when Fred Labour, arts reviewer of the University of Michigan's student newspaper, The Michigan Daily, was asked to review "Abbey Road." He had listened to Gibb's radio show a few days before this, and was inspired to write his own article, based on "clues" from Gibb and making up his own. The newspaper published the article under the title, "McCartney Dead; New Evidence Brought to Light." (Saki) Labour and the editor,! J. Gray, assumed that everyone knew it was a joke. The rest of the world took it seriously, and soon Labour was swamped with phone calls from media who wanted more information about his findings.