2,000 Greater & Lesser Mysteries/2,000 Greater and Lesser Mysteries.iso/internet/mys01013.txt

Internet Message Format | 1994-06-10 | 7.8 KB

From: [e-mail] (saki)
Subject: Re: Clues for you all
Summary: Paul Is Dead (PID) hoax again

In article <92930406064529/[e-mail]> [e-mail] (DPM) writes:
>  [e-mail] (Ted Frank) writes:
>
>>>He's repeated the story often enough (_always_ using the phrase "cranberry
>>>sauce" and not some other permutation) for it to be credible.
>
>>All it's missing is the clause "so it must be true," but creative editing
>>can add that in.
>
> The crucial difference being, of course, that John Lennon was undoubtedly
> present while he was recording his own song and therefore has some insight
> into what he actually said.  Not to mention that millions of people can
> verify it experimentally by simply listening to the song.
>
> - snopes

It might be best to check tapes or copies of same closest to the source,
viz., EMI/Abbey Road Studio tapes. The sibilance of "*s*au*c*e" can be
heard quite clearly. In some alternate releases of "Strawberry Fields
Forever" (the Italian single, for instance), the words "cranberry sauce"
are repeated twice before the fade-out; in some vault-tape copies, you
can hear it three times. I know that in some standard releases of the
song, the words are just sufficiently buried in the mix to cause the
ears some confusion. Further doubters may wish to apply their choice
of voice-patterning equipment to ascertain what words are actually
spoken by John during the fade-out. It's *not* "I buried Paul". Believe
me.

But 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. Nor are there
reports of cacti which explode, showering passersby with miniature
"O.P.D." badges (Ontario Police Department/Officially Pronounced
Dead). 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 and the oft-repeated "fact" that Norwegian
wood is slang for marijuana.

The various legends surrounding the Beatles' genesis---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
cleverly convoluted that "clues" are virtually endless. Without the
merest hint of verifiable evidence 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).

This is surely a fertile field for folklorists, some of whom have
already considered it. 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 that 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
interfactional 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 resurrection 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.

The much better question is who *really* might have been behind
the Paul-Is-Dead hoax. And it surprises me that some enterprising
and qualified 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. I've even had email from
a responsible gentleman, who wishes to remain nameless,
recounting his participation with disc jockey Russell Gibb
of Detroit station WKNR-FM in disseminating "clues"---even
inventing new ones, which, the gentleman reports, have since
passed into accepted legend---over the airwaves during one
drug-hazed afternoon in summer 1969. That's intriguing
corroboration for the NY Times.

Brunvand actually traced the origins of several oft-repeated
urban legends...which if course did not diminish their folkloric
power. Finding out the origins of the PID hoax would likely
not diminish the fervor of its adherents, but might teach us
something about the resilience of personal belief.
--
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"Lovely lads...and so natural."--------------------------------------
-------------------------------       saki ([e-mail])
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