Paul McCartney has looked back at the rumours of his death that circulated after The Beatles split, and said that “in so many ways, I was dead”.
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The rumours that the music icon had died date back to the band’s split in 1969, and claimed that on November 9 1966, the singer, songwriter and bassist was tragically killed in a car crash on his way home from working on the ‘Sgt. Pepper’ album in the studio.
It also claimed that the band and others in the industry decided to spare fans the devastation by replacing McCartney with a lookalike, and names rumoured to be the “new Paul” included ‘William Campbell’ and ‘Billy Shears’. Fans were also convinced that the band dropped hints from then on, including Macca being seen without shoes on the ‘Abbey Road’ cover, John Lennon allegedly saying ‘I buried Paul’ towards the end of ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and more.
McCartney did get involved in two car accidents around the period of 1966, but multiple witnesses saw him in good health around that time, and McCartney himself clarified that he was well. The rumour continued to gain momentum when a student called Tim Harper published an article in a local Iowa newspaper entitled ‘Is Beatle Paul McCartney Dead?’ in September 1969, and it then got more traction.
Now, Paul McCartney has once again addressed the rumour over 50 years on, and revealed how it affected him, and added to him hitting a spell of depression.
Writing an opinion piece for The Guardian, the music legend shared: “The strangest rumour started floating around just as the Beatles were breaking up – that I was dead. We had heard it long before, but suddenly, in that autumn of 1969, stirred up by a DJ in America, it took on a force all its own, so that millions of fans around the world believed I was actually gone.”
“At one point, I turned to my new wife and asked, ‘Linda, how can I possibly be dead?’ She smiled as she held our new baby, Mary, as aware of the power of gossip and the absurdity of these ridiculous newspaper headlines as I was,” he added. “But she did point out that we had beaten a hasty retreat from London to our remote farm up in Scotland, precisely to get away from the kind of malevolent talk that was bringing the Beatles down.”
He continued: “But now that over a half century has passed since those truly crazy times, I’m beginning to think that the rumours were more accurate than one might have thought at the time. In so many ways, I was dead … A 27-year-old about-to-become-ex-Beatle, drowning in a sea of legal and personal rows that were sapping my energy, in need of a complete life makeover. Would I ever be able to move on from what had been an amazing decade, I thought. Would I be able to surmount the crises that seemed to be exploding daily?”
Later in the Guardian piece, McCartney reflected on the period that he was dealing with The Beatles’ split, and how he went on to buy a sheep farm in Scotland and took a period out of the spotlight before forming Wings with his wife Linda.
“Looking back, we were totally unprepared for this wild adventure. There was so much we didn’t know,” he wrote, reflecting on the farm life. “Linda would later go on to write famous cookbooks, but at first – and I’m a living witness – she was not a great cook. I was hardly any better suited for rural life.
“I took great satisfaction in learning how to do all these things, in doing a good job, in being self-dependent. When I think back on it, the isolation was just what we needed. Despite the harsh conditions, the Scottish setting gave me the time to create. It was becoming clear to our inner circle that something exciting was happening. The old Paul was no longer the new Paul. For the first time in years, I felt free, suddenly leading and directing my own life.”
‘Wings: The Story Of A Band On The Run’ cover. CREDIT: Press
Further along in The Guardian article, an excerpt was shared from an older interview, in which Macca looked back at how he struggled to come to terms with The Beatles coming to an end, and how it was his wife who inspired him to begin working on new material.
“Leaving the Beatles, or having the Beatles leave me, whichever way you look at it, was very difficult because that was my life’s job. When it stopped, it was like, ‘Oh God, what do we do now?’, he explained.
“I hung on, wondering if the Beatles would ever come back together again, and hoping that John might come around and say, ‘All right, lads, I’m ready to go back to work.’ In the meantime, I began to look for something to do.”
Tomorrow (Tuesday November 4), McCartney is set to share a new book, titled Wings: The Story Of A Band On The Run – it features over 42 hours of brand-new interviews, historical interviews and newly discovered, previously unheard interviews from Paul’s personal archive. Also included are 150 photographs capturing Wings throughout the years – many previously unseen – memorabilia, Paul’s diary page entries from the time, and handwritten lyrics.
The book was first announced in February, and in April Macca shared an excerpt of the foreword for the release.
Anecdotes shared in the book also come from Linda McCartney, Denny Laine, Mary McCartney, Stella McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, George Martin, Sean Ono Lennon, Chrissie Hynde, Dustin Hoffman, Twiggy and all the members of Wings.
As for other Wings news, last year saw the theatrical release of the film One Hand Clapping, its accompanying 1974 live-in-studio album, and a 50th anniversary edition of their 1973 third album, ‘Band On The Run’, and later this month the band will be sharing a definitive self-titled anthology collection, personally overseen by McCartney.
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