Editing Paul is dead (section)

==Premise==
[[File:Beatles - Abbey Road.jpg|thumb|left|alt=The ''Abbey Road'' album cover|The "funeral procession" on the cover of ''Abbey Road'']]

Many versions of this theory have arisen since its initial exposure to the public, but most proponents of the theory maintain that, on 9 November 1966 (or alternatively, 11 September),<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Life and Death of Paul McCartney 1942-1966: A Very … |url=https://www.goodreads.com/work/46743150-the-life-and-death-of-paul-mccartney-1942-1966-a-very-english-mystery |access-date=2023-04-05 |website=Goodreads |language=en}}</ref>{{Better source needed|date=April 2023}} McCartney had an argument with his bandmates during a ''Sgt. Pepper'' recording session and drove off angrily in his car, then, distracted by a meter maid ("[[Lovely Rita]]"), failed to notice that the traffic lights had changed ("[[A Day In The Life]]"), crashed, and was decapitated ("[[Don't Pass Me By]]").{{sfn|Schaffner|1978|p=127}}{{sfn|Hoffmann|Bailey|1990|pp=165–66}} A funeral service for McCartney was held, with eulogies by Harrison ("[[Blue Jay Way]]") and Starr ("Don't Pass Me By"), followed by a procession (''Abbey Road''{{'}}s front cover), with Lennon as the priest officiating his funeral and burying him (the alleged "I Buried Paul" statement in "[[Strawberry Fields Forever]]").  To spare the public from grief, or simply as a joke, the surviving Beatles replaced him with the winner of a McCartney look-alike contest.{{sfn|Schaffner|1978|p=127}} This scenario was facilitated by the Beatles' recent retirement from live performance and by their choosing to present themselves with a new image for their next album, ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'', which they began recording later that month.{{sfn|Gould|2007|p=593}}

In LaBour's telling, the stand-in was an "orphan from Edinburgh named William Campbell" whom the Beatles then trained to impersonate McCartney.<ref name="Noden/MojoSpecial">{{cite book|first=Merrell|last=Noden|chapter=Dead Man Walking|year=2003|title=[[The Mojo Collection|Mojo Special Limited Edition]]: 1000 Days of Revolution (The Beatles' Final Years – Jan 1, 1968 to Sept 27, 1970)|location=London|publisher=Emap|page=114}}</ref> Others contended that the man's name was Bill Shepherd,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Uharriet |first=Thomas E. |title=The Memoirs of Billy Shears |date=2009-09-09 |publisher=MACCA Corporation |isbn=9781959517009 |language=en}}</ref> later altered to Billy Shears,{{sfn|Turner|2016|p=368}} and the replacement was instigated by Britain's [[MI5]] out of concern for the severe distress McCartney's death would cause the Beatles' audience.<ref name="Shivani/Dawn">{{cite news|first=Anis|last=Shivani|title=Paul is Dead: The Conspiracy Theory That Won't Go Away|date=15 January 2017|newspaper=[[Dawn (newspaper)|Dawn]]|url=https://www.dawn.com/news/1307942|access-date=28 September 2018|archive-date=20 October 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221020162457/https://www.dawn.com/news/1307942|url-status=live}}</ref> In this latter telling, the surviving Beatles were said to be wracked with guilt over their actions, and therefore left messages in their music and album artwork to communicate the truth to their fans.<ref name="Shivani/Dawn" /><ref name="Time">{{cite magazine|author=<!--Not stated-->|title=Separating Fact from Fiction: Paul Is Dead|date=July 2009|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|url=https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1860871_1860876_1860997,00.html|access-date=28 September 2018|archive-date=5 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131005075146/http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1860871_1860876_1860997,00.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

<!--Editors: Please do not add any more clues; after much discussion on the talk page, it has been deemed that the two given are sufficient to illustrate this aspect of the subject-->
{{quote box
|quote=A DJ put all those signs together: Paul with no shoes [on the cover of ''Abbey Road''] ... and the Volkswagen Beetle. Then there was ''[[Magical Mystery Tour (film)|Magical Mystery Tour]]'', where we three had red roses and he had a black one. It was just madness ... There was no way we could ''prove'' he was alive.{{sfn|The Beatles|2000|p=342}}
|source=—[[Ringo Starr]]
|width=22%
}}
Dozens of supposed clues to McCartney's death have been identified by fans and followers of the legend. These include messages perceived when listening to songs being [[backmasking|played backwards]] and symbolic interpretations of both lyrics and album cover imagery.{{sfn|Patterson|1998|pp=193–97}}{{sfn|Clayson|2003|pp=117–18}} Two frequently cited examples are the suggestions that the words "I buried Paul" are spoken by Lennon in the final section of the song "Strawberry Fields Forever", which the Beatles recorded in November and December 1966 (Lennon later said that the words were actually "Cranberry sauce"), and that the words "number nine, number nine" in "[[Revolution 9]]" (from the "[[The Beatles (album)|White Album]]") became "turn me on, dead man, turn me on, dead man" when played backwards.  A similar reversal at the end of "[[I'm So Tired]]" (another "White Album" track) yielded "Paul is dead man, miss him, miss him, miss him…".{{sfn|MacDonald|1998|p=273fn}}<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Yorke|first=Ritchie|title=A Private Talk With John|magazine=[[Rolling Stone]]|date=7 February 1970|page=22}}</ref>

Another example is the interpretation of the ''Abbey Road'' album cover as depicting a [[funeral procession]]: Lennon, dressed in white, is said to symbolise the [[Deity|heavenly figure]]; Starr, dressed in black, symbolises the [[undertaker]]; [[George Harrison]], in denim, represents the [[gravedigger]]; and McCartney, barefoot and out of step with the others, symbolises the [[cadaver|corpse]].<ref name="labour" /> The number plate of the white [[Volkswagen Beetle]] in the photo – containing the characters LMW 281F (mistakenly read as "28IF") – was identified as further "evidence".<ref name="Noden/MojoSpecial" />{{sfn|The Beatles|2000|pp=341, 342}} "28IF" represented McCartney's age "if" he had still been alive (although McCartney was 27 when the album was recorded and released),{{sfn|Sounes|2010|p=262}} while "LMW" stood for "Linda McCartney weeps" or "Linda McCartney, widow" (although McCartney and the then-Linda Eastman had not yet met in 1966, the year of his alleged death).<ref>{{cite web |last1=Wawzenek |first1=Brian |title=THE DAY PAUL MCCARTNEY MET LINDA EASTMAN |url=https://ultimateclassicrock.com/paul-mccartney-meets-linda-eastman/ |website=Ultimate Classic Rock |date=15 May 2017 |access-date=22 November 2022 |archive-date=22 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221122205631/https://ultimateclassicrock.com/paul-mccartney-meets-linda-eastman/ |url-status=live }}</ref>{{sfn|Draper|2008|p=76}}{{refn|group=nb|The fact that he would have been 27 in late 1969, rather than 28, was dismissed with the rationale that, in the [[Hinduism|Hindu]] tradition, infants were one year old at birth.<ref name="Noden/MojoSpecial" />}} That the left-handed McCartney held a cigarette in his right hand was also said to support the idea that he was an impostor.{{sfn|Schaffner|1978|p=127}}