chained and perfumed

Some fly-by-night publication that promises to get to the bottom of the Paul Is Dead controversy. It succeeds only in confusing its reader more. I, for one, am confused as to why they couldn’t find a picture of Paul without such severe razor burn on his neck.

Life Magazine did its own investigation in late 69. This issue included a statement from Paul himself:

“It is all bloody stupid. I picked up that O.P.D. badge in Canada. It was a police badge. Perhaps it means Ontario Police Department or something. I was wearing a black flower because they ran out of red ones. It is John, not me, dressed in black on the cover and inside of Magical Mystery Tour. On Abbey Road we were wearing our ordinary clothes. I was walking barefoot because it was a hot day. The Volkswagen just happened to be parked there.

Perhaps the rumor started because I haven’t been much in the press lately. I have done enough press for a lifetime and I don’t have anything to say these days. I am happy to be with my family and I will work when I work. I was switched on for ten years and I never switched off. Now I am switching off whenever I can. I would rather be a little less famous these days.

I would rather do what I began by doing, which is making music. We make good music and we want to go on making good music. But the Beatle thing is over. It has been exploded, partly by what we have done and partly by by other people. We are individuals, all different. John married Yoko, I married Linda. We didn’t marry the same girl. The people who are making up these rumors should look to themselves a little more. There is not enough time in life. They should worry about themselves instead of worrying whether I am dead or not.

What I have to say is all in the music. If I want to say anything I write a song. Can you spread it around that I am just an ordinary person and want to live in peace? We have to go now, we have two children at home.”

By June 1970, Batman, whose artists seemed to think the fabs still dressed as though it were 1967, was on the thinly veiled case.