Here Is Why It Was (Musically) Easy To Replace Paul

When I read criticism of Paul being replaced, the most common snide comment is:  "How could [the current] Paul possibly play a bass left-handed and sound like Paul?"

Really.

Bill Harry, who went to school with Stuart Sutcliffe and the original John Lennon, founded and edited Mersey Beat magazine that chronicled Liverpool area musicians, and who wrote books about The Beatles, says in the Merseyside area of Northern England, there were upwards of 350 bands in existence in the 1958-1965 time period.  He says, "The most popular line-up was a quartet with three guitarists -- lead, rhythm and bass [my emphasis] -- plus a drummer."

His list of those groups can be seen at:  https://www.sixtiescity.net/Mbeat/mb1A.htm  .

Check out the list and remember that there were hundreds of other bands throughout England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales with hundreds of guitarists in them, and in that sea of musicians there was our Paul--who replaced the original Paul--and the current Paul, who replaced them both.

Speaking of "When We Was Fab" . . .

George's 1987 song, "When We Was Fab" that I mentioned in the last post has several interesting Paul references.

George starts the song alluding to marijuana-- (". . . Grass was green, woke up in a daze . . . ".)

He progresses to 1966 with a reference to his song, "Taxman"-- (Back when income tax was all we had . . ." .)

The next verses are:  "Caressers fleeced you in the morning light/ Casualties at dawn."  According to my forays into definitions at British dictionary websites, the word casualty means a person who is injured or killed in a war or in an accident.

The song goes on to use two U.S. slang words:  fuzz (police) and buzz (an altered state of mind from using a drug.)

All this suggesting the two B/Featle songs, "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds"--("Climb in the back with your head in the clouds and you're gone..." and "A Day In The Life"--(He blew his mind out in a car . . .") because George says the police would have got to Paul but apparently he died in an accident--deliberate on his or somebody else's part or otherwise.

Later on in the song, George references Bob Dylan's 1965 song, "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" that has the lyric line--"The vagabond who's rapping at the door is standing in the clothes that you once wore":  Paul's replacement.

So Paul's memory haunted George all his life and the continued theme in Beatle songs of death and replacement ran unabated from 1967-on.

It's The Little Things . . . A Connecting Clue From "I Am The Walrus"

There's been speculation on the web that Paul may have been buried in or near the Strawberry Fields orphanage in Liverpool that was run by The Salvation Army from 1936-2005.  When I was trying to track down a reference to "Strawberry Fields cemetery" that I found on a Liverpool website I came across a detailed photograph of the front gate to the Strawberry Fields orphanage.  Something about it looked familiar and then I remembered the video the new, new Beatles did of the song "I Am The Walrus."  Take a look:

        

 

And then take a look at the drumskin on the video:

 

From "John's" song, "Glass Onion" and from George's video of his song, "When We Was Fab" where he had a left-handed bass player wearing a walrus mask, we know that the walrus was Paul, and I think this detail in the "I Am The Walrus" video is hinting at some kind of Strawberry Fields connection.

 

From the sketchy information I have been able to find about the orphanage, it doesn't appear as though our Paul was a resident of the orphanage but it is possible he could be buried on or near the site.

A Blast From The Past: Beatles, Detroit, 1966

If you were not an original Beatles fan--or were and couldn't get tickets to their concerts--return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear via a YouTube video I found that has photos and audio from the August 12, 1966 Detroit performances of The Beatles* at the old Detroit Red Wings hockey stadium, Olympia Stadium.

I was at one of those concerts and you can experience the sheer hysteria of the moment.

Find the video at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pV64U0Plw under the title:  "The Beatles photos  perform live Olympia stadium, Detroit, 1966." 

Also, take a look at the channel of the woman who posted the video:  Elena the Beatles photos.  She has some never seen before photos and other good information.

     *The Beatles tour of 1966 had replacements for our Paul and our John.  I think both of them were left behind on that tour.  My friends and I sat far up and to the left of the stage so we wouldn't have seen the difference.  The only thing I specifically remember of those little figures on stage was that "John"'s face was beet red.         ---paulumbo

So You Can See The Differences Between Young Paul and Young Faul

In my posts of December 26, 2015, January 22, 2016 and December 18, 2017, I posted photos I've found of young Faul--our Paul's replacement.  I've found another one (more and more have been surfacing.)  I also found a photo of our Paul as a boy.

If you are a Beatle fan, I'm sure you've seen quite a few boyhood photos of real Paul.  My guess is his family (and probably especially his brother, Michael) got those photos out in public.  Faul himself is probably responsible for the growing number of young Faul photos surfacing.

In contrast, I have only been able to find ONE boyhood photo of our Paul which I think is curious and there is no doubt a story yet to be told about that.

So here are the photos of young Faul I've previously posted and the new one I found and the photo of young Paul I've found.

Paul is the fourth boy from the left.

The Origins Of Paul (And John)'s Little War, Part Two

Between the time of the announcement of the MBE's and the actual presenting of them--June 12, 1965 to October 26, 1965--The Beatles were invited to play before Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip in the annual Royal Variety show.  This is the same format that doomed real Paul and real John in 1963.

I want you to notice the date of the 1965 event:  November 8th.  Remember the Sgt. Pepper drumskin clue (see photo below), where people speculated whether Paul had died on September 11th., 1966 OR November 9th., 1966?
                                                       
What is NOT widely reported [try Googling it] is that The Beatles
turned down the invitation to the Royal Variety Program of 1965.

I found three mentions of The Beatles' refusal:

1.)  New Musical Express of October 22, 1965 with the headline:
      "Beatles Said No to Royal Show."
2.)  New Musical Express of October 29, 1965:  "Were The Beatles
      Right to Refuse Royal Show?"
3.)  KRLABeat of November 20, 1965 that quotes Paul as saying,
      "'If we went on and those people didn't like us everyone would say "Ha, ha, The Beatles failed,
       they're on the slide.'"   But if you look at a British Movietone summary of The Beatles getting
       the MBE's on October 26, 1965, you can see Beatlemania was still rampant in England.  (See
       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo0WNrhyho4  )  Paul. I am sure, was aware of this and he
       made that excuse to royalty with wide-eyed insincerity.
      
So, The Beatles REFUSED to play on the Royal Variety Show.

The only video I could find on the internet of the November 8, 1965 Royal Variety Program was a comedy routine by the British comedy duo of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.  See the video at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQCleTuRzSo .  From 5:47-10:46 in the skit, they humorously discuss the artificiality of show business and how celebrities often use stand-ins and have their looks manipulated by camera trickery.  "Everything's so artificial and false . . ." Pete says at 5:44-5:46.  Was this skit a commentary on the Pauls and Johns that were in and out of The Beatles?

Where were The Beatles on the night of November 8, 1965?  They were at the Abbey Road studio working on, 1.) George Harrison's song, "Think For Yourself" and, 2.)  The group's third Christmas fan club record.

Their recording session lasted from 9PM on Monday, November 8th., 1965 to 3AM on Tuesday, NOVEMBER 9th., 1965.

Producer George Martin recorded the entire session, ostensibly because he hoped The Beatles might say humorous bits that could be used on the fan club record.

Listen to the "Think For Yourself" session on Youtube at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQdcpmFQOZs .

At 5:17-5:53 in the recording, John does a mini-"religious sermon" declaring at 5:26-5:30:  "And I tell you, brethren, there's more of them than there are of us."  If you couple John's "sermon" with an interview with The Beatles on October 28, 1964 that appeared in the February, 1965 issue of Playboy
magazine, you can see the origin of John's March, 1966 "Beatles bigger than Jesus" statement.

In the Playboy interview, The Beatles were declaring themselves to be agnostics "but we're not anti-Christ," according to Paul.  Paul said in that interview that "In America, they're fanatical about God."  So The Beatles were well aware that Americans took religion seriously--and, if you believe Paul--some Americans took their religion more than seriously.

If our Paul and our John felt they were next in line to be ousted from The Beatles, they, I surmise, wanted to take the group's popularity down with them.  How better than to target and destroy the loyalty of The Beatles' biggest fan base?

The other half of "Project Beatles-Undoing" was the butcher cover. 

The Beatles worked on their Christmas fan club record in two sessions:  the Abbey Road session around 2AM on November 9th., 1965 and the other session at Marquee studio in London on October 19, 1965.  At the Marquee studio session, Tony Barrow, their publicist at the time, wrote a script for them.  That session fell apart but the outtakes from the session are very interesting.  Listen to them on Youtube at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrMJTFzQUr8 .

At 1:21-2:32 on the tape, there's an EXTREMELY sick dialog about a baby being cut up.

The person who posted the video has a photo of the butcher cover during that segment and I absolutely agree that this was the beginning of the butcher cover idea.

So let's review the timeline of Paul and John's little war:

• Sometime in October, 1965, The Beatles refuse the invitation to appear at the Royal Variety Show.
• October 19, 1965, the butcher cover idea is hatched.
• November 9, 1965, the "bigger than Jesus" idea is hinted at.
• March 4, 1966, the London Evening Standard publishes Maureen Cleave's interview of John complete with the "Beatles bigger than Jesus" statement.
• March 25, 1966, The Beatles do the butcher cover photo session.

The war was on.  The question is:  Did Paul lose the war on November 9, 1966 that was kicked off in earnest on November 9, 1965?

 

The Origins Of Paul (And John)'s Little War, Part One

When I researched the infamous butcher cover that kicked off the American Beatles' fans questioning the future of their fan loyalty to The Beatles, I found that Paul had insisted that the butcher cover be used for The Beatles' U.S. album, Yesterday and Today (see my May 29, 2010 post.)  Photographer Robert Whitaker took responsibility for the idea because--he said--The Beatles were bored with the same old straightforward photo sessions.

Whitaker's mea culpa would make sense except that I found clues in The Beatles' November 8-9, 1965 recording session that suggest otherwise and--instead--strongly hint at the war that our Paul and our John were preparing to unlease beginning March, 12, 1966.

Before going any further, remember that at the beginning of The Beatles there was a real John and a real Paul who were members of the group, at the beginning.  I believe they were removed from the group by . . . ??? [yet to be determined] when John made the famous statement at the Royal Variety Show on November 4, 1963 that people in the cheaper seats please clap and the "rest of you" just rattle your jewelry.  Royalty gasped. and real John and real Paul were O-U-T, spelled OUT..

They were replaced by our John and our Paul with nary an explanation or official change of names.

My research suggests that at sometime around the filming of Help, things started souring between our Paul and our John and whoever had the proverbial hook to pull them off the world stage into oblivion--or worse.

In my post of October 15, 2011, I mentioned an interview Paul and John had with Larry Kane, who at the time of the filming of Help was a Miami radio deejay. He interviewed them in February, 1965 in Nassau.  The interview is published in Kane's 2003 book, Ticket To Ride, and the excerpt is worth repeating because it revealed a tense, unsettled situation Paul and John were in the middle of:
     KANE:  How are you doing?
     LENNON:  Well, look, all I can say, Larry, is this thing's wide open.  Anything can happen, man.
     KANE:  Well.
     LENNON:  It's the new phrase--have you got it?
     KANE: What is this "everything can happen" business?
     McCARTNEY:  Listen--everything is wide open, anything can happen, man.  It's a new phrase which sums everything up.
Paul and John reemphasized the "new phrase" to send a message (or record for history) that their positions in the group were precarious.

After the filming of Help Paul and Jane Asher went on vacation to Portugal starting May 27, 1965.

While they were on vacation, it was announced that The Beatles were on Queen Elizabeth's "birthday list" to receive Member of The British Empire (MBE) medals.  Paul was called back a day early from his vacation--on June 11, 1965--by Brian Epstein.  (See photo of Paul holding up the London Daily Mail's front page.)

The next day--June 12th.-- the "everything is wide open, anything can happen" started happening because the television interviews of The Beatles discussing the MBE's featured a FAKE Paul.  (See the photos on the left of a Faul at the interview and our Paul immediately after getting the MBE--Clearly TWO DIFFERENT MEN.
I think our John (not a fake John) was interviewed.  But if it was our John, he looked well out of it, like he was on some heavy-duty drug. (See photo below on right.)