Personal Similarities Between Paul and Edward Lear

In Paul's Paperback Writer, he compares himself to the children's nonsense verse author, Edward Lear.  What was Paul trying to clue people in on?

After the last American Beatles concerts, Mal Evans was going to be more of a personal attendant to The Beatles.  I think this is the plan hinted to by Paul in the April, 1966 song.  This, apparently, never happened because something happened to Paul in that time, and, instead, Mal Evans accompanied Paul's replacement  on trips.  Edward Lear had an Albanian Christian man who was basically his manservant and accompanied him on his European travels.

Edward Lear was a lifelong bachelor, not by choice.  In several of his poems, including The Dong with the Luminous Nose and The-Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo, Lear writes about his loneliness and his desire to marry a certain girl.  For instance, The Dong with the Luminous Nose has the lines:

          But when the sun was low in the West,
          The Dong arose and said;-
          'What little sense I once possessed
           Has quite gone out of my head!' -
           And since that day he wanders still
           By lake and forest, marsh and hill,
           Singing -- 'O somewhere, in valley or plain
           Might I find my Jumbly Girl again!
           For ever I'll seek by lake and shore
           Till I find my Jumbly Girl once more!'

We know that Paul was infatuated with Jane Asher and that their relationship was not working out.  Again, the parallel with Lear.  (BTW, as I pointed out in earlier posts, John and George sang the children's song, Frere Jacques in background vocals on Paperback Writer and the line, "Ding Dong bell" might be a pun on the Dong poem.)

The other two health parallels are speculations but . . .
The first is that Lear had epileptic seizures.  If Paul was being experimented on in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber as I think he was, he very well could have had seizures from the poisonous effects of oxygen at high pressure:  it causes convulsions.
The second health problem Lear suffered from was asthma and bronchitis.  Again the Paul-is-dead song, I Am The Walrus, has the line:  "Expert, texpert, choking smokers."

A Picture of a Fake Paul (and possibly a fake John) as Early as 1961

In George Harrison's 1980 book, I, Me, Mine, he published 15 photos.  Plate IX shows a picture of, supposedly, George, Paul, and John in 1961.  The caption to the photograph reads:

     "The roof of the Top Ten Club, George, Paul and John, the Reeperbahn, Hamburg 1961.  Family collection."

Take a look at this photo on the YouTube video:  Beatles at the Top Ten Club Hamburg 1961 (pictures):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8pFDm4ReW4 at 1:17-1:20.  In contrast,  look at the photo at 1:25-1:27.

The first photo is clearly NOT Paul.  Note the very long, sharp chin.  The photo in the video may have been tweaked:  the book photo looks even more  NOT like Paul.  The second photo in the video IS Paul, which suggests that either there was photo doctoring going on as far back as 1980, or that there was a Paul look-a-like that The Beatles were aware of as early as 1961.

Also, take a look at the Revolver album cover on

the right.  Below and to the right of the drawing

of Paul (it's the photo below George wearing a hat) is

a photo of the 1961 "Paul."

Where Paul WASN'T ~ November 12, 1966

I found a video on YouTube that shows home videos of "Paul" and Mal Evans in Spain about November 12, 1966:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0MyYOF3FVg.  Paul in the video is Paul's replacement.

You can see him briefly from the side and back at 0:23-0:29.
Mal Evans is shown from the back and side at 1:01-1:04 and in close-up at 1:05.
Paul's replacement is shown in close-up at 1:18-1:22.

Again, it WASN'T Paul.

Where Was Jane Asher in November, 1966?

In the book, The Beatles Day by Day  A Chronology 1962-1989 by Mark Lewisohn (Harmony Books 1987, 1990), he has Jane Asher with Paul in Kenya via France and Spain from November 6-November 19, 1966.  I found a photograph of Jane Asher that puts her in England on November 16, 1966.
At www.gettyimages.com/detail/3137594/Hulton-Archive there is a photo of her and actor Laurence Harvey during the filming of  "The Winter's Tale", released in 1967.  The caption says:
          "Lithuanian born British actor, Laurence Harvey (1928-1973), filming his co-star Jane
           Asher during the making of 'A Winter's Tale' (sic):  (Photo by Larry Ellis/Express/Getty Images)."

People doing Paul-is-dead research point out that it was Paul's replacement in Kenya in 1966 and that he was accompanied by Mal Evans.  Obviously, Jane Asher was in England.

 

Paul's Future Plans in an August, 1966 Radio Interview

There was a radio interview by Keith Fordyce of Paul and John called The Lennon McCartney Songbook that was recorded at Paul's home--7 Cavendish Ave.--on August 6, 1966. The full interview can be heard at:  www.podcastdirectory.com/podshows/2270583. 

The relevant part of the interview came at 22:48-23:04 in the recording when John and Paul are discussing their songwriting:

     John (with humor in his voice):  I'm just finding I don't know enough chords to write them [their songs] in
                                                    guitar, so I'm going to have to get some old fella in to play to me.
    
     Paul:                                        It's got to be an old fellow, though.

     John:                                        Yeah.

     Paul:                                        Couldn't be one of these young, whiz-bang kids, you know.

     John:                                        HE WOULDN'T HAVE TIME.

The replacement for Paul was seven years older than Paul as was dramatized in the 1967 Beatles' Christmas record.  And John's comment shows that, one way or another, Paul was leaving the group.

Mal Evans' Diary

In my June 24th. post, I talked about Mal Evans' diary that was never published.  I found a Sunday London Times article of March 20, 2005 that summarizes the diary and has excerpts.  According to the journalist, Mark Edmonds, a cleaner found a trunk with Evans' diaries among other things in the basement of a New York city publisher in 1986.  The cleaner contacted Yoko Ono who arranged to have the memorabilia shipped back to his family in London.  Evans' widow kept the diaries in her attic for years and finally let The Times see and comment on them.

Edmonds' summary is short on details for the crucial period of 1966 and it still would be great if an uncensored complete copy of Evans' diaries would be published.  That is assuming Evans didn't censor himself.

Slipping, Sliding Down Highway 31

The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band--a 1960's parody band--recorded a song called Death Cab for Cutie for their debut album, Gorilla, released October, 1967.  It is considered a Paul-is-Dead song.  They performed the song in the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour film, first shown December, 1967.

One line talks about "Cutie" (read "Paul") "slipping, sliding down on Highway 31."  People exploring the Paul mystery focused on Hwy. 31 in England.  But, there is also a Highway 31 in Northern France, north of Paris, that runs from Gournay through Beauvais, Compiegne, Soissons, and ends in Reims.  You can read a description of N31 in wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_nationale_31.  That might be THE Highway 31.

Also interesting is that the man who replaced Paul--called Faul (fake Paul) by Paul-is-Dead researchers-- travelled to Nice, France to film a video of the song, Fool on the Hill that was used in the Magical Mystery Tour film.  THAT song is also considered a Paul-is-Dead song.

More on Clues of Paul's Future Plans

In my April 30th. post, I talked about Paul's song, Paperback Writer and how I thought that Paul was clueing people in on his future plans. 
John and George sang harmony on the song and it was Paul's idea for them to sing the opening line of Frere Jacques, a popular French-language children's song.  He also mentioned Edward Lear in the song.  Lear was most famously known as a writer of children's nonsense verse.
I believe Paul was telling people that after he left The Beatles later in 1966, he planned on living in France.  I am not convinced about a future intent to pattern his professional life after Lear, even though Paul later wrote Yellow Submarine, because that might have been a cover and the song was letting people know, instead, that something was going seriously wrong in his life.
However, Paul might have been telling people that Lear's personal life was similar to Paul's. 

        More on that next week.                  ---paulumbo