Increasing Evidence That Paul Was Trying To Sabotage The Beatles

In my post of September 15, 2016, I talked about the revealing interview Paul and John gave the day they were being photographed for what turned out to be the infamous butcher cover for the U.S. Beatles' album, Yesterday and Today.  I've mentioned in other posts that I believe Paul was mounting a fight--first--against attempts by a power elite to have The Beatles try to manipulate the attitudes of the vast, world-wide Baby Boomer generation, and later, against his ouster from the group.  In other words, I think Paul thought if they were going to dump him, he would pull the group down with him.

I've found dates and events when Paul (and John) made serious efforts to sabotage The Beatles:
     1.) Paul's insistence that Capitol Records in the U.S. (owned by EMI in England) use the butcher photo for the Yesterday and Today album.
     2.)  Paul's London Evening Standard interview on March 25, 1966 with Maureen Cleeve where he said that America was racist.
     3.)  John's interview published in the Evening Standard on March 4, 1966 where he made the infamous "Beatles bigger than Jesus" comment.
     4.)  Paul's comment at the June 30, 1966 Tokyo press conference where he rated The Beatles' talent as "adequate."
     5.)  His hint, hint at the Radio Caroline interview of April 25, 1966 that The Beatles had doubles.

Was anybody in the hierarchy over The Beatles aware of the potential harm Paul's efforts was having on the Beatles' popularity?  In England, Brian Epstein was, I believe, uneasy about The Beatles' image vis-a-vis America.  Soon after the butcher cover photo session, but before the butcher photo made the cover the Yesterday and Today album, Epstein had Robert Whitaker--the butcher photo session photographer--and some Beatles come to his office so Whitaker could take an innocuous photo of "The Beatles" standing around--and "Paul" sitting in--a steamer trunk.  There are internet site estimates that this photo was taken in late March or early April, 1966.  In a photo I found [see below], George and Ringo are shown in Epstein's office on that day, looking at developed photos from the butcher photo shoot.

 

I said that Epstein had some Beatles in his office because Paul (and John) are NOT in the steamer trunk photo that was pasted over the butcher cover.  Compare the photo below on the left with the photo on the right of Paul taken from the Paperback Writer/Rain promotional films of May, 1966. The face looks convincing but look at "Paul"'s shoulders.  Was our Paul an American football player because the upper body of the Paul on the left is NOT the same as the real Paul on the right.  (And this before the famous photo of a fake Paul standing backward on the Sgt. Pepper album.)

 

 

 

So I think Epstein--who apparently didn't know the sensibilities of Americans as well as Paul did--okayed the butcher cover photo release but hedged his bets by having a back-up photo because he suspected the butcher cover was part of Paul's plan for sabotaging The Beatles.

 

In America, there were two people who did know the extent of the damage the butcher cover could cause the popularity of The Beatles:  Capitol Records' president, Alan W. Livingston and Capitol Records' Manager of Press & Information Services, Ron Tepper.  In a June 14, 1966 letter to people who got advance copies of the butcher cover album, Tepper quotes Livingston who said:

"The original cover, created in England, was intended a 'pop art' satire.  However, a sampling of public opinion in the United States indicates that the cover design is subject to misinterpretation.  For this reason, and to avoid any possible controversy or undeserved harm to The Beatles' image or reputation, Capitol has chosen to withdraw the LP and substitute a more generally acceptable design."  [See full letter below.]

You'll notice that Livingston emphasized that the photo was "created in England" not America, and that Capitol offered to pay the cost of shipping the album back.

 

The Yesterday and Today album with the bland (and deceptive) cover was in U.S. stores on June 20, 1966.  But the furor the original cover photo caused showed that the damage Paul had intended, was already done.

Is That Faul or Is That Faul?

I just found a photo of the 1966 "Beatles" published in an October 1966 advertisement for Chicago radio station, WCFL.  This photograph was no doubt taken when the B/Featles were in Chicago during their August U.S. tour.  Take a good look at "Paul" on the left and "John" on the right.

You'll notice--especially--the eyes are very reminiscent of the Paul of today.  Notice also the angular face, which looks much more like the face of the two photos immediately below as opposed to our Paul's distinctly rounder face that you can see in photos 3 and 4 below.  I've been contending for some time that our Paul never made it to the 1966 tour and these photos lend credence to that theory.

 

My concentration in this blog is on Paul, but if you look at "John" in the WCFL photo you'll notice that this man---with his narrow face--is not our John. (See photos below for comparison.)

What The Time-Frame Was For Paul Breaking His Tooth (Continued)

In my last post, I narrowed down the time-frame for Paul breaking his tooth to early May, 1966.  Since Paul had no evidence of being in an accident on May 1st., 1966 at the NME Poll Winner's contest, and  the tooth could be seen  broken on the May 19, 1966 filming of the Rain/Paperback Writer promotionals, AND Paul said in a June 16, 1966 interview that he had recently broken the tooth before the 5/19 films--logically--something happened to Paul between 5/1/66 and 5/19/66.

Paul gave a story in the interview that he had been involved in a moped accident.  He said:  "But it was dark and I hit a stone and went flyin' through the air.  It was my fault . . . it was a nice night and I was looking at the moon."

During the month of May, The Beatles were busy recording tracks for their Revolver album.  Paul spent much of the evening of May 9th., 1966 recording his song, "For No One."

If he had had the "accident", say, on May 1st., 2nd., or even 3rd., there's a possibility he might have felt up to recording by May 9th.---except that his statement that the night was dark contradicts the near-full moon that was in the Liverpool night sky on those nights in 1966. (See chart) [from the website--www.rodurago.net  "Perpetual Moon Calendar"]

Also take a look at several photos I have found of roads that are fully moonlit.  Hardly dark.

Even if he had the accident after May 10th. or 11th., the road or path would not have been dark.  Take a look at a crescent moonlit road photo I found:

 

And then there's the healing time of a fall that would cause head, lip and tooth damage.

 

What's my point?  I think Paul gave an implausible explanation to get people to want to know what REALLY happened to him.

What The Time-Frame Was For Paul Breaking His Tooth

There has been alot written about the broken tooth our Paul had that showed prominently in the Rain/Paperback Writer promotional films The Beatles recorded on May 19th. and 20th., 1966.

Paul gave an interview for the New Musical Express British pop magazine on June 16, 1966 and this is what he said about the tooth:

 

Paul gave a story about a moped accident--an "accident" that most of the press claims happened on December 26, 1965. But when you listen to how Paul phrased his reply to the NME interviewer, it tells another story.  Paul says that he had "ONLY JUST" bashed his tooth at the time The Beatles filmed the promotionals MAY 19 and 20, 1966.  I was curious about the Briticism "only just", so I

checked the Oxford English online dictionary and they give the following definition of "only just":

 1.1 Very Recently

(example):  'I'd only just arrived back from Paris.'

 

Now take a look at a screen capture of Paul at the NME Poll Winners Concert from May 1, 1966:

 

NO broken tooth. And no scar on his lip.

 

So the timeframe for Paul's "accident" would really be sometime in early MAY, 1966.  And because Paul insisted on showing the broken tooth in the promotional films, I'm guessing the cause was NOT an accident.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yet Another Telling Interview

On March 25, 1966, Tom Lodge, who was a DJ for the English pirate station Radio Caroline, came to the Chelsea studio where that day Robert Whitaker was photographing The Beatles for what became the infamous "butcher cover" of the Yesterday and Today album.  Lodge interviewed The Beatles.  This interview was edited down to less than two minutes and included in a flexi-disc that had interviews of other English singers and musicians.

It was produced by Tony Barrow--The Beatles' public relations director-- to promote the new English pop music magazine, Disc and Music Echo--a merger of two older magazines.

Since Brian Epstein was part owner of the magazine, The Beatles were featured as the "headline act" on Side 2.  You can here the record on YouTube at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaF4quazrZw .

Here is the Paul and John part of the interview and Paul's last sentence is what makes this important:

     8:45-8:51  Lodge:  This was the time I came face-to-face with the one and only--yes, wait for it--The Beatles.
     8:52-8:59   John:  Well, ah, it's nice to be here in the actual captain's kitchen [NOTE: Pirate stations were housed in boats off the English coast] and the captain himself is stirring up a right old brew.
     8:59-9:03  Lodge:  Is it true that Paul and John, that you have ghost writers to write your songs for you?
     9:03-9:09  John (sarcastically):  Oh yeah, we have Gershwin and Trotsky, they write, they write the first four.
     9:09-9:11  Paul:  And Latin and Labattsky write the lyrics.
     9:11          John:  Yeah.
     9:12-9:16  Paul (mockingly)  The two best-selling lyric writers in the country.
     9:16-9:17  John:  We just do the P.R. for the boys, you know.
     9:17-9:20  Paul:  Yeah, we just do appearances in our moptops, you know.
     9:20          John:  Yeah.
     9:21-9:23  Lodge:  It's a hard life, isn't it?
     9:23-9:27  Paul:  Yeah, well it's very hard.  But just wander 'round.  WE'VE GOT DOUBLES FOR MOST OF THAT, AS WELL.

What I find remarkable, on the face of it, is that Barrow and Epstein would allow a contentious and confrontational interview with Paul and John to be aired publicly.  But it's pretty obvious by the ambush journalism nature of Lodge's questioning that things were not going well between  Epstein and the two Beatles.  So why would Epstein leave Paul's pointed reference to Beatle doubles in the interview?  I think it's because--just as I read time after time in comments by people who refuse to see the truth--the reality of the comment can be passed off as a joke.   

Paul's Reference At The 7/1/66 Concert To Being "Relocated"

I watched the entire July 1st. 1966 concert The Beatles gave at Tokyo's Nippon Budokan.  I'm convinced that this was our Paul at this concert and at the evening concert given on June 30th. 1966.  You can hear the full concert on YouTube at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhYh4PDMA-Y  and watch it on Dailymotion at:  http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2v24z7_1966-07-01-beatles-budokan-full-concert_music .

Near the end of the concert--right before they sing "I'm Down"--Paul says the following:  "Well, yes, thank you, this, this next song, now, ah, will have to, well, be our last song for this afternoon.  And, so, before we go we'd like to say to everybody:  Thank you for coming.  Thank you very much and we hope you've enjoyed it.  [his voice drops]  And, uh, yeah, so as we say in Runcorn:  [with emotion] sayonara."

What is this reference to Runcorn?

Runcorn was one of the towns designated a "new town" by the English government after World War 2.  These towns were either entirely concocted from scratch or--as in the case of Runcorn, for example--were relocations of old existing towns.  So there was an OLD Runcorn that had existed since ~A.D. 913 and a NEW Runcorn east of the old town that began its existence by decree of the English Government in April. 1964.  For information sake, the purpose of the new towns were to relocate poor people out of bombed-out or run-down housing or to house poor people of larger cities in smaller towns close to those cities.

Paul was aware of an old Runcorn and a new Runcorn* and I believe was making a rueful comment about being moved out of the old town {read, band) to a new town--in other words, being ousted from the group.  So he was saying good-bye in JAPAN to being a member of The Beatles.

          *Possibly because Brian Epstein's personal assistant, Alistair Taylor, had been born in Runcorn.  There is also the possibility that Paul was thinking about "retiring" to the new farm he had bought in Scotland, two weeks' prior.  Alistair Taylor had helped negotiate the purchase of the farm for Paul. 

A Small Reconsideration On My Last Post

In my last post I concluded that our John's real first name was Edward.  Check my 1/31/14 post, "The Moody Blues' Message To Eddie" where I discussed the Moody Blues' backmasked comment on  Eddie and also talked about George's and John's remarks about Beatle ED and Faul's [the group's last Paul] song, "There You Are Eddie."

Well, duh, since everyone is talking about Ed and Eddie, I decided the full name must be Edward.  Upon reflection (as they say), I thought of other common full names for ED:  Edgar, Edmund, and Edwin. 

 I did a little checking in the UK FreeBMD (Birth, Marriage, Death) directory.  I searched  the common English surnames of Smith, Jones, Taylor, Johnson, and Brown for births from 1940-1945 and found, while Edward was the overwhelmingly favorite first name, a fair number of boy babies had Eddie, Edgar, Edmund (and variations), and Edwin as the first name.

So if you are doing research on our John, keep that in mind.