The most common tale is that on Wednesday,
9 November 1966 at 5 am, McCartney, while working on the
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, stormed out of a recording session after an argument with the other Beatles and rode off in his
Aston Martin which he subsequently crashed into a lamp post, and died.
[5]
The story was pieced together from the lyrics of multiple Beatles songs. The most common narrative includes the following pieces of evidence:
- "He didn't notice that the lights had changed" ("A Day in the Life").
- He then crashed into a lamp-post (a car crash sound is heard in "Revolution 9" and "A Day in the Life").
- He was pronounced dead on a "Wednesday morning at 5 o'clock as the day begins" ("She's Leaving Home")
- Nobody found this out because the news was withheld: "Wednesday morning papers didn't come" ("Lady Madonna").
- A funeral procession was held days later, as was supposedly implied on the Abbey Road album cover by the Beatles' clothing. (John Lennon dressed all in white, like a clergyman. Ringo Starr wore a black suit, like an undertaker. Paul McCartney wore a suit without shoes, and walked out of step with the other Beatles. George Harrison's denim outfit could be said to resemble that of a gravedigger.
- Adding fuel to the legend is the ending of "Strawberry Fields Forever". Some believed John said "I buried Paul" in a slow deep voice over the final refrain. He later said the phrase is actually "cranberry sauce".
According to believers, McCartney was replaced with the winner of a McCartney look-alike contest. The name of this look-alike has been recorded as William Shears Campbell, Billy Shears (the name of the fictitious leader of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band), William Sheppard (based on the alleged inspiration for the song "
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill"), or some combination of the names.
[9]
There is no evidence of any crash in which McCartney was involved, although during the first week of January 1967, McCartney's custom-made
Mini Cooper was wrecked by a friend on the
M1 Motorway outside
London. McCartney
was involved in a
moped crash on
December 26,
1965, which resulted in a chipped tooth and the scar on his lip that can be seen on promotional videos for the "
Paperback Writer"/"
Rain" single, made shortly after the crash, in May 1966.
[9] According to McCartney, his desire to hide the scar on his lip was the impetus to grow a moustache.
McCartney has said about the rumor: "Anyway all of the things that have been, that have made these rumors, to my mind have very ordinary, logical explanations. To the people's minds who prefer to think of them as rumors, then I am not going to interfere, I am not going to spoil that fantasy. You can think of it like that if you like. However, if the end result, the conclusion you reach is that I am dead, then you are wrong, because I am very much alive, I am alive and living in Scotland."
[10]
