Turn Me On, Dead Man: The Complete Story of the Paul McCartney Death Hoax
Andru J. Reeve
The timing was right. Paul had been spending all his time with his just-increased family and not doing interviews to keep himself in the press. Deep into the religion of British rock, American college students were on acid and ready for a new post-Kennedy conspiracy to sink their teeth into. So when “Tom” called a Detroit rock-talk radio show and repeated an old British rumor that the cute Beatle had been killed in a car wreck and replaced with a look-alike and that the Beatles had planted “clues” all over their songs and record covers, a college newspaper reporter heard this and ran a hoax story about the “tragedy” (years in advance of Negativland’s ax murder hoax!), and something clicked. Every wire service ran the “story,” and “backward masking” was upon us forever. With feet completely on the ground, the book sensibly follows how the rumor spread and then looks at and debunks the main “clues” in the legend. The obscure “John started it as revenge for the ‘bigger than Jesus’” debacle is enjoyably mentioned—and in the book’s only nod toward conspiracy, the author concludes most bizarrely by questioning rocker Terry Knight’s audience with Paul at Apple Corps UK, and Maclen Music’s subsequent song publishing of Knight’s Capitol Records 45 in the U.S. called “Saint Paul.” MS
Publisher: Popular Culture Ink
Hardback: 224 pages
Illustrated