Thankyou Sir Paul McCartney!

I would bet my house that this was written by Sir Paul McCartney. Full of northern humour and an extremely almost elegant arty form of biography of the mind. This was co-written of course and if it is fictional and just a great explanation of the Paul is dead conspiracy from the eyes of the man himself. Paul aiin't dead folks... he wrote this (And yes it's the same one you numptys). viva la Beast!

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What if...?

Imagine a parallel universe…

In this parallel, Paul McCartney dies in a car crash in late 1966 (11th September if you're American, 9th November if you're not). He is replaced by a near lookalike by the name of William Shepherd/Campbell (aka “Billy Shears”) who becomes an exact double after plastic surgery.

Now imagine you're this double. It’s well into the 21st Century and you've lived as McCartney more than twice as long as the ‘original' Paul. It’s time to set the record straight: to tell the world about The Beatles from 1967, the split, the rumours, Linda, Wings, John’s death, Linda’s death, and much more. You can't do this openly so you do it by means of the world’s longest poem, this memoir.

By the same confidentiality clause you can't even tell it straight, so you must put some fiction into the account so that the lawyers aren’t involved. What in this account is fiction and what is “fact” is never made clear, but some of the fictions are obvious:
1. You say you also played the part of Viv Stanshall of the Bonzo Dog Band. As Stanshall’s life is independently verifiable, this is clearly fiction.
2. You say you were a far better musician (songwriter; singer) than Paul who mostly wrote ‘silly love songs’. This of course ignores the fact that the ‘original' Paul wrote I Saw Her Standing There, Can't Buy Me Love, Yesterday, Eleanor Rigby, For No-one, Here There & Everywhere, so chalk this up as fiction.
3. You say Paul was deeply loved by the other 3 Beatles and his death left a huge hole that was not filled by the arrogant, ambitious, coercive, workaholic you. Again, there is no evidence of this, but there is evidence in our universe that even by Rubber Soul and Revolver, Paul - much more than the other three - was becoming quite deeply involved in the recording process, which in turn led to his becoming the de facto leader of the band after Epstein’s death.
4. You claim several leading artists of the day were also “in the know”, and made references to it in some of their work. ‘Mellow Yellow’ (Donovan), ‘Ruby Tuesday’, ‘We Love You’, and other songs by The Stones, ‘’I Can See For Miles’, Won't Get Fooled Again' (The Who). There is no independent evidence for any of this, so again… fiction!

You serve up some content with a knowing smile, for example the chapters on numerology, and the mentions of the Illuminati so beloved of conspiracy theorists. I get the impression we are quite possibly meant to take these as fictional?

Your thesis that Paul died and that you - similar in some ways but very different in others - replaced him in autumn 1966, is made much more believable by the fact that The Beatles stopped touring in late summer 1966; that they became in effect a very different band from then on - studio-based, not touring, and as individuals all looking completely transformed and thus different from the moptops who went on tour. In our universe (but not the parallel, in which 'anything goes') how much more convincing it is to promote a 'Paul Is Dead' myth that dates from exactly then and not before or after?

Talking of conspiracy theories, many of the ‘Paul Is Dead’ clues have now been discredited, so you acknowledge a lot of these ‘from a distance’. To give one example, the OPD patch Paul wears on the sleeve of Sgt Pepper’s (‘Officially Pronounced Dead’) is now known to be OPP (Ontario Provincial Police), so you say that you leant forward so that it LOOKED like OPD.

Anyway. Throw in a lot of additional typically Paul psychology and philosophy of life, gleaned no doubt from many sources, and here you are: the Memoirs of Billy Shears.

Is there any truth in it? Of course. Paul is on record since 1966 for much more than before that year, so a lot of it is uncontroversial. As for the rest of it - that’s for you, dear reader, to decide.

(Audio footnote: there are many ‘drop outs’, the majority only very brief, but it can make the listening experience confusing at times.
George Martin’s son Gregory, who does the reading, does give a passable imitation of McCartney; not unnervingly close but acceptable.)

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2 people found this helpful

Brilliant .

I’ve looked into the Paul is dead theory for a long long time and this is a must for everyone who is interested.

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6 people found this helpful

This is the book that finally woke me up!

What an amazing listen. I read the book first, but I love the fact that I can listen to chapters again and find new clues that I missed first time around. I have corroborated most of the info where possible, but I found the best way was to just listen to the mentioned songs and compared pre 66 Paul to post 66 Faul and it was obvious. We have all been brainwashed into forgetting the wonderful, beautiful, natural scouse Paul. Don't get me wrong Faul is massively more musically talented than Paul and Wings wrote one of the most important albums, full of clues is Ram! Give it a listen, now knowing what you know and the lyrics will jump out at you! Welcome to the Awakening and go watch Fall of the Cabal and Out of the Shadows for more TRUTH. 🙏❤️

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2 people found this helpful