Flashback: John & Joko meet, Paul is dead???

It was 40 years ago today (November 9th, 1966), that John Lennon and Yoko Ono first met. Ono was preparing a conceptual art show at a London's Indica Gallery, which was owned by Lennon's friend John Dunbar. Lennon was invited to peruse the exhibition the night before the show opened, which led to the future couple being introduced.

Lennon recalled the meeting to Rolling Stone in 1970, saying that, "I got the humor in her work immediately. I didn't have to have much knowledge about avant garde or underground art, but the humor got me straight away... There was a fresh apple on a stand and it was 200 (British pounds) to watch it decompose."

Lennon eventually went on to sponsor several of Ono's exhibitions, prior to the pair becoming lovers in the spring of 1968. Lennon and Ono were married on March 20th, 1969.

In other historical Beatles news:

Today also marks the 40th anniversary of what was rumored to be the day Paul McCartney died. The legendary conspiracy theory that Macca died in a horrific car accident was first brought to the public's attention nearly two years later, shortly after the release of the Beatles' Abbey Road album.

According to legend, an angry McCartney stormed out of a Beatles recording session in the early hours of November 9th, 1966, which was supposedly referenced by the band as "Stupid bloody Tuesday" in 1967's "I Am The Walrus." He then supposedly died in a car crash. And because the Beatles feared that their fans would never accept his death, they supposedly hired an unnamed winner of a British McCartney look-alike contest, named William Campbell, to replace Macca.

The band was said to have included various death clues in their songs and album covers to slowly break the news of McCartney's demise to fans.

The first hole in the theory, which many "Paul Is Dead" conspiracists seem to overlook, is that the Beatles didn't hold a recording session on that day -- their first session that autumn was on November 24th. A second obvious hole is that November 9th, 1966 actually fell on a Wednesday.

Among the many "Paul Is Dead" clues found on the Beatles' albums and singles were:

On the fade of "Strawberry Fields Forever," John Lennon is presumed to twice mutter the phrase "I buried Paul." Lennon later went on record explaining that he was saying "cranberry sauce."

On the cover of 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band album, Macca is wearing a patch on his uniform stating "O.P.D." Many assumed that this meant "Officially Pronounced Dead." The truth was later explained that it was one of the many police badges and patches given to the group during their American tours, with O.P.D. standing for Ottawa Police Department.

On the front cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, McCartney is shown holding an oboe, the only instrument held by a group member not featured in a marching band.

The flowers in the foreground of the Pepper sleeve are designed to look like a bass guitar, albeit one with only three strings, symbolizing three Beatles. That, along McCartney posing with his back to the camera on the back cover, were also considered "death clues."

The announcement of "Billy Shears" during the introduction to "With A Little Help From My Friends" was thought to be an subtle band introduction to McCartney's supposed replacement, William Campbell.

On the poster included with the group's 1968 The Beatles album, commonly referred to as The White Album, a photo featuring skeleton hands appears to be reaching out for McCartney.

On the album's penultimate song "Revolution #9," the repeated phrase "Number nine" when played backwards sounds alarmingly like a voice saying, "Turn me on dead man."

The cover to 1969's Abbey Road album cover was "decoded" as perhaps the ultimate death clue, with each Beatle portraying a character at a funeral; Lennon as an angel; Ringo Starr as a priest; the barefoot McCartney -- who is walking out of step with the others, and as a lefty, strangely smoking a cigarette in his right hand -- as the corpse; and George Harrison dressed as a grave digger. The white Volkswagen in the left corner bears the license plate "28 IF," which was thought to mean, "28 years old, if he had lived." (At the time of the album's cover shoot on August 8th, 1969, McCartney would have actually only been 27.)

The back cover, which featured a cropped photo of a woman walking near the Abbey Road street sign in St. Johns Wood in London, has been perceived as being an abstract image symbolizing McCartney's face crashing through his car windshield.

Lenon's "Come Together" lyric of "One and one and one is three" is supposedly the surviving Beatles' declaration that McCartney is indeed dead.

Although the Beatles issued no comment on Macca's supposed death, due to album sales being at an all-time peak with fans searching for "death clues," McCartney eventually addressed the issue after being tracked down on his Scottish farm. On November 7th, 1969 Life magazine featured a cover of McCartney, wife Linda, and daughters Heather and Mary, with the title Paul Is Still With Us.

For more information on the "Paul Is Dead" rumor, log on to turnmeondeadman.net/IBP/Intro.html.
Submit the above story to:

Del.icio.us   Digg   reddit   StumbleUpon   Facebook