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Why did people think ‘Long, Long, Long’ simulated Paul McCartney’s death?

Thu 28 August 2025 16:30, UK

It’s famously hard to win an argument with a conspiracy theorist; the truth can bend and definitives can be eluded at their own convenience. Which is why, when a living Paul McCartney tried to comfort The Beatles fans in 1966 and confirm he was not in fact dead, he found it increasingly difficult to be trusted.

So what even happened? Well, in 1967, Beatles fans were truly convinced that their most prized songwriter had tragically lost his life in a car accident. The story goes that McCartney rushed out of a Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band recording session, in a manic frenzy with his bandmates.

Raging from whatever altercation was supposed to have happened, McCartney got into his Austin Healey and sped off before crashing to his death. The rumour mill that followed was suitably gruesome and outlandish, with fans convinced that in a bid to cover up the tragedy, the band enlisted William Shears Campbell (apparently referenced as Billy Shears on Sgt Pepper) as his seamless replacement.

Which, I’m not sure the fans in question were aware of, meant that McCartney’s looks and demeanor were not only commonplace, but so was his musicianship which is exactly what won their fandom in the first place.

The rumour mill continued to swirl, and the ridiculousness of McCartney’s own life being called into question provoked a response from the songwriter, who said, “I am alive and well and concerned about the rumours of my death. But if I were dead, I would be the last to know”.

Naturally, fans convinced of the tragedy couldn’t take McCartney, or Shears’ word for it and so were delivered another statement from a fan-led newsletters, which read: “The 7th January was very icy, with dangerous conditions on the M1 motorway, linking London with the Midlands, and towards the end of the day, a rumour swept London that Paul McCartney had been killed in a car crash on the M1. But, of course, there was absolutely no truth in it at all, as the Beatles’ Press Officer found out when he telephoned Paul’s St John’s Wood home and was answered by Paul himself.”

The severity of this news story quickly dissolved, and The Beatles realised it should be a source of fun. In their famous hit ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, Lennon exclaims what he says was the phrase “cranberry sauce” but with enough vocal gymnastics to have conspiracy theorists believing it was “I buried Paul!”.

So, what does ‘Long Long Long’ have to do with it?

Given how fun-loving and prolific the band were in the studio by the late 1960s, the fun didn’t stop at ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’. At the end of ‘Long Long Long’, a track from the second side of their iconic double album The White Album, a certain hypnotic noise can be heard at the end.

Following relatively arbitrary yet existential lyrics, the sort primed for a conspiracy theorist, the sound of a bottle of Blue Nun white wine vibrating on top of an amp plays out. In true Beatles fashion, they made it sound somewhat psychedelic and intentional, but really it was just a by-product of the sort of creative fun they were having in the studio.

But many mistook that noise for confirmation of the rumours. They believed the haunting echo was a simulation of McCartney’s death, a sound to represent his slow and painful exit from the world. Combined with musings of “So many tears I was searching” and all fans were certain that this was the sonic nail in McCartney’s coffin.