Q. What was the Canadian connection to those "Paul McCartney is dead" rumours back in 1969?
A. If you've got one, pull out your copy of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album and open it up. You'll notice that in the centre spread photo McCartney is wearing an O.P.P. (Ontario Provincial Police) badge on his left arm. The last letter is obscured, but that's what the badge signifies.
There were many supposed "clues" flying around in 1969 that hinted that McCartney had really died a couple of years before. Among the other ideas tossed into the rumour mill were: That by playing one of the Beatles' songs backward you'd hear the message "Paul is dead"; that on the back of the Sgt. Pepper album he's the only Beatle with his back turned because the extensive facial plastic surgery for his look-alike, a man named William Campbell, wasn't finished yet; that his walking barefoot on the cover of the Abbey Road album was a symbol of death; and that the licence plate on the Volkswagen in the background read IF-28 — what McCartney's age would have been had he lived.
The badge was another key "clue." People who believed the real Paul was dead thought the badge's letters were O.P.D., which were said to stand for "Officially Pronounced Dead." In the book "Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney," author Geoffrey Giuliano writes that the badge was given to McCartney as a souvenir by a Canadian cop. Others say a fan sent it to him.
Eventually the rumours died down, but, spurred perhaps by the event, Abbey Road was The Beatles' biggest selling album.
The badge was another key "clue." People who believed the real Paul was dead thought the badge's letters were O.P.D., which were said to stand for "Officially Pronounced Dead." In the book "Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney," author Geoffrey Giuliano writes that the badge was given to McCartney as a souvenir by a Canadian cop. Others say a fan sent it to him.
Eventually the rumours died down, but, spurred perhaps by the event, Abbey Road was The Beatles' biggest selling album.