As of today one month had elapsed since The Beatles’ last concert and George’s declaration that “I’m not a Beatle anymore.” In the interim, he and his bandmates had more or less been living the lives of non-Beatles — traveling (Paul and George), acting (John), and who knows what else (Ringo).
With so little Beatles-related activity going on, the world was getting a little restless (as is your humble scribe, who is finding very little to report on in this period between Candlestick Park and the beginning of the Sgt. Pepper sessions). So people began to create news by speculating that The Beatles had broken up or that Paul had been slain in a bloody car crash.
In some parallel universes, one or more of these was true. People in those parallel universes have to live without the White Album and Abbey Road — and they don’t even know it, the poor bastards.
And in other parallel universes (possibly — though not necessarily — Yoko-less universes), The Beatles stayed together into the 70s. I’d love to hear the albums they made with Lee “Scratch” Perry and/or Brian Eno.
In our present reality, though, patience is called for; there’s all of October still to get through. Imagine George, playing one note over and over on his sitar with one leg bent back over his head; John, running endlessly through the opening bars of “Strawberry Fields”; Paul smoking copious amounts of Moroccan hash and daydreaming of red, green, and purple peppers; or Ringo, sitting quietly on his drum stool waiting for someone to tell him what to play.
Or as Hopeton Lewis put it in his song released around this time:
“Paul is dead” didn’t happen until after the release of Abbey Road. Good luck getting through October.
In “Glass Onion,” though, Lennon says “Here’s another clue for you all.” Isn’t that a “Paul is dead” reference?