I Buried Paul = Cranberry Sauce

Not only was Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band released forty years ago, but so did the rumors that Paul McCartney had died as well. It seems that in addition to "changing the world," the youth of the world also had plenty of time to sit around, smoke pot, and stare at the cover of Sgt. Pepper to the point where they started to believe their own stoned babble.
There's a part of me that would like to think that the rest of The Beatles caught wind of the circulating rumor and contributed to it. John, most notably in "Glass Onion" from The White Album, speaks to it with the "Here's another clue for you all: The Walrus was Paul" line. Common sense would think that at least some of the general public would consider that the band, particularly Lennon, were having a laugh at the entire topic.
Finally, on October 22, 1969, McCartney found himself properly addressing the topic during an interview, unexpectedly denying rumors of his death.
Conspiracy theorists may wish to consider the idea that this fake McCartney was already entrenched in discontent with the rest of The Beatles and that a break-up at that time was evident. So, in order to ensure future success as the fake McCartney solo artist, he proactively addressed the "rumor." The fake McCartney theory is completely plausible when one considers shit like Back To The Egg.
Strangely, my Father introduced the idea of the "Paul Is Dead" conspiracy when I was a young child. I was good enough to enlighten our elementary music teacher, herself a young, petite fresh-out-of-college-so-this-is-my-first-teaching-gig kind of woman who seemed genuinely too prissy to be part of the dope-smoking Beatles crowd.
There were two glaring examples of how she might have run with those crowds.
The first was that she had the business card of Ambulance in her Rolodex. Ambulance was a fairly visual hard rock band that toured the tri-state area in the mid-70's, playing the obligatory hard rock covers in between their own material. The business card label Ambulance as "Emergency Rock & Roll." Sidenote: the guitarist, who was aping a Rick Nielsen image, referred to himself as "Johnny Siren." I saw him walking down the street, years after I saw Ambulance play at the annual street fair, and screamed "Hey! It's Johnny! Johnny Siren!" at him, causing Johnny to quicken his pace. Ah, the perils of local stardom...
Anyway, the music teacher had Ambulance's business card in her Rolodex at school.
She also had a list on a legal pad. I went up and looked at it once when she was distracted.
"People surrounding freshly dug grave"
"Marijuana plants by grave"
"flower arrangement of left-handed bass guitar by grave"
"Hand above Paul's head"
I knew she was writing a list of clues that pointed to the death of Paul McCartney, although I will admit the pot plant clue was completely new to me at the time. I suppose that it's good that a sixth grader doesn't know what a pot plant looks like.
She caught me looking at the list and I asked the obligatory questions like "Is this about The Beatles?" and "Are these clues to Paul's death?" My knowledge on the subject startled her, but it must have placed me in a different category in her social skills. A few year later, she took my opinions about The Cars' debut album to heart and bought it.
"If you play "Revolution 9" backwards, it says "turn me on dead man" I offered.
The next day, she brought in her copy of The White Album and we played it backwards on the music room's industrial strength record player. If you put the speed selector in between the numbers, the turntable would stop and allow for you to hear what's being played on the speak. The action created a prevalent hum while doing it, but it wasn't bad enough for us not to hear "Turn me on, dead man!" in every backwards spin of the guy saying "Number Nine" over and over. You've got to spin it just right and totally believe in such bullshit, but it's there.
She added "Turn me on dead man sounds when "Revolution 9" is played backwards" on to her legal pad, making my suggestion an official part of her investigation.
I couldn't have been more proud of myself.