Original publish date: November 17, 2011 Reissue date: June 20, 2019
The last couple of weeks have witnessed yet another sign of the staying power of the Beatles as a couple of items hit the auction block at two different auction houses in Great Britain. One of them is historically significant while the other is slightly creepy.
On Saturday November 5th, the tooth fairy was denied when a tooth belonging to former Beatle John Lennon was sold by Omega Auction House in Cheshire England. (Admit it, an image of Austin Powers saying “Yeah, baby” just flashed through your mind.) Americans have long parodied the English and their bad teeth. The thought of actually paying money for the tooth of anyone, let alone a Beatle, may repulse and revile you. However, 49-year-old dentist Michael Zuk from Calgary, Alberta, Canada thought enough of the relic to plunk down $ 31,200 to own it.
Zuk, a crusading whistle-blowing dentist and author of the 2010 book, “Confessions of a Former Cosmetic Dentist”, has practiced dentistry in the Canadian town of Red Deer for 25 years. He admitted he hoped the high profile tooth purchase might draw attention to his book. He said Lennon’s tooth is another example of how even celebrity’s teeth can be imperfect. “It’s visibly rotten and contains a large hole, Zuk said, adding it’s likely a second or third molar from the lower part of Lennon’s mouth. I’m guessing Lennon may have had an acid reflux problem caused by the rock star lifestyle.” says Dr. Zuk. “That’s my speculation, he had a stomach problem that caused a massive cavity.” Zuk said. The Doctor says he’s already making plans to take it on tour and show it off at dental schools worldwide. He added it could be used for future research. “The nerve of the tooth is dried up and inside,” he said. “But that’s where DNA would be if in the future people are interested in trying to clone John Lennon.”
The molar, slightly yellowed with heavy coffee stains and a large cavity, was given to Dorothy “Dot” Jarlett, John Lennon’s housekeeper for half-a-decade. The story goes that one day Lennon encountered the housekeeper in the kitchen of his Kenwood home in Weybridge, Surrey. John, having just returned home from a trip to the dentist, gave Dot the tooth wrapped in a piece of paper and asked her to dispose of it for him. Then John paused for a moment and suggested that Dot give it to her daughter as a souvenir, since she was such a huge Beatles fan. Dot Jarlett’s daughter cherished the sacred relic and when she married a Canadian, she brought her Beatle biting bicuspid into the marital union. The tooth has been “living” in Canada for all but a couple of the last 45 years.
Dot Jarlett, who was employed by Lennon from 1964 to 1968, developed a warm relationship with John. Lennon’s mother died in an automobile accident less than a decade before when Lennon was just 17-years-old. He was in his mid-twenties and Dot was in her mid-forties during their association. Undoubtedly, Dot filled a void in Lennon’s life as a much needed maternal figure during her employ, thus strengthening the connection between the two. Dot’s son Barry told BBC News, “He treated her like family because he didn’t really have a very big family and he really looked after my mum. He used to call her Aunty Dot.”
While “Aunty Dot” is selling the tooth, she plans to keep a leather wallet and a pearl necklace Lennon gave to her after returning from a concert tour of Japan. Lennon gave the Jarlett family many gifts over the years. A few years ago, Dot sold the jacket worn by John on the “Rubber Soul” album cover, also given to her by Lennon. Dot, who is now 90-years-old, said it was the right time to pass it on rather than to risk the tooth getting lost. Auction house experts have determined that the tooth is too fragile to conduct a DNA test but they have no doubt about its authenticity and point to the impeccable provenance that accompanies it.
Of course, this isn’t the first Rock-N-Roll body part to be sold at auction. In 2009, a clump of hair trimmed from Elvis Presley’s head after he famously joined the Army in 1958 sold for $18,300 at Chicago’s Leslie Hindman auction house. Lennon, who was a huge fan of the King, would be pleased to share that stage.
Less sensational, but undoubtedly more historically significant, 10 days later on Tuesday November 16, 2011, a placard for John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1969 “Bed-In for Peace” sold for $155,892 by Christie’s International auction house in London. The winning bid for this anti-Vietnam War movement relic came from an unidentified phone bidder. The handwritten cardboard rectangular sign featured the slogan: “BED PEACE” and could be seen behind John & Yoko in the window directly behind them when they spent seven days occupying rooms in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Canada.
The Montreal bed-in came two months after the couple’s honeymoon bed-in in Amsterdam and was their take on a sit-in. Lennon’s idea was for protesters to stay in bed and grow their hair rather than doing anything violent. The couple opened their hotel room door to the world’s media and spoke to journalists, politicians and artists trying to promote the idea of peace in the world. They also found time to record the anthem Give Peace a Chance. Many artworks and placards were created over the week and were moved around and given away but the Bed Peace sign was a constant.
The placard, signed and dated by the couple, was acquired by a sound engineer who attended the event. He passed it on to a colleague, whose family kept the relic safe ever since. The message “BED PEACE” was scrawled in black ink on a piece of plain manila colored foam board. The two words were outlined and then colored in with black felt tip by John Lennon himself. John and Yoko produced many artworks during the event but this was one of only two kept prominently above the bed (The other was a sign that read “Hair Peace”). Many were moved around the room and some were given away to friends and fans. However, the sign sold at the Christie’s auction was displayed in the window of the Montreal hotel room (Suite 1742) for the couple’s entire stay. It can be seen in nearly every picture taken of the pajama-bathrobe clad couple as they called for an end to the Vietnam War. The sign includes John’s self doodled mini-portrait of the newlyweds and is signed by both Lennon and Ono.
The sign is not the only item from the Montreal “Bed-In” to be auctioned by the famed auction house recently. On July 10, 2008, Lennon’s hand-written lyrics for “Give Peace a Chance” sold for $800,000 at Christie’s. When Lennon gave teenager Gail Renard his scribbled lyrics to “Give Peace a Chance” in 1969, he told her to hold on to the cue card. “It will be worth something someday,” predicted Lennon. She did, and it was.
Renard, a teenage fan who sneaked past security guards, was among the first to arrive. She befriended Lennon, helped look after Ono’s young daughter, Kyoto, and made copies of the song Lennon wrote during the “bed-in” so their friends could read the lyrics and record it in the room. “It was a bit ‘Mission Impossible,'” Renard recalled. “It was back up back staircases and fire escapes and waiting until the security guard — until nature called — and the moment he went away, running in, knocking on the door, and Yoko answered, and I said, ‘Could we have an interview for a school magazine?’ and she said, ‘Yes’! ” They were wonderful. We were lucky. It was before the world’s press got in, and they had just arrived, and John was very tired and hungry, and they couldn’t get room service yet, and I had a Hershey bar in my handbag, and I said, ‘Would you like a chocolate bar?’ And he went, ‘Yes, please.’ And we bonded over a Hershey bar! … He was a lovely man.”
The lyrics, she added, were “on my wall originally, but then somebody pointed out, ‘Is it really wise keeping it on your wall”‘ And it became a responsibility, because it had to go into a vault and things, and I thought, ‘It should be enjoyed. It has to be enjoyed and seen, and remember why John wrote it in the first place. John and Yoko did it for love and peace.'” Renard, now a British-based TV writer and presenter, developed a lifelong friendship with Lennon, who helped launch her journalism career by placing an article she wrote about the bed-in in the Beatles Monthly magazine. The actual recording of “Give Peace a Chance” took about five minutes. It became a worldwide hit after it was touched up in the studio. A number of famous guests, including Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg and Tommy Smothers, sang on the record, which went to No. 14 on the Billboard charts. The song is a simple, casual affair recorded without any of the Beatles’ typically high level of musicianship and artistry, but the phrase “Give Peace a Chance” has entered the popular lexicon, surviving long after Lennon’s death in 1980.
Who’d have thought that a cue card, a sign or a tooth could be worth so much money? There was no such thing as rock memorabilia back in 1969. Who could have predicted what a big business Rock-N-Roll would become? 
Almost immediately conspiratorialists saw the Abbey Road album cover as a funeral procession. Leading the procession is John dressed in white, symbolizing the clergy. Next comes Ringo, dressed in black like an undertaker. Paul, the presumed corpse, is third in line and walks out of step with the other Beatles, he is barefoot and his eyes are closed. George brings up the rear, dressed in work clothes the supposed gravedigger. Also, Paul is smoking a cigarette, also known as a “coffin nail”. The fact that he is holding the cigarette in his right hand, even though the “real” Paul McCartney was left handed, only added to the belief that this was an impostor posing as the dead bassist. 
The death clues were not confined to the image of the lads in the crosswalk however. For behind the Beatles on the left side of the street is a Volkswagen Beetle with a license plate reading “LMW 28IF”, suggesting that Paul would have been 28 if he were still alive. Actually Paul would have been 27 when Abbey Road was released. This seeming miscalculation was explained away by the rumorists with the fact that Paul studied mysticism in the Near East. Most mystics believe we are all one year old at birth (counting the nine months of pregnancy) confirming that Paul would have been 28 IF he had lived!.” The first three letters on the license place, “LMW,” were interpreted as “Linda McCartney Weeps”. On the right side of the road is a police van, seen as a reference to the cover up of Paul’s death by police.
Perhaps as expected, the clues are not only confined to the front cover, for devoted clueseekers, many hidden secrets can be found on the back cover as well. To the left of the tiles spelling out “Beatles” are eight dots, which when connected form the number “3”, so the back cover actually reads “3 Beatles”. Also, there is a crack in the “S” at the end of “Beatles”. Some say that to the right of the tiles is an odd shadow that looks like a skull.
Finally, on the “Let It Be” cover, the album cover is black. Said to symbolize the end, or death, of the Beatles. Or maybe it was to symbolize the death of a Beatle? The background squares of John, George, and Ringo’s photos are all adorned in white. While Paul’s square is depicted with a blood red background. Also, Paul is shown facing forward rather than in three-quarter profile. Another indication of Paul’s death is seen by the fact that he grew a beard, seen by some religions as a sign of death and mourning. The rest of The Beatles’ beards are clues as well, as they all indicate that the three surviving members are in mourning for their lost bandmate.
Cole, a Florida salesman, was on vacation with his wife, who wanted to go see “yet another museum.” Mr. Cole decided to wait outside on the north London thoroughfare. Cole watched as photographer Iain McMillan stood on a stepladder in the middle of the street, photographing the four Beatles as they walked, single-file, across Abbey Road. The entire shoot lasted 10 minutes. “I just happened to look up, and I saw those guys walking across the street like a line of ducks,” Cole remembered. “A bunch of kooks, I called them, because they were rather radical-looking at that time. You didn’t walk around in London barefoot.”
The stark snow white album cover was seen as an obvious reference to the white light of heaven, where Paul was supposed to be at its release. But it was the poster issued inside the white album (a collage featuring a number of random images of the Fab Four) that came under the scrutiny of those looking for “Paul is Dead” clues. In the lower right hand corner of the poster (page 7 of the CD booklet) is a grainy B&W photo of Paul dancing. Upon close examination, a pair of ghostly hands can be seen reaching toward Paul from behind.
The song “Glass Onion” makes a number of references to Beatle songs and events. John mentions “The Fool on the Hill” and states, “I tell you man he living there still” thought by some to symbolize heaven. However, perhaps the most intriguing line in the song is “Well here’s another clue for you all…The walrus was Paul.” Seen as a final bow to his fallen bandmate and co-songwriter. Some sources have suggested that the phrase “goo goo g’joob” is from Finnegans Wake by James Joyce (Alas, the phrase “googoo goosth” is the closest Joyce gets in th book.) Never fear, the “Paul is Dead” rumorists claim that “goo goo g’joob” are the last words uttered by Humpty Dumpty before his fall. A fall that cracked his head open, much like Paul’s supposed fatal car accident.
Revolution 9 was an innovative sound collage that, quite frankly, soared over most listener‘s heads. Later transcripts of the dialog heard early in the song reveals two men who can be heard saying “I know all about it George. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me? Yes.” Theorists claimed that this was John talking with George Martin about the secret placement of clues on Beatles records. However, the biggest clue to Paul’s death on the track is the title itself, whose repeated phrase “Number 9” is said to sound like “turn me on, dead man” when played backwards. A dark recall to the line “I’d love to turn you on” from “A Day in the Life”.
Ardent believers believed that other “Backwards” clues could be found on the track “I’m so tired / Blackbird” when some random mumbling is heard that they believe sounds like John and Yoko right after the abrupt ending of “I’m So Tired” and before the beginning of the next song, “Blackbird“. This passage makes no sense when played forwards. However, when played backwards, they believe that you can hear John say, “Paul is a dead man. Miss him. Miss him. MISS HIM!” John Lennon was said to be expressing his grief over Paul’s death in this line of the song followed by the very next line on the record, sung by Paul, “Blackbird singing in the dead of night”, that mentions death.
Magical Mystery Tour was released on December 8, 1967. After the success of Sgt. Pepper’s, Paul McCartney wanted to create a film based upon The Beatles and their music. The film was to be unscripted and would “star” various “ordinary” people who were to travel the countryside on a bus and experience “magical” adventures on film. The Magical Mystery Tour film was made and included six new Beatles songs. The film was universally panned and largely forgotten, but the resulting album / soundtrack is considered a classic. Produced by George Martin, Magical Mystery Tour was packaged by Capitol records as a full LP with a 24-page companion picture booklet.
On page 23, the Beatles are all wearing stark white tuxedos with carnations in the lapels. Paul’s flower is black while the other Beatles have red flowers. Years later, Paul denied that the black carnation had any significance at all; “I was wearing a black flower because they ran out of red ones.”
And on the final page of the photo booklet, once again, a hand appears over Paul’s head. Although this instance of a hand over Paul’s head isn’t nearly as dramatic as the Sgt. Pepper’s cover photo because several people have their hands raised above their heads in this picture. But it certainly did nothing to ease the conspiracies.
However, there is one compelling image in the pages of the pictorial book that, when analyzed, virtually screamed out to all those looking for signs of death in the Beatles’ works to substantiate the rumors of Paul’s premature passing. On page 8 of the booklet, a dining scene, at the left of the image (but on the right as the image is rotated one turn clockwise), with a little imagination, you can see a skull in this picture. It occupies the left side of the picture, with the beret of the person seated at the table forming the eye and the hair of the woman seated next to him the mouth. Like a “Magic Eye” painting, once you’ve accepted it as a skull, it’s easy to see the damage to the top of the head. This grisly image suggests the damage to Paul’s head as a result of his car crash. The fact that this picture, unlike all of the other images in the booklet, does not appear in the movie again only encouraged the “Paul is Dead” crowd as proof of his passing.
Theorists would claim a connection between Paul’s supposed Walrus costume and the death rumor, but the real controversy revolved around the word “Beatles” above the lad’s heads that purportedly reveal a secret phone number. As Rolling Stone famously pointed out, it’s not exactly clear what that phone number is supposed to be. Depending on whom you ask it could be read as “231-7438, 834-7135, 536-0195, 510-6643, 546-3663, 624-7125, no telling what city, maybe London.” If you turn the album cover upside down and hold it in front of a mirror you can see the numbers 8341735, which is a stretch because the threes, the seven and the five are backwards. If you simply hold the album cover upside-down, the numbers could be 5371438. Of course, there is no area code. The rumor claimed that when this number was dialed, the caller would receive information about Paul’s death, or the person would be able to take a trip to “Magical Beatle Mystery Island”, or maybe even speak to Paul in the hereafter. Stories circulated about the strange responses callers were receiving from the voices on the other end of the phone line. Later it was discovered that one of the phone numbers belonged to a journalist who was nearly driven crazy by the numerous phone calls from people hoping to connect with the late Paul McCartney.
But it was the music contained on the album that offered the clue seekers the most tantalizing hints at Paul’s demise. One of the best known “Paul is dead” audio clues comes at the end of “Strawberry Fields Forever”. As the song fades out for the second time, John allegedly says “I buried Paul.”‘ This audio clue can be heard more clearly when the record is played at 45 rpm as John’s voice is slowed down to a virtual crawl. Years later, John admitted that he was really saying “cranberry sauce,” which became evident on the “take 7 and edit piece” version of the song that appeared on Anthology II in 1996. Paul explained “That’s John’s humor. John would say something totally out of sync, like ‘cranberry sauce.’ If you don’t realize that John’s apt to say something like ‘cranberry sauce’ when he feels like it, then you start to hear a funny little word there, and you think aha!”
The album, movie and pictorial booklet are arguably the most ambitious effort ever attempted by the Fab Four. Completed at a time when the Beatles were still having fun, but questioning their viability at the same time. Although they saw themselves as a rock band, their fans were looking at them as modern day prophets. Undoubtedly, this view was responsible in large part for the devastation perceived by the “Paul is Dead” rumors that continued to swirl around the band. The band’s next effort, “The White Album”, would do nothing to help end the controversy.
During that last tour, the airplane they were traveling in was shot at as they landed in Texas, and a prankster threw a firecracker at the stage during their Memphis show which everyone thought at first was a gunshot. The Beatles were burnt out and the band had had enough. The band’s attitude and message became darker and soon, concerts became dangerous as the Beatles’ started to receive death threats after some comments made by John Lennon at a press conference that year. John’s quote “the Beatles are bigger than Jesus” was taken out of context and according to John Lennon, “upset the very Christian KKK”. In the Philippines they unintentionally offended Imelda Marcos, a former beauty queen, by not meeting with her privately before their show. Filipino citizens took this as an excuse to rob, harass and threaten death to the Beatles. They stopped touring soon after the show at Candlestick Park in San Francisco on August 29, 1966. Less than six months later, the McCartney death rumor had reached a fever pitch worldwide and just like Paul himself, it refused to die.
On the inside photo, Paul is wearing a patch on his band uniform with the letters “O.P.D.” that theorists interpreted as “Officially Pronounced Dead.” According to tradition, this British Police jargon “O.P.D.” phrase is the equivalent of American police forces use of “D.O.A.” (Dead On Arrival). (Much later, in a Life magazine article Paul stated, “It is all bloody stupid. I picked up the O.P.D. badge in Canada. It was a police badge. Perhaps it means Ontario Police Department or something.” Actually, the badge Paul was wearing reads “O.P.P.”, which stands for the Ontario Provincial Police. The angle of the photograph makes the final “P” look like a “D”.)
Furthermore, the three black buttons on the waist above the tail of Paul’s coat are supposed to represent the mourning of the remaining Beatles. Although John, Paul and George were all about the same height (Ringo, much shorter), in the gatefold photo, Paul appears taller than the other Beatles, suggesting that he is ascending to the heavens. Another clue points out that next to Paul’s head are the words “WITHOUT YOU” from the song title “Within You Without You”.
Regardless, the album did nothing to quell the rumor that “Paul was Dead.” The Beatles, who were by this time totally fed up with dealing with the press, did little to dissuade the discussion of demise. Some pundits have speculated over the years that the entire affair was a ploy by the Beatles’ and their management designed to sell more albums. Which makes sense when you consider that the McCartney death rumor would continue to swirl around future album releases by the Fab Four in the coming years.
Alan E. Hunter 