What conspiracy do you lean to believe?
Even though tribute bands like Rain have significantly demoted the feeling, I still occasionally marvel at William Shears Campbell's musical and composing skills [at least, as far as a pop reputation goes; Zzzzzz...]. It's one thing to select a bloke to replace and physically / behaviorally emulate a celebrity, but quite another notch upwards if he also excels at the latter's profession.
Yet OTOH, when one considers that the real Paul died in 1966, before or just around the start of the Beatles' maturing into their finest creative phase... Then it was actually Billy Shears who made those contributions. The "pod person" was arguably and ironically the superior talent in this case!
And yeah, it can be said that due to the Fab Four no longer touring and playing in public during that period, it was accordingly a "convenient" circumstance that made it easier for Billy to pretend being Paul. Another faction will also assert that John Lennon was the sole or crucial genius of the group anyway, and simply carried its songwriting and recording sessions during those final years the same as he would have if the legit McCartney had survived.
But that line of thought overlooks Paul's (or faux Paul's) own post-Beatles career with Wings, etc. Even if the later activity only received attention because of McCartney's lingering reputation, Campbell did indeed have to finally appear on stage; and sing, play the guitar, keyboards, etc -- as well as compose songs.
Now, here he is in his seventies. Billy has been pretending to be Paul for far longer than the original Paul was himself! He successfully fooled the mainstream public all these decades, in spite of the fact of the conspiracy having been exposed back in '69 or earlier.
Heck, one might even venture that such turned out to be the best protection / camouflage for Campbell. Just let the truth leak out, and if the details are portrayed in a fantastic and outrageous enough context (along with plenty of red-herring disinformation clouding and confusing matters), then the majority will shrug it aside as opportunistic myth-making. More or less carefree coasting over the minefields from that point on. Only the occasional fixated conspirator addict left to stalk the imposter -- and after a couple of decades, even they are happy to just receive an autograph, they have become so impressed by the persistent success of the fraud.
Disembodied voice to Ray Kinsella's niece: "If you get your Sarracenia purpurea to take root, they will come. The lovely chitinous robots and spiders and frogs will come and fall in."
"Oh no, no, no. I would lose all respect for this place if that kind of sonic boom occurred." :bugeye:
"Oh no, no, no. I would lose all respect for this place if that kind of sonic boom occurred." :bugeye:
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