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The Walrus was Paul.


I just read an article on the Daily Mail website that told me Paul McCartney has returned “after 25 years out of the music business”.


I found this surprising. I hadn’t realised he’d been out of the limelight for so long. I was sure I remembered him doing something since 1989. I must be mistaken. The Daily Mail always checks its facts. If they're wrong, it's an easy gaffe to make: McCartney does keep a constant low profile.

Didn’t he close Live 8, the Queen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilee concerts and the Olympics Opening Ceremony? Didn’t he organise a massive benefit concert in New York in the wake of 9/11? Didn’t I see him at Earls Court in 1992, at Shepherd’s Bush Empire in 1994, at Sheffield Arena in 2002, at The Roundhouse in 2007, at The O2 in 2009 and at Maida Vale Studios last year? If it wasn’t Paul McCartney, then who the fuck was it – an exceptionally convincing, ageing animatronic?

Maybe the conspiracy theorists were right. Perhaps the real Macca died in the late 60s and was replaced by a doppelgänger with convenient musical ability, while under intense public scrutiny. Stranger things have happened. Look at how popular the Daily Mail is.

If McCartney has been out of the business for a quarter of a century, none of these albums were released.



None of these tours took place.



…and he didn’t rap in that video. I have to admit it's a shame about the last one.

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