Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion

by Alan Goldsher

  Was GLAB a success? That depends on your definition of success. Yeah, we lost more than two thousand people in various zombie attacks across the country, and we didn’t stop the band from touring, recording, or entering the United States. On the other hand, we helped keep that butcher cover out of stores, and we burned hundreds of thousands of Beatles records, and I personally escaped any harm. So from where I’m sitting, yes, the GLAB movement was a huge success.

  The Beatles were growing weary of touring, and began spending more and more time in the recording studio, which was a plus for a young up-and-comer at EMI by the name of Geoff Emerick. While Geoff never achieved Fifth Beatle status like his mentor George Martin, he became an integral part of the band’s recording process, so much so that after he suggested that John record a vocal track through a Leslie speaker—an effect that captured his true zombieness for the first time on wax—Lennon and McCartney offered to find Stuart Sutcliffe and have Emerick turned into a vampire. (Apparently, Emerick had a minor nervous breakdown when the topic of zombifying him was broached, thus the vampire offer.) When Geoff nervously pointed out that Sutcliffe was dead, both Beatles clammed up, sprinted down the hallway, and the topic was never raised again.

  As much as he enjoyed being in the studio with the Fab Four, nervous breakdowns notwithstanding, recording sessions weren’t without their share of perils—especially, as he told me in November 2002, when the studio was invaded by a certain local zombie killer.

  GEOFF EMERICK: I’d met Mick several times and found him to be a lovely bloke, so when John said to me one afternoon over lunch, “If that fooker Jagger ever shows up, tell us he’s here, and then get the fook out. If he’s around the same time we’re around, make yourself scarce. You’ll thank me,” I thought he was having a laugh, and promptly forgot about it.

  Late one night about two weeks later, George Martin and I were sitting in the recording room at Abbey Road, messing with some mix or another. We were exhausted, but it was a good exhausted, the kind where you’re basking in the glow of a successful day’s work. We took a fag break, and after a couple minutes of comfortable silence, George said, “Jagger’s back in town.”

  I said, “Cool, man. Haven’t seen him in months.”

  George said, “You don’t understand.” And then he filled me in on the eternal Beatles-versus-Stones conflict.

  I didn’t believe him, and said, “I thought that was all press hype.”

  George put out his fag in the ashtray. “Nope. All true. In a weird way, Mick digs us, and in a weird way, we dig Mick, but he has zombie issues, and when he gets in hunting mode, it’s not pretty.”

  And then, as if it were planned, Mick burst into the studio, and yelled, “Old Martin! Young Emerick! Lead me to Lennon! Lead me to McCartney! Lead me to Harrison! If you don’t, you shall feel the sting of my sword!”

  George said, “Hi, Mick. Good to see you. And you don’t have a sword.”

  Mick waggled his midsection back and forth, then said, “My hips are my sword! They’re hip swords!”

  George shook his head and said, “Your hip swords aren’t very hip, Mick. They don’t work on mortals. They barely even work on zombies, for that matter.”

  Mick dropped the dramatic delivery and said, “They work on everybody but the fookin’ Beatles. Speaking of which, are those sad cunts around?”

  George said, “They shoved off hours ago, Mick. Geoff and I are working on a mixdown. You’re welcome to stay and listen. You might actually like it.”

  Mick walked over to George, crouched down, and said, “Oh, I’ll stay, George Martin. Do you want to know why?”

  George kind of rolled his eyes at me, then said, “Sure, Mick. Why are you gonna stay?”

  Mick whispered, “Because I have a thirst for Beatles blood …”

  I said, “The Beatles don’t really have blood, Mick. Well, Ringo does, I suppose.”

  Mick told me to quiet down, then repeated to George, “I have a thirst for Beatles blood. But since the Beatles aren’t here, I shall taste the blood of George Martin!”

  George rolled his eyes again and said, “For crying out loud, Mick, it’s two in the morning …”

  When Mick picked up a chair and hurled it through the glass window, George’s eye rolling came to an abrupt halt. Mick yelled, “Prepare for battle, Martin!”

  George popped up and yelled, “I’m from Highgate! Highgaters don’t fight! I’m from Highgate! I’m from Highgate!”

  Mick said, “Yeah, well, I’m from Kent, and in Kent, we fight and fight and fight some more!” Right before he was about to do some serious damage to George, the studio, and probably the tapes of that afternoon’s session, I picked up the metal garbage can that was under the mixing board, dumped its contents onto the ground, and clocked Mick on the noggin.

  While Mick was unconscious, George and I tied him up with several meters of reel-to-reel tape, after which I asked George, “So what now?”

  George was still shaken up and didn’t say anything for a while. Eventually, he strode across the room, picked up the phone, and quickly dialed a number. After a few seconds, he said, “Hello, it’s George … Mick went off … Yeah, Emerick knocked him out … Yeah, he’s secured … Great … So can I bring him around? … Wonderful … See you in a few.” Then George picked Mick up—which couldn’t have been that difficult, as Mick weighed next to nothing—then bade me a good night and took his leave of Abbey Road.

  The next day at the studio, Paul came in late, wearing a shit-eating grin. He called out, “Lads, come here! Now! I have a new necklace, y’know!”

  Ringo said, “Sod your necklace. Plug in your Höfner, and let’s get to work.”

  Paul said, “Not until you look at my jewelry.”

  Harrison shook his head and asked, “Seriously, Paulie, you’re really not gonna play until we look at your new toy?”

  Paul said, “Erm, seriously.”

  So after we all trooped over to Macca, he puffed out his chest, pointed at the necklace, and said, “Check it out, boys. Check it right on out.”

  I said, “Paul, that’s a tooth.”

  Paul said, “That’s correct.”

  George Harrison said, “It looks like there’s something shiny in the middle.”

  Paul said, “Correct again.”

  I asked, “What it is?”

  Paul said, “It’s a diamond.”

  I said, “A diamond, eh? Does a diamond embedded in a tooth symbolize something?”

  Paul said, “Yeah. It symbolizes that we won’t be hearing from Michael Philip Jagger for a while.”

  Arguably the world’s leading expert on psychedelic drugs, Dr. Timothy Leary was the first person I spoke with for this book, and to be honest, I’m still not 100 percent certain why a legendary figure like Leary would invite a novice journalist into his hospital room, as he rested on what would soon become his deathbed. I’d yet to publish anything of note, I had no direct connection to any of the Beatles, and I didn’t even do drugs. So why me?

  It turns out that for decades, everybody in Doc Leary’s inner circle pooh-poohed the legitimacy and importance of zombies to modern culture, and, as best I can figure, he wanted to rap about the undead with somebody before he went off to the great LSD lab in the sky. And in the spring of 1996, mere days before his passing, that somebody was me.

  DR. TIMOTHY LEARY: I worked with plenty of other otherworldly beings. For instance, I gave mushrooms to a Satyr—the poor guy couldn’t get vertical for the next three days—and peyote to a werewolf, who scratched his pubic area raw, a terrible sight. But I’ll always have one professional regret: that I never had the opportunity to test a single drug on a single zombie in a laboratory.

  I couldn’t procure one undead individual volunteer for one measly controlled experiment, and my assistants were of no help whatsoever, because none of them gave a damn. It was a great big hole in my research, and I pray that someday, somebody will pick up the baton and run with it. The world needs to know specifical
ly if or how zombies are genetically affected by psychedelics. Someday, the fate of mankind may depend on it.

  Before the Beatles got dosed, I had my theories. We know that drugs of any sort—be they herbal or over-the-counter—alter a zombie’s coloring, and I always hoped to see a zombie take acid and watch his pallor transition from the traditional gray to rainbow. I envisioned some melting of the skin and some oozing of the brain. Spontaneous combustion of the internal organs was a distinct possibility, as were mossy fungus growths in and around the ears.

  But the real question, the important question was, would my trusty old lysergic acid diethylamide make these beings happy? Would it open their minds and give them a better perspective on life and undeath? Or would it give them the munchies and compel them to eat more brains, thus exponentially raising the world’s zombie-induced death toll?

  My hope—no, my dream—was that one tab would bring the undead back to a blissful, eternal life, and I was willing to spend the time and money to figure out how I could make that happen. Zombies are beautiful creatures, and they deserve a shot at happiness. This is why I was so curious to see what would happen when the Beatles started in with the stuff.

  Turns out I was wrong up and down the board. Very wrong.

  GEORGE HARRISON: The story goes, we were slipped the dreaded lysergic for the first time by a local dentist at a party, but that’s a crock. The truth is, we were far more proactive about it. And the person who was the most proactive was, of all people, Brian Epstein.

  PAUL MCCARTNEY: From the first day he signed us, Eppy was very protective of our image, especially in light of the fact that we had what he called “an annoying tendency” to, erm, eat our fans. His thinking was, if things played well for us in the press, and if we stayed on the cutting edge, the public would overlook such minor things as a brainless corpse here, or a decapitated body in a dark alley there. That made perfect sense to us, y’know, so whenever he said, “Dance, lads,” we’d say, “What step?” If he gave us a suggestion, we’d generally take it without complaint—even a suggestion like we start experimenting with hard drugs.

  RINGO STARR: I’m not sure how Eppy heard that LSD was the flavor of the month, but when he called a band meeting and told us he wanted us to take acid in order to stay ahead of the curve, we went along quite willingly. The only problem was that Eppy wasn’t the kind of guy who knew where to buy illegal drugs, and we all agreed that it would be a bad idea for a Beatle or a Beatle associate to wander the London streets looking for a dealer. So he decided to get into the manufacturing end of things.

  BRIAN EPSTEIN: I’d always had a keen interest in science and was happy to take a crack at making my own lysergic. The tale of how I rounded up the proper equipment and ingredients is a long and boring one involving a lot of phone calls and numerous drives to Ireland and back with Mal Evans. Suffice it to say, I procured everything I needed without anybody from our camp getting arrested.

  It was a hit-or-miss process. My first week of work, I started four large fires and countless small ones that led to several first-degree burns and the unfortunate destruction of my record collection. I eventually found my sea legs and managed to put together what I believed was a respectable batch. Neil Aspinall volunteered to be the test subject, and God bless him for it, because if I’d have given the first three lots directly to the lads, who knows what would’ve happened?

  NEIL ASPINALL: I don’t remember most of what happened from the summer of ’65 to the spring of ’67. John’s always told me I didn’t miss much, but I think he’s just saying that to make me feel better.

  PAUL MCCARTNEY: After throwing down the first dose of Brian’s brew, Neil walked around the house bent at a ninety-degree angle. When he straightened up five days later, Eppy gave him a tab from the second batch, which had poor Neil speaking in animal noises for two or three weeks. Finally, the fifth batch in, Eppy felt comfortable enough to give Ringo a hit.

  RINGO STARR: I turned on, tuned in, dropped out, and it was smashing. When I came down from my first trip, I called and tried to get him on board—if there was a guy who needed to open his mind, it was —but he wasn’t having it. He gave me some rubbish about how Ninja Lords need not use synthetic means to attain a higher consciousness, and our Earthly work should fulfill us and keep us properly connected to the cosmos, and blah, blah, blah. I told him to piss off, then hung up the phone and took another hit. Eppy was a bloody genius.

  BRIAN EPSTEIN: After Ringo survived sixty-three lysergic trips in eight days, I was ready to give it to the rest of the lads … but not all three at once. I could afford to have a single Beatle go on “vacation,” but I couldn’t have the entire lot out of commission. Naturally, John volunteered to go first.

  PAUL MCCARTNEY: We all went over to John’s flat—me, Ringo, George, Neil, and Eppy—and removed all breakables from his living room, then threw pillows and blankets all over the place. Johnny was chomping at the bit, so we gave him the tab, and everybody shoved off except for yours truly, who got elected to sit around and make sure he didn’t hurt himself or anybody else.

  It kicked in immediately and, long story short, he died.

  JOHN LENNON: The minute I get to the afterlife, I run into Jesus Christ, and the first thing he says to me is, “You were right in that interview, mate. You Beatles are better than me. After I read that fookin’ thing, I tried getting that guitar sound from the beginning of ‘A Hard Day’s Night,’ and I couldn’t get close. Then I got a bunch of angels together to harmonize the chorus of ‘Nowhere Man,’ and it sounded like shite. And I’m fookin’ embarrassed to tell you what happened when I tried to copy Paul’s bass line on ‘Ticket to Ride.’ So cheers, Johnny—it’ll be a pleasure to have you up here with us. You wanna go and grab a pint?”

  Christ seemed like a top geezer, and I think I’d have been fine hanging out with him for all eternity. But Mr. Showbiz wasn’t having any of it.

  PAUL MCCARTNEY: We had albums to record, y’know. We had gigs to play. We had birds to fook. We had a thick-lipped, skinny-arsed Rolling Stone to torment. Death for John Lennon was not an option.

  LYMAN COSGROVE: Reanimating the rare dead Liverpool Processer who wasn’t killed by a diamond bullet is a dicey proposition. There’s no definitive way to make it happen. Different techniques work on different zombies. With some zombies, nothing works at all.

  PAUL MCCARTNEY: I went on autopilot. My animal brain took over, and my zombie body followed its instructions. If I’d been in better control of my faculties, I probably wouldn’t have smashed John in the face with his Framus acoustic guitar, nor would I have torn off his left hand and his right foot, then reattached them in reverse. If I had been thinking, I probably would’ve done the Liverpool Process … which would’ve been exactly the wrong thing to do. Turns out that would’ve been lights-out for John. Forever.

  What happened next was purely instinctive, y’know. I tore off John’s head, yanked out his brain, ran it over to the bathtub, and gave it a quick soapy soak, maybe three minutes in all. The brain was quite slippery when I pulled it out of the tub, so slippery, in fact, that I almost dropped the bloody thing onto the bathroom floor. After I dried it off, I ran it back to the living room and slid it into its proper resting area in what I hoped was the, erm, proper position. Then I went into John’s linen closet, and thank Christ he had a sewing kit. Seconds after I stitched his head back onto his neck, John Lennon was back, sober, and crankier than ever.

  JOHN LENNON: The afterlife was looking all right. No pressure. No commitments. No Brian Epstein dragging us all over the world. No Paul McCartney telling me to get back to work. Just Christ and me, drinking ale and hanging out with dead artists. Right when I’m getting comfortable—and right when my man Jesus is about to introduce me to Charles Baudelaire—I feel this tug, and I’m back in my living room staring at Paulie’s puppy-dog eyes.

  Paul kissed me on the cheek and said, “I thought we lost you, mate.”

  I said, “Nope. You didn’t. I’m back. L
ucky me. Say, is there any more of that fookin’ lysergic left?”

  JESUS CHRIST: I was fookin’ sad to let Johnny go back to Earth, and I would’ve loved to find a way to keep him around, but Dad gets pissed when I break a rule, and when Dad gets pissed, it’s bloody hell for everybody.

  GEORGE HARRISON: After the John disaster, I couldn’t wait to try Eppy’s next batch.

  BRIAN EPSTEIN: I tweaked the recipe, so George’s experience was far better than John’s, in that he didn’t die. But he had his own problems, the most notable being a nasty case of leprosy that lasted several weeks.

  GEORGE HARRISON: The high was nice, but it wasn’t worth losing any limbs over. On the plus side, if it wasn’t for Brian’s LSD, I never would’ve come up with the skintar.

  NEIL ASPINALL: A few days before we were to leave on a tour of the Far East—and while he was in the midst of his leprosy problem—George rang me up and told me to get to his flat immediately because he had something to share. When I showed up at his place an hour later, I rang the bell, and he yelled, “Come in! Door’s open! I’m not leaving the house!”

  One look at him, and I understood why he didn’t want to be seen in public. Aside from the fact that one or two of his fingers plopped onto the floor every few minutes, his skin was, well, his skin was gone. Okay, it wasn’t totally gone, just the first two layers, and the one layer that was left was translucent; I could see practically every bone, organ, and muscle in his body. It was very Midpointery. I told him, “Looking good, Georgie. Leslie Langley’s been asking about you. Why don’t you give her a jingle? You’re as handsome as I’ve ever seen you.”

  He said, “Very funny. Listen, I have something very serious to share. You’re the first person who’s ever seen this, and you can’t be judgmental about it, and, most important, you can’t freak out.”