August, 1976. In the United States, the country’s bicentennial celebrations are marred by self-doubt and cultural navel-gazing. America reeled from stagflation. Worse still, the shadows of the biggest political disasters of the age, Vietnam and Watergate, destroyed a generation’s confidence in the idea of America.
Amidst all this misery, an unknown band named Klaatu released their debut album, 3:47 EST.
Enter Steve Smith, Intellectual Knave to The Court of Reason
3:47 EST was typical among debut albums of the age. It featured bold artwork of a bright yellow sun with a dopey face rising in a garden. It is colourful, psychedelic and a joy to look at, but that alone wouldn’t persuade anyone to buy it. Because Klaatu was a new group, their record label, Capitol Records, sent copies of the album to newspapers across America, hoping they’d score positive reviews and a boost in sales.
One of the newspapers to receive such a free copy was Rhode Island’s Providence Journal. Klaatu’s promising debut ended up in the paper’s “record grab”, a bin containing dozens of (now-forgotten) records free to any employee. Perhaps it would have languished there forevermore. Then, one day, it caught the eye of a journalist named Steve Smith.
Smith picked up the album and noticed upon closer inspection that the record was curiously devoid of album credits. No producer, engineer, tape operator or any musical personnel were listed. It was all credited to Klaatu. Curiosity aroused, Smith took the album home for a listen.
His ears pricked up immediately. This music was…familiar. He had no doubt that he’d heard these musicians before if not these songs. The harmonies were immaculate, the melodies intricate, and the lyrics sublime. No debut group could possibly be this talented and have that particular sound. A most ludicrous idea entered his mind, but he dismissed it quickly.
Yet as Smith sank his attention deeper into 3:47 EST , the mad, absurd, and wondrous idea that popped into his head upon hearing the first song only grew. Every second of the album reminded him of them. One song was a coincidence, but every song? Surely not.
By the time he reached the final song, all doubts had been banished from his mind. The only possible conclusion, and the scoop of his career, was plain as day: Klaatu wasn’t a band of nobodies putting out their earnest debut album. Instead, they were The Beatles, fully reunited and keeping their reunion under wraps to see if the world still loved them.
Um, What?
Smith’s conclusion seems positively mad in retrospect, but a semblance of logic existed in his reasoning. Six years earlier, in April 1970, The Beatles acrimoniously broke up. Losing The Fab Four dealt Western Civilization a blow more punishing than the fall of the Western Roman Empire. A Beatles-shaped hole, then as now, existed in our collective lives. Hopes and expectations for a reunion were stratospheric and The Beatles would be smart to keep a low profile if they recorded new music.
Now, with Klaatu’s heavenly, Beatleesque album, Steve Smith could step into the shoes of Mary Magdalene and announce the resurrection of the Liverpudlian Lords.
Crazier still, the Doubting Thomas in Smith initially found few places to probe through the miracle of a secret Beatles reunion. After all, no credits or personnel were listed besides “Klaatu” and the lyrics had themes of “rebirth.” Furthermore, the album artwork prominently featured a rising sun, and which band had that sublime song entitled Here Comes The Sun? Hell, the rest of the psychedelic garden artwork bore a passing resemblance to the background of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band.
Still, a mere evocation of The Beatles wouldn’t silence the doubters. Smith needed real proof and so he duly phoned up Capitol Records. It should be noted that Capitol was the very same label responsible for releasing The Beatles’ North American albums. Capitol swiftly shot down his request for an interview or further information. Klaatu were a “mystery group” (quotes in the original) who wanted to be known for their music and not their personalities.
Smith, unsurprisingly, was taken aback. What new band would refuse the opportunity to do free press? And then there was the use of that particular word, “mystery.” After all, The Beatles used the exact same word on an album sonically similar to 3:47 EST, Magical Mystery Tour. All he got from Capitol was that the name Klaatu was a reference to the 1951 movie, The Day The Earth Stood Still, a film recently referenced by none other than Ringo Starr on a solo album.
But like any good journalist, Smith kept probing, eventually reaching a man named Frank Davies, who called himself “Klaatu’s sort of manager”, whatever the hell that meant. Davies did not give Smith the names of any band members nor did he emphatically confirm or deny that it was The Beatles.
With nowhere else to turn, Smith finally published an article in February, 1977, entitled Could Klaatu be Beatles? Mystery is a Magical Mystery Tour, the full text of which can be read here.
Reading this article is like reading the demented ravings of an unhinged lunatic. Here is a certifiable excerpt where Smith outlined his “evidence” that The Beatles were cryptically announcing their reunion.
Looking up many words from the lyrics, I discovered they concerned secrecy, underground, renewal and revival. A song on the album, Bodsworth Rugglesby III is misspelled on the back of the album cover so that it says Rubblesby. Defining bods, worth, rubbles, and by, Bodsworth Rubblesby could mean: persons of importance born of quarrying…The Beatles were first known as the Quarrymen. In Sub Rosa Subway there is mention of, first, New York City and then, Washington. The Beatles first arrived in the United States in New York City and played the Ed Sullivan Show and Carnegie Hall, then they played the Washington Coliseum. The whole album is about magic, mystery and touring, and true Beatles freaks know that Magical Mystery Tour was the only album the Beatles considered a failure. Could Klaatu be their answer to that?
I won’t answer the slanderous charge that Magical Mystery Tour, an album with the unrivalled tunes Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane, and All You Need Is Love, is a Beatles failure nor entertain his torturous reasoning about The Quarrymen nor will I go into the idea that The Beatles were so far up their own arses that they came out the other end with a song unironically about themselves.
But the rest of world swallowed Smith’s gilded shit and the rumours of a Beatles reunion spread like wildfire. For a few months in the spring of 1977, songs from the album received extensive airplay as Beatles fans studiously decoded the clues that Scouse Jesus had returned. Klaatu themselves, ever publicity-shy, ignored the rumours and continued recording their follow-up album…in London.
But just as Klaatu basked in the glory of free publicity, cracks in Steve Smith’s hopeful theory appeared. In fairness to Smith, he indicated in his mad article that he might’ve been wrong about the whole ‘Klaatu is Beatles’ hypothesis. Other publications cast further doubt, with one memorable British headline reading “Deaf Idiot Journalist Starts Beatle Rumour.”
At long last, the terrible truth came out, courtesy of a man named Dwight Douglas. As program director for a Washington D.C. radio station, Douglas took it upon himself to see who really made this album. Unlike Capitol Records, who were more than happy to be shit-stirrers by stonewalling nosy inquisitors, the U.S. Copyright Office required musicians to disclose their names if they wanted copyright protection.
Upon visiting the Copyright Office, Douglas discovered the copyright holders of 3:47 EST to be John Woloschuk, Terry Draper, and Dee Long of Toronto, Canada.
All hopes of a Beatles reunion were dashed.
So What?
When I first heard this story, courtesy of this YouTube video, it struck me as a parable for our times.
For one thing, it’s a story about people’s ability to believe whatever they want based on absolutely nothing or even less. Steve Smith cobbled together his conclusion based on a few curious passing references while studiously ignoring all the datapoints contradicting his conclusion (such as the fact he talked to Capitol Records Canada and that The Beatles never recorded in Canada). In the world of bad logical reasoning, Smith’s error is known as The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy, named after the guy from Texas who fired his gun at the side of a barn and then drew targets around the random bullet holes to show what a good shot he was. People swallowed Smith’s theory because they desperately wanted to believe that The Beatles were back and so found hope wherever they could. Those who want something badly enough will believe absurdities to boot it into reality.
For another thing, it’s a story about epic brand mismanagement. By allowing themselves to be compared to rock’s messiahs, Klaatu’s trio of frostbitten hose-heads destroyed their promising career. By not doing press, by not publicly touring, and by not creating a brand for themselves, Klaatu allowed other people to write their story. Their reasoning, that they genuinely were curious about what the world thought of their music, was ludicrous and deserves our opprobrium. Without market demand or playing their music in front of the right people, nobody would even think to find them. When the truth came out, the backlash against Klaatu was severe and rightly so. Proof that Klaatu were justly punished for their poor marketing came when their record label dropped them three years later due to low sales.
As for The Beatles, reunion plans were obliterated with the murder of John Lennon in December, 1980. Three posthumous Beatles songs emerged in the years after his death, all poignant reminders of society’s irreparable loss. Whether or not they would have actually reunited had Lennon lived is still fiercely debated. But had it happened, I think we can all agree they wouldn’t have made the album under an alias while eating donuts and moose-meat in Canada.