The Complete Oral History Of the Time that The Beatles Died on Tokyo Disneyland Splash Mountain by Shane Johnson illustrations by Josh Gates We all remember where we were the day it happened: July 27th, 1996. Perhaps you were buying groceries when you saw the newspaper: BEATLES DEAD ON SPLASH MOUNTAIN. Maybe you turned on CNN only to see the headline: JOHN PAUL RINGO AND GEORGE SLAIN BY JAPANESE LOG FLUME. As we near the 23rd anniversary of what has come to be known as “The Day The Music Died (On Tokyo Disneyland Splash Mountain),” I reached out to everyone involved to present the history of that fateful day as it’s never been heard before: in a series of disparate, vaguely chronological anecdotal quotes.
PART 1: “A REAL NICE TIME” Ringo Starr: [member of the Beatles] I remember, probably around ‘94, hearing that Tokyo Disneyland was a real nice time. Then one time a couple years later, I was havin’ a bad day. It was rainy and I’d ran out of raspberry jam and I didn’t really want to have to call my personal shopper to buy some more. It was definitely a low. And I thought, “Y’know what, Ringo? You could use a real nice time,” and then I remembered Tokyo Disneyland was apparently a real nice time. And I thought, “Who better to spend a nice day at the ‘Happiest Place in Japan on Earth’ with than your best pals?” And no one’s a better pal of Ringo Starr than the other Beatles. So I gave ‘em a ring. Paul McCartney: [via publicist’s email] Mr. McCartney has never attended Tokyo Disneyland and has no further comment on the matter. Dolly Westerman: [Beatles historian] As I explain in my new book Ob-La-Di, ObLa-The 90s: A Definitive Examination of The Beatles at the End of the 20th Century, Summer 1996 saw the Olympics come to Atlanta and Dolly the Sheep [no relation] born in Scotland, but all eyes were on Tokyo Disneyland. What few people know, is that the trip almost didn’t happen. Daphne Vander-York [the Beatles’ longtime travel agent]: I was the Beatles’ longtime travel agent. Ringo Starr: Daphne was our longtime travel agent. She’d planned everything from our first trip to
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America to play The Ed Sullivan Show to the four-week Caribbean cruise George and I took in ‘83. She’d never let us down before. Daphne Vander-York: I’d made all the arrangements for the trip, but on the morning of the flight I received a call from Ringo saying that I hadn’t booked enough seats on the plane. I was under the impression that John Lennon had been dead for 16 years so I hadn’t booked him a ticket. Maria Monae: [airplane passenger] I gave up my seat on the plane for John. I think it was the right thing to do. But it’s crazy to think about sometimes. What if he hadn’t gone? It could just as easily have been me alongside Paul, Ringo, and George on that fatal log flume. -----
