in this thread i will finally answer the question: Did Paul Treat Crabs with Sheep Dip?
(hello, i come from yonder [beatlestwt] where i sometimes do silly threads deep diving into nonsensical things. i thought it might be worth pulling it over to tumblr spread the tomfoolery. this was formatted for a twitter thread so the paragraphs will be a bit funky - hope you enjoy!) as the story goes, somewhen in the 1960s dear Paul contracted a STD/crabs/pubic lice, and while he was up at his remote Scottish farm he remedied it by using sheep dip aka a insecticide/fungicide solution for sheep…but where did this story start? it first appears in Peter Brown & Steven Gaines ‘The Love You Make: An Insider’s Story of the Beatles’ (1983, p. 210) Brown, PA for the Beatles/Epstein, relays the story from Alistair Taylor, Epstein’s PA/'Mr Fixit'
and so the initial story is established as: Paul gets crabs → Asks Taylor to go to the pharmacy for meds → Pharmacist provides “sheep dip” 20 odd years later, Taylor accounts the story in his own book, ‘With the Beatles’ (2003 edition, p. 132)
(side note - Taylor published ‘A Secret History’ in November 2001. ‘With the Beatles’ is a revised version of this book. sadly, i haven’t been able to find a copy of it for me research so can’t confirm if the anecdote appeared in 2001…) Taylor's version (ha) of his anecdote: Paul gets an STD → Asks Taylor to get some meds → Taylor enlists the help of solicitor Bob Graham → pills arrive labelled ‘Sheep Dip’ ...and so we have our first main quandary: was it literal sheep dip or “sheep dip”? In 2024 Brown & Gaines released ‘All You Need is Love: The Beatles in Their Own Words’, which consisted of the transcripts & interviews used for their book in 1983. Taylor’s transcript is presented as follows:
the transcript is somewhat unclear if it's real sheep dip or not. Taylor’s comment of “it was lovely” seems odd if referencing actual sheep dip, but one can kinda see how Brown & Gaines presented the story as they did however, in 2024 Brown & Gaines also gave an interview with the Hollywood Report where they said the following:
so the 3rd iteration of the story is : Paul was at the farm with Linda (not Jane) → Paul sent ‘an assistant’ to get meds → the only thing they had was literal sheep dip… (bear in mind Brown was 87ish and Gaines 76ish in 2024, and age can do numbers on ya memory) overall, i think we can dismiss Brown/Gaines 'versions' for the main reason of not being present at the anecdote to begin with (and doing a piss poor job of being consistent with details) however, Taylor has some issues between his 2003 published story, and the one told in the c.1980 transcript: 1. overall unclear whether its literal sheep dip or not 2. liquid vs. pills discrepancy so, can we trust this source? short answer: not really. long answer… the anecdote comes from one source - the only other people who can verify it are Paul, Bob, and an unnamed pharmacist. It is not a ‘trustworthy’ source on a surface level. thus are the usual pitfalls of biographical sources - they often come from one person & one person only Taylor’s published version is likely more ‘accurate’. he was present in the story, and published it on his own accord. he is consistent w/ his wider depictions of the farm in his books incl. ‘Yesterday: My Life...’ (1991 ed.) (although the STD story is omitted in this book) Brown/Gaines 2024 transcript of Taylor differs from the anecdote printed in 1983 - there is no mention of a pharmacist in the transcript, and no mention of Bob Graham in the 1983 book crucially, the transcript does not provide anything by way of *how* the story is told - Taylor’s ‘lovely’ comment suggests, to me, it was not actually sheep dip (ie he thought it was lovely they covered up the STD meds with 'sheep dip') now, one of the ways we could bolster this anecdote as a historical source is establish a pattern of behaviour and explore the question - is there proof Paul has ever had an STD?
..i mean, the man was a well documented slag (complimentary). but, alas, we don’t really have cold hard proof. Bob Spitz 'The Beatles: Biography' (2005) mentions that they all had gonorrhoea in the Hamburg days but doesn't cite a source to back it up (classic journo-biographer)
the closest we maybe get is the Itchy Dick episode of January 1969. Itching of the ‘penis’ (latin for penis) can be a symptom of STDs such as the clap, it can also be infections of a less sexual kind (yeast, eczema, depression)
in conclusion - the answer to the question ‘Did Paul Treat Crabs with Sheep Dip?’ is:
ok ok - it was probs not literal sheep dip, but maybe meds labelled ‘sheep dip’ to keep all that adultery under wraps - but, as with most of the beatle stories, it only comes from one source
