Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show,
Speaker 1: fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
Speaker 1: tuning in. Let's hear it for ours still alive, super
Speaker 1: producer mister Max Williams, Google cha, I'm still alive.
Speaker 2: And guess what for the second day in a row,
Speaker 2: I am drinking actual.
Speaker 3: We are all the walrus and also guys.
Speaker 1: And that is none other than mister Noel Brown. They
Speaker 1: called me Ben in this part of the world. Noel,
Speaker 1: did you know that Paul McCartney died in nineteen sixty six?
Speaker 3: I heard tell it's been withered about for low these
Speaker 3: many years. I don't know, man. This is very much
Speaker 3: a good crossover point between the other show. We do
Speaker 3: stuff that I want you to know in Ridiculous History
Speaker 3: and that this episode is all about conspiracies and much
Speaker 3: being made about the rumors of the death of Paul
Speaker 3: McCartney aka the Paul is Dead saga and quite a saga.
Speaker 2: It is quick question. Did he die in an octopus's garden?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: Oh no, but he may have been in the shade.
Speaker 3: He entirely possible.
Speaker 1: Was he was an active member of a Yellow Submarine
Speaker 1: Crew that much we have perfirmed. Yes, yes, yes, So. Look,
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney is kind of famous. He's a real up
Speaker 1: and coming musician. Yeah, you may have heard of him
Speaker 1: as being one fourth of one of the best pun
Speaker 1: based musical groups in modern history, The Beatles.
Speaker 3: Then I'm glad you brought that up. I think a
Speaker 3: lot of people completely space on that, or it just
Speaker 3: never occurs to them. The name the Beatles is in
Speaker 3: fact a pun. It is the E A T L
Speaker 3: E s. And they were part of a scene called
Speaker 3: Mercy Beat and the beat Nick and all of that
Speaker 3: kind of stuff. So it's a it's a very clever,
Speaker 3: little little n joke there. I think a lot of
Speaker 3: people miss, hey, I'm the I definitely did until now.
Speaker 1: No worries, Max uh if it, if it may assuash
Speaker 1: some people's concerns. I am the dumbest person I have
Speaker 1: ever met. I just recently figured out that mattress firm
Speaker 1: is a play on words.
Speaker 3: We've talked about this, and I think, you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: you've been living with that realization for a minute. But
Speaker 3: the moment you find out, it's like it's like the
Speaker 3: Galaxy brain emoji. But yeah, no, it's to your point, Ben,
Speaker 3: if you wanted to be coy about it, did you
Speaker 3: know that Paul McCarty actually died in nineteen sixty six?
Speaker 3: Actually seriously, yeah, crib yeah to crib. From our dear
Speaker 3: friend and Beatles maniac way beyond enthusiast, Jordan Runtagg, who's
Speaker 3: our research associate on this pre determined two parter, preemptive
Speaker 3: two parter. The guy who's been out there touring and
Speaker 3: releasing albums as Paul McCartney for the last you know,
Speaker 3: sixty ish years or so, is apparently, according to some anyhow,
Speaker 3: some sort of doppelganger slash impostor slash body double body
Speaker 3: double exactly.
Speaker 1: And Matt, if we could get a little bit of
Speaker 1: dramatic cinematic music, little stuff they'll want you to do,
Speaker 1: Fellow ridiculous historians. It is a little known fact that
Speaker 1: the surviving Beatles partnered with the British government on a
Speaker 1: top secret scheme to replace their fallen basis in the
Speaker 1: aftermath of a fatal car crash.
Speaker 3: It's right and just to be clever about it. Because
Speaker 3: those Beetles are known for their wit. They decided it'd
Speaker 3: be a lot of fun if they just sprinkled in
Speaker 3: little drips and drabs pointing to the truth of the
Speaker 3: conspiracy for their eagle eyed or eared fans to decode.
Speaker 1: Because what better way to really pull off a body
Speaker 1: double replacement? What better way to keep the secret secret
Speaker 1: than to do some back masks they get a goof.
Speaker 4: What if I made it a little goof and fun
Speaker 4: fun game funnel madlib for the for the fans, that'll
Speaker 4: be fun for them.
Speaker 1: You don't knowl This reminds me of that time you
Speaker 1: Max Casey Pegram and I got together and did the
Speaker 1: whole JFK thing, and we were like, let's put some
Speaker 1: little little gags in there.
Speaker 3: God, Ben, I don't remember this. You'll have to remind me.
Speaker 3: This is what we've been doing this show for a
Speaker 3: long time. I don't remember the JFK gags.
Speaker 1: Oh JFK the president that we conspired to have assassinated.
Speaker 3: Oh that was us, that's right, Sorry, whoops. It's all
Speaker 3: coming out soon though, y'all. Trump released all that paperwork,
Speaker 3: and soon we will be taken to task for our
Speaker 3: our treason activities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you're wondering, we just have an amazing skin routine.
Speaker 3: It's also true.
Speaker 1: That's that is also true.
Speaker 2: I didn't well well, I mean, I mean, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: how we did this in the sixties and we're still
Speaker 2: young and vibrant here in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: Yes, of course, Sarahvey. It's a hell of a drug
Speaker 3: vibrant at least. That's so much wrong here.
Speaker 1: So look, uh, we're pointing out already some of the
Speaker 1: fun and fascinating rabbit holes of this particular possible culture
Speaker 1: beetle holes of this particular pop culture conspiracy. Now our
Speaker 1: new researcher, good friend of ours, good friend of the show, Jordan,
Speaker 1: as he said, Noel, he's super into this. We want
Speaker 1: to start at the beginning, so we tease the idea
Speaker 1: that the actual Paul McCartney, let's call him Paul Prime.
Speaker 1: Sure I like that, Yeah, all right, So Paul Prime,
Speaker 1: take us there, Noel, it's just before midnight, November eighth,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 3: That's right, a little place called Abbey Road, really famous
Speaker 3: crosswalk you might have seen, and some imagery with some
Speaker 3: folks crossing the street there. Beatles are hard at work
Speaker 3: at this studio when Paul McCartney gets into quite the
Speaker 3: row as the Brits call it with fellow Beatle Ringo star.
Speaker 3: He's the drumming, the drummy one.
Speaker 1: He's not even the best drummer in the Beatles.
Speaker 3: They do say that, and not to on Ringo too
Speaker 3: too much, but there is a lot of chatter and
Speaker 3: scuttle but from various session musicians who have played in
Speaker 3: and around the Beatles over the years who basically say
Speaker 3: that he didn't play any of the drums. And I'm
Speaker 3: just saying, like, there are definitely Ringo defenders, and we've
Speaker 3: certainly seen him play live at like the let it
Speaker 3: Be Live on the Roof thing, and various clips from
Speaker 3: the Assault shows is a fine drummer. And sure you know,
Speaker 3: he definitely has a style, and I'm I'm I'm a
Speaker 3: fan of that style. But it is it's another conspiracy entirely.
Speaker 3: This idea of the Ringo didn't.
Speaker 1: Really play the Beatles might have been an optic higher.
Speaker 3: But he was a good looking lad. It's not real.
Speaker 3: He was the funny one. They were all pretty funny.
Speaker 3: But in the movies he's the real goofy one.
Speaker 1: I would agree that he is a very specific looking person.
Speaker 1: That's very true, But I also agree I also agree,
Speaker 1: knowld that Paul McCartney and John Lennon were often seen
Speaker 1: as the sort of dynamic duo of the Beatles when
Speaker 1: it came to songwriting. George Harrison got short changed often.
Speaker 3: And Lennon McCartney is the is the famed you know,
Speaker 3: writing credit on all that Beatles stuff, right exactly.
Speaker 1: And they and those two guys didn't always get along,
Speaker 1: but when they did, they made some amazing timeless music.
Speaker 1: As you were saying, Paul McCartney, according to the theory,
Speaker 1: has a real oh what do you say, raw, I
Speaker 1: love it, I love achtuff yeah, yeah, yeah, an aggressive
Speaker 1: hullaballoo with a ringo star. And the funny thing is,
Speaker 1: no one knows the specifics of whatever this discord may
Speaker 1: have been. The story goes that McCartney is very upset,
Speaker 1: he's very in his feelings, as we would say in
Speaker 1: modern parlance, and he just ghosts out of the recording session.
Speaker 1: He slamming doors, he speeds off. It is super sick,
Speaker 1: asked in Martin. Because they're already rich by this point,
Speaker 1: and it's a rainy night in England, not a rainy
Speaker 1: night in Georgia, a night in England, basically, yea, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a regular night in England, which is a rainy
Speaker 1: night in Georgia. And at some point during that ride
Speaker 1: he loses control of his car. He swerves off the road.
Speaker 1: But he's been driving so far and so fast that
Speaker 1: now he's in rural England, and there are a ton
Speaker 1: of things to add to this. The story goes that
Speaker 1: whatever whatever transpires, this Aston Martin hits a stone fence
Speaker 1: like a wall at top speed, and the accident is
Speaker 1: so bad that Paul McCartney, legendary member of the Baitles,
Speaker 1: loses his head, is decapitated, is pronounced dead on Wednesday morning,
Speaker 1: on November ninth, nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, there's a little Tongian cheek action going
Speaker 3: on here from our buddy Jordan. He wrote a lot
Speaker 3: of this as this or the Queen's honest truth, and
Speaker 3: we're gonna approach it, you know, as if as the
Speaker 3: thought experiment, as if this were indeed possible, let's play,
Speaker 3: I think we should. So let's take all this as read.
Speaker 3: Paul McCartney has been flung from his Aston Martin and
Speaker 3: you know, severely mangled, decapitated even and he is discovered
Speaker 3: by the police, who pretty quickly realize who they've got
Speaker 3: on their hands, and they quickly phone up the British
Speaker 3: Secrets m I five, who allegedly hold an emergency meeting
Speaker 3: with the surviving Beatles and their management team, all of
Speaker 3: these folks together in some sort of skiff. One would
Speaker 3: imagine a guy that we must protect the public, right
Speaker 3: because no one can know.
Speaker 1: M I five is like Law and Order SVU. They
Speaker 1: have nothing going on except this one case.
Speaker 3: It'll cause pandemonium and whatever. The opposite of Beatlemania is
Speaker 3: beetle phobia. Well, it would just be a real real
Speaker 3: show and then people are gonna tear themselves apart each other.
Speaker 3: We have to protect the peace, Yes, we have to
Speaker 3: protect the beats.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: They decide that.
Speaker 1: Well, the idea is they conspire and they say, okay,
Speaker 1: what is the most straightforward way to preserve the Beatles
Speaker 1: and to preserve the public and national security and peace
Speaker 1: of mind for music fans around the world. And they say, obviously,
Speaker 1: the least complicated thing is to totally lie about the
Speaker 1: fact that Paul McCartney is dead and to replace him
Speaker 1: with a body double and swear multiple people to secrecy
Speaker 1: for the entirety of their lives.
Speaker 3: Who we already have on hand. By the way, who
Speaker 3: we already have on hand. Now that's not too much
Speaker 3: of a stretch. The Beatles were certainly famous enough and
Speaker 3: recognizable enough that it's possible they had body doubles already.
Speaker 3: But that's the thing that we've talked about on stuff.
Speaker 3: They don't want you to know where there are cases.
Speaker 3: I think one that comes to mind specifically is with
Speaker 3: some Middle Eastern royal families, and if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 3: like the Husseins, they had a stable of body doubles.
Speaker 3: And if I'm not mistaken, there's a film called like
Speaker 3: the Devil's something or other, The Devil uh yeah Double
Speaker 3: or something like that, and it's about Cussey. Hussein was
Speaker 3: I believe one of the most brutal of the two brothers,
Speaker 3: Ude and Cusse and his body double and doppelganger, and
Speaker 3: it's just someone that would stand in uh that would
Speaker 3: kind of you know, throw people off the scent. It's
Speaker 3: the Devil's Double, thank you. That's right. So we know
Speaker 3: this is a thing that is done. Maybe it makes
Speaker 3: a little more sense in politics, but I mean man
Speaker 3: Ford John Lennon was assassinated. The Beatles were influential on
Speaker 3: a political level.
Speaker 1: Paul was on a lot of lists, you know, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And speaking of being on a lot of lists, I'll
Speaker 1: say it. I know people don't love to hear it.
Speaker 1: Catcher the Right is a good book. Not to it's
Speaker 1: a good book. It's ruined by the fans, just like
Speaker 1: Rick and Morty, but it's it's a good book.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't it doesn't turn you into an assassin,
Speaker 1: which probably do a series on that as well. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it's just, dude, it is laughable to me. The idea
Speaker 1: that m I five, an organization that is multitasking of
Speaker 1: nothing else, would cook up this mousetrap level like Rube
Speaker 1: Goldberg conspiracy. Instead of going public, will just replace the
Speaker 1: physical person with another person and will trust everyone to
Speaker 1: not reveal the secret. So we have to ask we bono,
Speaker 1: who benefits the idea here is that the band, the Beatles,
Speaker 1: and hence the British government. They want this unparalleled run
Speaker 1: of highly lucrative music to continue. Because at this point,
Speaker 1: to your notion of the Beatles becoming a piece of
Speaker 1: state power, I think that bigger than Jesus. They were
Speaker 1: historically probably taller.
Speaker 3: Absolutely true. We can't confirm the figures there. But to
Speaker 3: what we were talking about earlier, I mean, the Beatles
Speaker 3: were so incredibly beloved, especially in their homeland of the
Speaker 3: United Kingdom, perhaps there was some concern that there could
Speaker 3: be a rash of unalivings, to use the parlance of
Speaker 3: our time, with you know, young distraught Beatles super fans
Speaker 3: taking the most brutal and worst action in the face
Speaker 3: of losing their beloved Paul.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because we have to understand, folks, at this point,
Speaker 1: people have defined their persona like they have made the
Speaker 1: They've defined their persona as the Beatles. It becomes the
Speaker 1: north star in their moral their moral orientations. So to
Speaker 1: lose a single Beetle may prompt a wave of very
Speaker 1: damaging acts. So the story goes, the powers that be
Speaker 1: find a guy from Canada that they may have already
Speaker 1: had in their roster. His name William Shears Campbell, Billy
Speaker 1: to his friends.
Speaker 3: Has entered the chat. He'd apparently won a Paul McCartney
Speaker 3: lookalike contest. That's a great way to find a good
Speaker 3: double there. He'll suspect the thing, probably not, and then well,
Speaker 3: you know, the Beatles certainly were famous enough that there
Speaker 3: were likely many look alike contests, so little preparing the
Speaker 3: whole time unclear, but it did apparently require a little
Speaker 3: bit of plastic surgery to push him truly into full
Speaker 3: on spitting image Paul territory so that he could could
Speaker 3: be unnoticed in group photos.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the story goes, he's a few inches taller than
Speaker 1: Paul Prime, and this is maybe why the band stopped
Speaker 1: touring around this time. They thought the beatlemaniacs would notice
Speaker 1: the difference live. And I want to know if it's okay,
Speaker 1: I'd like to take a moment and shout out Matt
Speaker 1: Frederick from stuff they don't want you to know. Matt
Speaker 1: and I got super duper into this many years ago,
Speaker 1: and we filmed some weird videos that you can still
Speaker 1: see on YouTube, and I'm not.
Speaker 3: Sure how well they aged.
Speaker 1: But I really appreciate Jordan's research here because it calls
Speaker 1: into we're speaking to a conspiracy theory that still holds
Speaker 1: true for some people today. Do at the time, like
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, nineteen sixty seven, the theory is the
Speaker 1: surviving Beatles George John and uh oh Ringo. You like
Speaker 1: how it's always oh and ringo. They felt super guilty
Speaker 1: about this massive conspiracy. And word on happy road. Word
Speaker 1: on the street is that John Lennon in particular is
Speaker 1: little bit, uh, a little bit het up about this.
Speaker 3: For sure, he's distraught, he's beside himself. Sure, he and
Speaker 3: his buddy Paul had some dust ups themselves over the years,
Speaker 3: you know. I mean they're both creative and musical geniuses,
Speaker 3: vying for kind of being the best in the best
Speaker 3: band in the world. Of course they were going to
Speaker 3: be some differences of opinions and some sparring of egos
Speaker 3: and all of that stuff. So yeah, I mean they
Speaker 3: were again. Lennon McCartney is iconic. They the songs that
Speaker 3: they wrote together were absolutely greater than the sum of
Speaker 3: their parts, the songs they wrote more on their own.
Speaker 3: If you wanted to get into more white album territory,
Speaker 3: you start to really see their individual personalities emerge. But
Speaker 3: John's feelings are needless to say, very complicated, you know,
Speaker 3: and he's dealing with the stages of grief. Not only
Speaker 3: was he missing his dear friend and songwriting partner, but
Speaker 3: also was deeply traumatized after apparently being asked to bury
Speaker 3: McCartney's decapitated body in an unmarked grave at Strawberry Field
Speaker 3: Salvation Army Park there in Liverpool, where they had played together.
Speaker 3: They weren't, after all, childhood friends, boyhood friends, Strawberry Fields
Speaker 3: forever indeed.
Speaker 1: So to help clear the conscience of the three surviving
Speaker 1: Beatles again the story goes who apparently had nothing else
Speaker 1: to do. They said, guys, go with this plan, and
Speaker 1: the Beatles conspired themselves. So there's a conspiracy within a conspiracy.
Speaker 1: The three remaining Beatles say, we are going to let
Speaker 1: the truth out, but like Emily Dickinson, we're going to
Speaker 1: tell the truth slant. We're going to put clues to
Speaker 1: McCartney's death in this car accident through our songs and albums.
Speaker 1: Were never going to come out and absolutely explicitly say
Speaker 1: we participated in killing twenty five percent of our own band. Instead,
Speaker 1: we're going to release Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club.
Speaker 3: Band banger of a record. Fantastic, really good. I quite
Speaker 3: like it, actually quite good. A lot of people do.
Speaker 3: The Beatles are one of those bands that for the
Speaker 3: longest time, when I was younger, I sort of dismissed
Speaker 3: because they were too popular, you know, I think we've
Speaker 3: all been there as music nerds. But then I had
Speaker 3: my own kind of come to Beatles moments where I
Speaker 3: organically heard the right Beatles at the right time and
Speaker 3: had my personal relationship with the Beatles from that point on.
Speaker 3: And it was not Sergeant Peppers. It was the previous album,
Speaker 3: Magical Mystery Tour. I was just very it was very Sergeant.
Speaker 3: It's like Sergeant Pepper's Light. It's a little bit less successful,
Speaker 3: I think as a whole album experience. But yeah, man,
Speaker 3: Fool on the Hill and its proto Peppers. I am
Speaker 3: the Walrus, of course very proto Peppers.
Speaker 1: And I also I appreciate you bringing up this point
Speaker 1: because there is something I've never quite understood. I think
Speaker 1: it's a manufactured ripe Reamit fandom.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: There are people who will attempt to hold what they
Speaker 1: see as an interesting conversation by asking you to choose
Speaker 1: between the Rolling Stones or the Beatles, Right, I think
Speaker 1: it's fine to like both. I don't understand this weird
Speaker 1: highlander philosophy.
Speaker 3: I don't there and I don't think that is relevant
Speaker 3: at all today. At the time, though there was certainly
Speaker 3: a maybe a divide, but also they were just vying
Speaker 3: for the same audience, and they were both like at
Speaker 3: a certain level of fame. And I saw a great
Speaker 3: clip where some I think it's relevant though, well, oh okay,
Speaker 3: we can get back into that. But I saw a
Speaker 3: real cool clip with a vintage clip of Mick Jagger
Speaker 3: being asked, you know, if they were if the Rolling
Speaker 3: Stones were better than the Beatles, and he quite diplomatically,
Speaker 3: you know, the sort of shrugged the question off and
Speaker 3: really said that what they were doing is completely different
Speaker 3: than what the Beatles were doing. And I think that's
Speaker 3: the truth of all. Thought of the Stones is more
Speaker 3: of a hard rocking, hard living kind of live band,
Speaker 3: and they certainly have their sixties psychedelia kind of Her
Speaker 3: Majesty's Satanic Requests and all of that. But to me,
Speaker 3: the Beatles make better records and the Rolling Stones have
Speaker 3: always been a real ripping live band.
Speaker 1: But was she what I'm seen? What I'm saying, it's
Speaker 1: a false dich hod.
Speaker 3: It's a false equivalency, for sure, But what I mean
Speaker 3: is to, yeah, well, of course you can like both,
Speaker 3: but I think what it might reveal about the answerer
Speaker 3: is whether they're more into studio tricks and like psychedelic
Speaker 3: kind of records, or if they really like a hard
Speaker 3: rocking kind of band, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean Pepsi Coke. Yeah, you know, do what you want.
Speaker 3: It's still do you like better Elvis or Conway Twitty?
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 3: It's silly question.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. Do you like m I five or do
Speaker 1: you like this FBI Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band?
Speaker 1: This releases in nineteen teen sixty seven. Let's walk through
Speaker 1: some of the the purported hints at Paul's death. So
Speaker 1: just to recap right now, we're in a situation in
Speaker 1: the story where wherein I five has sworn the Beatles
Speaker 1: and all associated entities two secrecy. Paul McCartney is dead.
Speaker 1: We've substituted a Canadian for Paul McCartney. We're no longer touring.
Speaker 1: The Beatles are against mi I five and they're moving
Speaker 1: subtley to let the world know that their best friend
Speaker 1: is dead. This brings us to the floral guitar.
Speaker 3: Yeah for sure. We also to say this presupposes that
Speaker 3: the Beatles were kind of arm twisted into doing this,
Speaker 3: you know, that they were or they had like Buyer's
Speaker 3: remorse after the fact, they're like, wait a minute, we
Speaker 3: really shouldn't have done that. We should honor our friend.
Speaker 3: We can't come right out and say it. But let's
Speaker 3: hide some clues. And where we're first going to dissect
Speaker 3: some of the purported clues that you mentioned is in
Speaker 3: the cover art, very famous, iconic cover art of Sergeant
Speaker 3: Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, And admittedly there's a lot
Speaker 3: going on on there. It's this cool collage kind of situation,
Speaker 3: the Beatles all in their brightly colored marching band outfits
Speaker 3: posing in front of a kind of a marching band
Speaker 3: style drum that bears the name of the album, Sargeant
Speaker 3: Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and then Beatles spelled out,
Speaker 3: which is funny too. By the way, there was a
Speaker 3: period where I mean think they've always just been Beatles.
Speaker 3: There's no the in most of the depictions of their name,
Speaker 3: but a lot of people just call them the Beatles,
Speaker 3: but they are Beatles, kind of like Battles are Idols
Speaker 3: or Radiohead. Anyway, on this album cover is supposedly hidden
Speaker 3: quite a few clues, and we start with, as you mentioned, Ben,
Speaker 3: the floral guitar. If you're looking at it right now
Speaker 3: it is you almost wouldn't clock it for what it is.
Speaker 3: But underneath beetles spelled out in flowers is what appears
Speaker 3: to be a guitar shaped plot of yellow flowers kind
Speaker 3: of with a little long neck, let's call it. And
Speaker 3: then a circle of yellow flowers within that are some
Speaker 3: purple and it looks like just more like leafy kind
Speaker 3: of fauna.
Speaker 5: And then it's got these kind of three like string
Speaker 5: looking things stretched out across them. And it is often
Speaker 5: referred to as a pee because you could look at
Speaker 5: it and immediately be like, okay, that's a letter P
Speaker 5: on its side.
Speaker 3: To me, it looks more like a guitar that you
Speaker 3: might see like made into a flower arrangement or like
Speaker 3: a pinata or something like that. Yeah, people believe this
Speaker 3: pee is, or folks of your mind right from your perspective,
Speaker 3: believe this pee does look like a left handed guitar.
Speaker 3: And folks will say that's fitting because Paul McCartney was
Speaker 3: the only Southpaw in the in the fab four And
Speaker 3: if you read these tea leaves from that perspective, you
Speaker 3: will start to count the number of stems if you
Speaker 3: count the stems and think of them as strings, perhaps
Speaker 3: on a bass guitar, you will see that rather than
Speaker 3: four strings like on your conventional bass, there are only
Speaker 3: three stems slash strings. Perhaps a reference to the three
Speaker 3: living members of the Beatles.
Speaker 1: Sure, we know, I know, I know, it's it's too far.
Speaker 1: I'm being very Charlie Dave with a red string, as
Speaker 1: is my remit. But as we know, as history is proven,
Speaker 1: this album cover, and this aspect of this cover was
Speaker 1: meant to be a guitar to symbolize a stringed instrument. Apparently,
Speaker 1: though if you if you get into it, this was
Speaker 1: designed by a delivery guy who got a last minute
Speaker 1: call to bring just whatever flowers were available at his shop.
Speaker 1: You know, he was a floral arranger and improviser, so
Speaker 1: you know, like everybody else in the area, this guy
Speaker 1: knew about the Beatles and he didn't have every flower
Speaker 1: in the world to work with, so he took what
Speaker 1: he had and he fashioned them into a guitar. So
Speaker 1: is that a conspiracy? Was the was the floral arrangement
Speaker 1: guy also part of M I five doubt it?
Speaker 3: Maybe it might have been their flower guy. Well, we
Speaker 3: already mentioned the drum in the center, where the actual
Speaker 3: name of the album is printed in kind of cool
Speaker 3: circusy letters, Sergeant Pepper's across the top and making you know,
Speaker 3: kind of following the curve the top of the drum,
Speaker 3: Lonely Hearts in the middle and club Band on the bottom,
Speaker 3: also you know, making up the second half of that circle.
Speaker 3: And another interesting theory pertaining to some clues being deliberately
Speaker 3: hidden here. If you hold a mirror up to the
Speaker 3: words Lonely Heart written across the center of the bass drum,
Speaker 3: you will supposedly get a secret message.
Speaker 1: Man, it sounds okay, yeah, let me hold up a
Speaker 1: mirror here, Okay, walk me through this.
Speaker 3: Well, what do you see?
Speaker 1: Well, I don't want to spoil it. Okay, if I'm
Speaker 1: not looking at a mirror reflection, I'm seeing io in
Speaker 1: E I X he And then what do you call those?
Speaker 3: Those equal or greater than less than?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Then C I E yeah?
Speaker 5: Is that?
Speaker 3: And is iony x Is that some sort of Latin?
Speaker 3: Is that even a thing? Let's see.
Speaker 4: It is not.
Speaker 3: It is just referencing Paul's dead Paul's dead clues. So
Speaker 3: when arranged as I won x he die Okay, we go.
Speaker 3: The mag suggests a date eleven nine or November ninth,
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty six, which is supposedly when Paul died. There
Speaker 3: are diamonds between the words he and die, which points
Speaker 3: directly at the image of Paul on the cover. And
Speaker 3: it's a weird one for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've actually run into this problem myself when I
Speaker 3: was in Berlin and it was during COVID and I
Speaker 3: had a one of those dog yeared vaccine cards and
Speaker 3: I was rejected from an event because of the discrepancy
Speaker 3: between the way American dates are printed and European dates
Speaker 3: are here we yeah, we do a month, day, year,
Speaker 3: and there they do the year.
Speaker 1: First, right, so it would be the difference between say
Speaker 1: April tenth, twenty twenty five and ten April twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: That's right, I mean I spoke incorrectly. It is exactly right, day,
Speaker 3: month and then year rather than month day, so in
Speaker 3: English style the day would actually read September eleventh. Yeah,
Speaker 3: also a little weird. Let's move on to the car.
Speaker 3: There is a toy car depicted on this image that
Speaker 3: may be intended to reference the Aston Martin that crashed
Speaker 3: and supposedly, you know, killed young Paul McCartney.
Speaker 1: Correct On the far right of the album cover, you'll
Speaker 1: see what could be a white Aston Martin, you know,
Speaker 1: the same vehicle Paul McCartney was driving when he had
Speaker 1: his fatal crash. If you look closely, you can see
Speaker 1: what appear to be small all flames shooting from the windows.
Speaker 1: You will also run into any number of theorists who
Speaker 1: say that the the art of the car shows a
Speaker 1: bloody interior to the.
Speaker 3: I can't even see it. Where is it?
Speaker 1: It's they're reading to leaves man.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't see the car. I'm trying to look.
Speaker 3: I've got a pretty big blown up image of where
Speaker 3: are you seeing.
Speaker 1: On the far far right of the album cover, there's
Speaker 1: a doll, and the doll is hold has a small
Speaker 1: car in its lap. Oh yeah, really yeah, you gotta
Speaker 1: zoom in, hold on, zoom in.
Speaker 3: All right, we'll carry on. Then, Well, I try to
Speaker 3: find this.
Speaker 1: To the right of the doll, there's a driving glove.
Speaker 1: Is it covered in blood? We get to bust this
Speaker 1: myth real quick. Paul McCartney did have an Aston Martin.
Speaker 3: It's a dB six.
Speaker 1: It's an amazing car. I love. You know, I still
Speaker 1: got my car stuff DNA here. Aston Martin's are pretty cool,
Speaker 1: and the Aston Martin dB six is pretty cool. The
Speaker 1: issue is Paul McCartney's Aston Martin dB six was not white.
Speaker 1: It was green, and as our pal Jordan points out,
Speaker 1: the things that people are calling flames or blood are
Speaker 1: are probably just red fabric from the doll's dress. But
Speaker 1: let's explore this album cover in more depth. Actually, let's
Speaker 1: get past the cover. Let's go to the gatefold sleep
Speaker 1: that's right.
Speaker 3: In the gatefold sleeve, there's an image of Paul wearing
Speaker 3: a patch on his left arm that looks like it
Speaker 3: bears the initials OPD, which supposedly, according to this theory,
Speaker 3: stands for officially pronounced dead, which I believe is the
Speaker 3: British equivalent of DOA, which we would say here in
Speaker 3: the States. However, in reality, what actually says is OPP
Speaker 3: which stands for Ontario Provincial Police, which is also interesting
Speaker 3: considering that the supposed Paul doppelgangers from Canada. That's not
Speaker 3: mentioned here, but I just thought I bring that up.
Speaker 3: McCartney actually talked about this in a nineteen sixty nine
Speaker 3: article for Life Magazine written by John Neary referring to
Speaker 3: all of this hullabaloo, by the way, which we're going
Speaker 3: to start to hear the Beatles themselves weighing in on
Speaker 3: saying it is all bloody stupid. I picked up the
Speaker 3: OPD badge in Canada. It was a police badge.
Speaker 1: And the conspiracy continues. If you check out the back
Speaker 1: cover of the album, you will see that Paul or
Speaker 1: as our research associate Jordan likes to call him, full
Speaker 1: is the only Beatle with his back to the camera.
Speaker 1: This apparently symbolizes how Paul has turned his back on life.
Speaker 1: Uhtretch ye, i'd be. But also, if you're covering up
Speaker 1: a death, are you really gonna are you really gonna
Speaker 1: slide these things in? Is it really a case of
Speaker 1: like the Beatle, the remaining Beatles silently protesting m I five.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's see. That is the That is the theory again.
Speaker 3: If we flip the album over looking at the back cover,
Speaker 3: there are lyrics printed on the back cover as well,
Speaker 3: which was a first in rock and roll history. Apparently,
Speaker 3: right above Paul's head are the words without You from
Speaker 3: the title of George Harrison's song within You Without You,
Speaker 3: which was on I believe Rubber Soul. Harrison can be
Speaker 3: seen pointing at the words from She's Leaving Home, which
Speaker 3: was I think on Revolver now within you value and
Speaker 3: She's living Homer and Revolver Wednesday morning at five o'clock
Speaker 3: as the day begins. Those are from that song. This
Speaker 3: was supposedly at the time of Paul's fatal accident. Five
Speaker 3: o'clock Wednesday morning.
Speaker 1: Ah, all right, yes, yes, November ninth or nine November
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six was a Wednesday. The thing is, our
Speaker 1: buddy Paul Prime lived around the corner from Abbey Road.
Speaker 1: It's an eight minute walk, two minute drive if you've
Speaker 1: got a cool accid Martin. So if this guy storms
Speaker 1: out of this recording session just a hair before midnight
Speaker 1: on the previous Tuesday, then what was he doing for
Speaker 1: five frickid hours? Why did he end up so far
Speaker 1: from home? Did he did he go to a club?
Speaker 3: Did he you know?
Speaker 1: Was he doing some like three card Monty on the streets?
Speaker 1: Did he meet a woman try to take her back
Speaker 1: to her place somewhere outside of the London area.
Speaker 3: Well, that was a theory that we didn't mention at
Speaker 3: the top. That supposedly he may or he may have
Speaker 3: picked up a hitchhiker who could well have caused the
Speaker 3: accident by freaking the f out when she realized who
Speaker 3: was giving her.
Speaker 1: A left, right, right the shades of chap equittic. So
Speaker 1: the point is the timeline doesn't quite add up. And
Speaker 1: I want to give a quick shout out to a
Speaker 1: lot of people who are not from the UK who
Speaker 1: have gone viral with their disappointment.
Speaker 3: Over visiting Abbey Road.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he saw the news, Nol, but
Speaker 1: there are there are a ton of people, honestly Americans,
Speaker 1: sorry folks, who had these big dreams about visiting Abbey
Speaker 1: Road and they love the Beatles, and they get really
Speaker 1: disappointed when they realize Abby Road is literally just it's
Speaker 1: a road.
Speaker 3: Well, no, it's a studio.
Speaker 1: Well they go to Abbey Road the road, and they're
Speaker 1: disappointed to find that it's a road.
Speaker 3: Well, then they're not doing their homework because the people
Speaker 3: that would actually be Beatles fans would visit the studio
Speaker 3: and the famous crosswalk in front of the studio. Abbey
Speaker 3: Road as a road, I'm sure is long like Peachtree
Speaker 3: Road here in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm just I'm exercising empathy for the people
Speaker 1: who saw the crosswalk and it's just a crosswalk.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, well, I'm sure the Beatles aren't there anymore.
Speaker 3: This looks like a crosswalk in the photography. I'm not
Speaker 3: sure what these people are expecting, but fair enough, and
Speaker 3: I appreciate you exercising empathy for these folks. And I
Speaker 3: hope they didn't know book their whole trip just to
Speaker 3: be disappointed by a crosswalk. So oh, by the way,
Speaker 3: I made it as stupid speaking of not being a
Speaker 3: proper Beatles fan, whatever that means. Magical Mystery Tour totally
Speaker 3: comes after Sergeant Pepper, so it is not proto Sergeant
Speaker 3: Pepper at all. It is Sergeant Pepper's proto Magical Mystery
Speaker 3: in many ways, I actually like Magical Mystery better. But
Speaker 3: we're going to get to that record momentarily. But first,
Speaker 3: let's talk about getting a little help from our friends.
Speaker 3: I sang the line at the very top of the
Speaker 3: show and we mentioned our pal from Canada, Billy Shears.
Speaker 3: That is the character that Ringo Starr is basically playing
Speaker 3: in the narrative, that is Sergeant Pepper's lonely the loose
Speaker 3: narrative of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts club band. He is
Speaker 3: meant to be this singer named Billy Shears, and they
Speaker 3: introduced him the track prior to with a little help
Speaker 3: from my friends kind of ends with this big fan
Speaker 3: faiish introduction of Billy Shears and then he sings, well,
Speaker 3: what did you thinker? You know the one. So the
Speaker 3: idea of being that this was very much a reference
Speaker 3: to William Billy Shears Campbell. But you know, your mileage
Speaker 3: may vary, as.
Speaker 1: Our research associate Jordan says, you can also look into okay.
Speaker 1: So the juicy thing with these kind of theories is
Speaker 1: always going to be the lyrics. If you go to
Speaker 1: a day in the life, there is, according to proponents
Speaker 1: of the Poll is Dead theory, an entire verse that
Speaker 1: recounts the moments of poll Primes crash when he quote
Speaker 1: blew his mind out in a car after he quote
Speaker 1: didn't notice that the lights had changed and that the
Speaker 1: crowd had gathered at the scene and quote had seen
Speaker 1: his face before. This is obviously followed by the line
Speaker 1: quote nobody was really sure if he was from the
Speaker 1: House of Lords. And for people who are hearing what
Speaker 1: they want to hear a little bit of audio Paradelia,
Speaker 1: They will say it sounds as though John Lennon is
Speaker 1: saying not House of Lords but House of Pole.
Speaker 3: Again Pole, I, I can hear that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know when you say it with a British
Speaker 1: accident like that again as Jordan. As Jordan notes, your
Speaker 1: interpretive mileage may vary. In fact, dare I say it
Speaker 1: we all love an historical rabbit hole, a conspiratorial rabbit hole.
Speaker 1: Dare I say this kind of reasoning can be its
Speaker 1: own sort of magical Mystery Tour?
Speaker 3: Sure? Yeah, And that's where we are now in nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty seven, with the release of Magical Mystery Tour, which
Speaker 3: also has a pretty cool psychedelic album cover. Let's pull
Speaker 3: out up. I can't I can't even remember what it
Speaker 3: looks like. Let's see Magical Mystery Tour. Oh yeah, of
Speaker 3: course it's. It's got the Beatles dressed as Walruses, kind
Speaker 3: of posing with their arms outs. We've got well, I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: they're not all Walruses. The wall was Paul. One of
Speaker 3: them is the walrus in the front of his arms out,
Speaker 3: and then in the back we've got ourselves a chicken,
Speaker 3: a rabbit, and it looks to be a hippopotamus, and
Speaker 3: I don't remember. We've got George's the Chicken, it seems
Speaker 3: because that's the only one where you can actually see
Speaker 3: the face, and I see a little mustache in the
Speaker 3: style of what George would have worn in those days.
Speaker 3: But I'm sure we can confirm who was who because
Speaker 3: there's also a pretty incredible film of Magical Mystery Tour,
Speaker 3: and it's like a music video for every song, and
Speaker 3: that's what got me into the Beatles was seeing that film,
Speaker 3: which is really neat and a lot of people don't
Speaker 3: know about it, but it's pretty cool, so I would
Speaker 3: highly recommend checking it out. But Magical Mystery Tour is
Speaker 3: Rainbow Letters the top, we've got the names of all
Speaker 3: of the songs, and continue at the bottom. I think
Speaker 3: we've got side one on the top, Magical Mystery Tour
Speaker 3: with Fool on the Hill, Flying Blue Jayway your mother
Speaker 3: should Know, I Am the Walrus, and then side two Hello, Goodbye,
Speaker 3: Strawberry Feels Forever. Penny Lane has some big ones on
Speaker 3: here too. Baby You're a rich man and all you
Speaker 3: need is love. But somewhere hidden in there the cover
Speaker 3: of Magical Mystery Tour, which features the Beatles' names spelled
Speaker 3: out in stars in the rainbow kind of font. You
Speaker 3: can apparently read it upside down or possibly in a mirror,
Speaker 3: and it reveals a telephone number, and supposedly, when dialed
Speaker 3: or when a person dials this number on Wednesday morning
Speaker 3: at five o'clock, the time of Paul's alleged crash, they
Speaker 3: are able to receive further secret information about Paul's death.
Speaker 3: Oh like what, Well, the voice on the line would
Speaker 3: apparently say you're getting closer before hanging up, So that's
Speaker 3: not really much information at all.
Speaker 1: Right, right, Yeah, it reminds me of oh that film
Speaker 1: A Christmas Story where that poor kid puts so much
Speaker 1: time into getting the decoder ring that just tells you
Speaker 1: spoiler to drink more. Ovaltine Jordan points out that there's
Speaker 1: a major flaw in this purported clue to the Paul
Speaker 1: is Dead theory. There's an issue of Rolling Stone that
Speaker 1: publishes on twenty nine November nineteen sixty nine, and they
Speaker 1: point out it's not clear what this purported phone number
Speaker 1: is supposed to be. There's no telling what city this
Speaker 1: phone number originates from. There's no area code, so there's
Speaker 1: no way of knowing. We want to give flowers, not
Speaker 1: yellow flowers, to the journalist Philip Norman. Philip Norman is
Speaker 1: the author of an early Beatles biography, Shout, and Norman
Speaker 1: finds that one of these phone numbers actually belonged to
Speaker 1: a journalist for none other than The Guardian, as this
Speaker 1: poor journalist got hammered with phone calls from Beatles fans
Speaker 1: who were convinced that Paul McCartney was dead. Folks, you
Speaker 1: are in media rests with us. We are down the
Speaker 1: rabbit hole or the walrus hole officially, which sounds a
Speaker 1: little bit dirty, but I'm gonna keep it waterus hole amazing,
Speaker 1: it's pretty gross, so I would say, I would say
Speaker 1: gross and amazing. We tease something that is a like
Speaker 1: a common mimetic concept for any fan of the Pola
Speaker 1: is dead conspiracy. It is the lie. I am the Walrus,
Speaker 1: uh noel. Before we wrap part one, could you break
Speaker 1: this down for.
Speaker 3: Us, Well, I'm Googokucheo, I am the warous say I
Speaker 3: am the eggman as well, I am the walrus. Uh
Speaker 3: goo goo goochuo goo goo goo goochew. I thought it
Speaker 3: was cuckoo Kachew for the longest time. I think I'm
Speaker 3: probably not alone in that, but it is indeed Goo
Speaker 3: Goo goojube. The song I Am the Walrus alone could
Speaker 3: practically be an episode on two itself because I mean so,
Speaker 3: and their references to this in a later Beatles album
Speaker 3: as well in the song glass Onion on the White album.
Speaker 3: The Walrus Was Paul, But I Am the Walrus was
Speaker 3: a John Lennon composition. It is meant to be psychedelic impressionistic.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Again, according to the conspiracy theorist depiction of McCartney's death,
Speaker 3: all the way down to a repeating two note pattern
Speaker 3: in the intro itself, much similar to a two tone
Speaker 3: siren sound that you would hear from emergency vehicles in
Speaker 3: Britain at the time. And according to our Gary Patterson
Speaker 3: in his book The Walrus Was Paul, the Great Beatle
Speaker 3: Death Clues, Paul suffered his fatal car crash after this,
Speaker 3: you know, fallout, squabble with Ringo or potentially with some
Speaker 3: other bandmates who might have been in the mix, and
Speaker 3: left the studio in a rage on a stupid bloody Tuesday,
Speaker 3: which is a line, and I Am the Walrus. The
Speaker 3: refrain I am crying, is John apparently grieving Paul's passing.
Speaker 3: And then they are pretty little policemen waiting for the
Speaker 3: van to come, supposedly referring to the police who arrived
Speaker 3: at the scene of Paul's fatal crash but were paid
Speaker 3: to keep silence by m I five. And you know
Speaker 3: with the Beatles being composed of the remaining beatles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there are further notes or purporty clues you
Speaker 1: can find in these lyrics, especially with some back masking,
Speaker 1: which we love on this show and on stuff they
Speaker 1: don't want you to know. The song ends with a
Speaker 1: live BBC broadcast of a scene from King Lear, with
Speaker 1: characters saying bury me, bury my body, and oh untimely death.
Speaker 1: Here's the quick skinny, here's the hot cheese and straight
Speaker 1: seahorse teeth. John Lennon taped that clip off the radio
Speaker 1: one night and he just dug the vibe of it,
Speaker 1: how it fit with the song. And so as we understand,
Speaker 1: it's John's intention to put a bunch of nonsensical imagery
Speaker 1: into the lyrics to confuse fans who have traveled a.
Speaker 3: Bit too far.
Speaker 1: John Lennon had a school friend named Pete Shotton, who
Speaker 1: was around as a first hand witness when John Lennon
Speaker 1: was writing some of these lyrics. Pete Shotton goes on
Speaker 1: to craft a memoir and according to his writing, when
Speaker 1: the song is finished, his buddy, his school chum, John
Speaker 1: Lennon turns to him and says, let the fuckers work
Speaker 1: that one out. Thank you for beefing me, Max. Oh,
Speaker 1: we have so much more to get to. I believe
Speaker 1: this is going to be a series, Nol. We've got
Speaker 1: to go further.
Speaker 3: We sure, do you know? The Clues hidden in the
Speaker 3: entire Beatles cattle of albums alone is going to be
Speaker 3: two parts, and then we're going to get into more
Speaker 3: about the kind of Beatles as celebrities, as public figures.
Speaker 3: Acknowledging all of this stuff. Jordan is nothing if not thorough,
Speaker 3: to quote the Big Lebowski, and we really appreciate your
Speaker 3: work on these, Jordan, and we're looking forward to getting
Speaker 3: into all of them. Looks like it might be a
Speaker 3: three parter possibly for we'll see, But for now we're
Speaker 3: going to take a break and come back with part
Speaker 3: two of the Paul Is Dead Clues Hidden in the
Speaker 3: Beatles Albums later this week big.
Speaker 1: Big thanks to our super producer, mister Max Williams. Big
Speaker 1: thanks to our research associate Jordan Jordan. You know we're
Speaker 1: fans of your work. Jordan is a kick ass journalist
Speaker 1: and we really appreciate his time and expertise. Big thanks
Speaker 1: as well too, of course. AJ Bahamas Jacobs aka the
Speaker 1: Puzzler just wrote back to Bahamas and he's super down
Speaker 1: if we can get him in for one last job.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent huge thanks to Jonathan Strickland, the quizter,
Speaker 3: AJ Bahamas, the Puzzler, Chris Frasciotis and he's Jeff Coates
Speaker 3: here in spirit.
Speaker 1: And of course, where would we be without our own
Speaker 1: in house composer, the legendary Alex Williams, who made this.
Speaker 3: Slap and bop indeed very Beatles esque. Actually, if you
Speaker 3: think about it, we'll see you next time, folks, for
Speaker 3: part two of The Beatles Paul is Dead conspiracy theories
Speaker 3: as hidden supposedly or not in the Beatles albums. For
Speaker 3: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.