Speaker 1: Folks to Night's classic episode is about one of the
Speaker 1: biggest musical acts in human history. No, we're not talking
Speaker 1: about Wham. No, we're not talking about Gregorian Chant. We're
Speaker 1: talking about the Beatles, but not the bug. Read it.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a pun. It's like beat less.
Speaker 2: I know that escapes me for a long time. Guys.
Speaker 2: Turns out there would be no Wham or Gregorian Chant,
Speaker 2: or dancing or magazines that weren't for the Beatles. Those
Speaker 2: things are entirely true. But they did have a huge
Speaker 2: influence on music and pop culture and film. I mean,
Speaker 2: you name it. They really caught the imagination of America
Speaker 2: in the form of the British invasion. Yeah, the Beatles.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I really like this band or this topic.
Speaker 3: Maybe No, it's the band. I think I really liked
Speaker 3: the band. And it's cool to know that there's there
Speaker 3: are so many conspiracies surrounding them. It's like they live
Speaker 3: in a Kospira cloud.
Speaker 4: And with that, we're off to the races from UFOs
Speaker 4: to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with
Speaker 4: unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn this stuff.
Speaker 4: They don't want you to know.
Speaker 2: Well, hey everybody, and welcome to the show. You know
Speaker 2: by hearing my voice first that our compatriot and the
Speaker 2: loved friend, Matt is not here.
Speaker 1: Matt, it's true, is on a top secret adventure which
Speaker 1: we cannot disclose details about at this point. However, he
Speaker 1: will return and as far as we know, he is
Speaker 1: safe and sound, so stay tuned for the return of
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick.
Speaker 2: We had to sign some ironclad NDAs about this whole affair.
Speaker 1: I didn't sign it, but they call me Ben. We
Speaker 1: are joined, of course, with our super producer Paul Decant.
Speaker 1: Most importantly, you are you, You are here, and that
Speaker 1: makes this stuff they don't want you to know. With
Speaker 1: an episode that's been a long time in coming in,
Speaker 1: I'm a little sad Matt's not here.
Speaker 2: I am super sad. But I will say something I'm
Speaker 2: not sad about is that I have the perfect nickname
Speaker 2: for Paul for this episode. It's Paul the Walrus decand
Speaker 2: I'll take it. Yeah, Oh come on, dude, that's perfect.
Speaker 1: Hey yeah, well let's see. Yeah, I'll go with it.
Speaker 1: Because Paul was the uh let's see, Paul was the
Speaker 1: Walrus and the Beatles, and who is the Eggman.
Speaker 2: Well in the in the Magical Mystery Tour film, I
Speaker 2: believe John was the Eggman, but the Walrus was. Paul
Speaker 2: is a lyric from a song off the White Album
Speaker 2: called glass Onion. And that's another reference to the ubiquitous,
Speaker 2: probably most well known Beatles conspiracy theory that there is
Speaker 2: that Paul McCartney died before his time and living life
Speaker 2: as a double, some sort of doppele that was hired
Speaker 2: to replace him. But we will get into that later.
Speaker 1: Which I appreciate the foreshadowing there, Noel, because that is
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that I wish Matt we're here today.
Speaker 1: Way back in the early days of stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know, we did a video wherein we
Speaker 1: portrayed my trusty longtime friend Matt Frederick as a Beatles
Speaker 1: conspiracy theorist obsessed with the Paul McCartney concept. But let's
Speaker 1: take a step back and start with the introduction some facts. Clearly,
Speaker 1: clearly you've heard of the Beatles. We don't make too
Speaker 1: many assumptions on this show. But if you are listening
Speaker 1: now and you are thinking, this is a show about
Speaker 1: insects that we have given names.
Speaker 2: To and misspelled in the title.
Speaker 1: Right and misspelled in the title. We promise you there
Speaker 1: is a method to the madness. The Beatles, you see,
Speaker 1: b E A t l e s are or one of,
Speaker 1: if not the most famous bands in human history, not
Speaker 1: in modern history, not in recent history alone, all of
Speaker 1: it human history.
Speaker 2: And hey, no ding on you, anyone out there if
Speaker 2: you never notice until this moment that Beatles is spelled
Speaker 2: funny because we actually had a conversation in the break
Speaker 2: room with Paul the Walrace and he mentioned that he
Speaker 2: and only just noticed the fact that it was spelled
Speaker 2: b E A t l e s as opposed to
Speaker 2: the traditional spelling of the insect b E E t
Speaker 2: l e S.
Speaker 1: Well, not just noticed, he said in college.
Speaker 2: Well that's you know, ay man. We're about a spec
Speaker 2: right now in the in the grand scheme of funds.
Speaker 2: College was like last week.
Speaker 1: So let's put some numbers behind that claim of being
Speaker 1: the most famous band in human history. According to UK
Speaker 1: newspaper note The Guardian, the Beatles have sold over one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy eight million units or albums. That's not
Speaker 1: counting the over one point six billion singles they've sold.
Speaker 1: Closer to two billion nons, and that's not counting the
Speaker 1: innumerable movies, documentaries, covers, tributes, action figures, branded toys, the
Speaker 1: Hobo teeth, other merchandise, board games and so on associated
Speaker 1: with the band, board games and so on associated with
Speaker 1: the band.
Speaker 2: Of course, yes, they were definitely merch rich, those Beatles,
Speaker 2: and I bet you know what else about it doesn't
Speaker 2: include what's that streams because they only just pretty recently,
Speaker 2: I mean not college recently, No more recently than college.
Speaker 1: Just a few years back.
Speaker 2: A few years back got added to Spotify, and that
Speaker 2: was a really big deal because they, you know, because
Speaker 2: the Apple Records and Parlophone and whatnot retained all the
Speaker 2: rights to that stuff with an iron fist. It was
Speaker 2: not on any streaming services until they obviously struck up
Speaker 2: some kind of pretty lucrative deal with Spotify.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a huge deal with Apple Music a
Speaker 1: few years earlier.
Speaker 2: Right, that's right, Ben, And it was certainly part of
Speaker 2: a big old ad push. You know, Hey, the Beatles
Speaker 2: are on streaming, so I'd be interested to see because
Speaker 2: now streaming numbers do factor into units moved in some
Speaker 2: odd kind of formulation arcanes.
Speaker 1: It's a little weird are some arcane incantation for measuring
Speaker 1: success and also for any hardcore Beatles fans in the audience. Today,
Speaker 1: we do have to point out that it can be
Speaker 1: surprisingly difficult to get reliable, up to date statistics for
Speaker 1: a lot of numbers. You will see other claims that say, no,
Speaker 1: the Eagles of all bands are the most most lucrative
Speaker 1: or popular best selling bands.
Speaker 2: Did you know what, though, the Eagles suck? You're one
Speaker 2: of those Huh yeah, I'm a bit of a Lebowski,
Speaker 2: you know what, Now, I'm just being a curmudge and
Speaker 2: the Eagles do not suck. I will tell you though,
Speaker 2: this is apropos of short thing.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: I went through with a friend of mine. I said
Speaker 2: something like, what do the Eagles have like five hits?
Speaker 2: The guy's like, no, dude, it's like twenty. And it
Speaker 2: is almost exactly twenty giant, giant hits that the Eagles had. So,
Speaker 2: whether you dig their music or not, they were highly influential,
Speaker 2: at least in terms of the mainstream.
Speaker 1: I think it's the ubiquity of the Eagles that turns
Speaker 1: a lot of people off, because you know, they're famous
Speaker 1: in elevators across the planet. You'll hear some sort of
Speaker 1: version of I'll tell you what. Nothing is quite the
Speaker 1: same level of depressing as being alone in a grocery
Speaker 1: store at three am and hearing an instrumental music version
Speaker 1: of Desperado playing while you're walking by the frozen Food aisle.
Speaker 2: I will say, I really do like the Los Lobos
Speaker 2: version of Hotel California that's on the Big Lebowski soundtrack.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the covers are great, but you could say,
Speaker 1: I don't know. You could say the same thing about
Speaker 1: the Beatles. There are so many Beatles covers that have
Speaker 1: been done through so many iterations that they're eventually just
Speaker 1: becoming this sort of musical cannon that everybody knows how
Speaker 1: to play a variation of I Mean. It's no surprise
Speaker 1: then that even in twenty eighteen, with spoiler alert half
Speaker 1: of the Beatles Dead, Fans and Friends theories the like
Speaker 1: insists that the world has yet to hear the true
Speaker 1: story of what are also known as the Fab Four.
Speaker 1: That's fab short for fabulous. So this whole crazy tale
Speaker 1: of the Beatles begins way back in the mid fifties
Speaker 1: with the kid who was kind of a popular cool guy,
Speaker 1: a hot head.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he was really down with this whole skiffle scene.
Speaker 1: You know, the skiffle scene is the skiffle CRAZEY.
Speaker 2: Give it, give it to me. I always have a
Speaker 2: hard time remembering how it one would because I think
Speaker 2: it's sort of a folk thing. We've talked about it before, sure, skiffle.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's sort of like a blues based folk hybrid
Speaker 5: that sort of takes American traditional music and turned it
Speaker 5: a little bit into more of a I don't know,
Speaker 5: a rock and roll kind of jug band.
Speaker 1: It's a pastiche of folk music American music that was
Speaker 1: popular at the times, and John Lenin and co. Were
Speaker 1: particularly enamored of American prison songs from the South. So
Speaker 1: when John Lennon took some of his buddies and formed
Speaker 1: a group called the quarry Men, they would play these
Speaker 1: prison songs from the American South during what was known
Speaker 1: as the skiffle Craze. Lennon was around seventeen at this time,
Speaker 1: but he already knew another kid who was a couple
Speaker 1: of years younger than him, who really wanted to be cool,
Speaker 1: a little bit more of a straight laced kid with
Speaker 1: stricter parents. He was fifteen years old, his name was
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney, and cool guy John Lennon came to Paul
Speaker 1: and said, hey, do you want to play music with
Speaker 1: me even though you're only fifteen. So soon they began
Speaker 1: composing songs and playing music together. We'll fast forward. You
Speaker 1: can hear entire volumes of this story. It's a tale
Speaker 1: as old as time.
Speaker 2: And I think most Beatles fans have some inkling of
Speaker 2: the Hamburg days and like the young lads from Liverpool
Speaker 2: kind of like getting together informing themselves a rock and
Speaker 2: roll band. So then the next thing that happened was
Speaker 2: in February of nineteen fifty eight, Paul invited a buddy
Speaker 2: of his guy from around town, George Harrison used to
Speaker 2: come and check out the band, and then he actually auditioned.
Speaker 2: And Lennon, who you know, the hot head bad boy
Speaker 2: of the crew, who probably you know, was a bit
Speaker 2: of the ringleader. It seems like it wasn't so sure
Speaker 2: about George because he was a little too young, even
Speaker 2: though he was only the same age as as Paul.
Speaker 2: But George could shred.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the first audition that Harrison had, Lennon says.
Speaker 1: Lennon says, well too, he's too young. He's pretty good,
Speaker 1: but he's too young. So George comes back young. George
Speaker 1: comes back a second time, and according to the story,
Speaker 1: he played a lead guitar part from a song they
Speaker 1: all knew on the top level of a double decker
Speaker 1: bus and John Lennon essentially went, okay, yeah, fine, forget it.
Speaker 1: He's fifteen. He's fifteen. He's also our lead guitarist.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep.
Speaker 1: And then eventually other members of the quarry Man set left,
Speaker 1: so they were in a weird situation. Was just John,
Speaker 1: Paul and George and they were playing guitar pretty much
Speaker 1: when they could find a drummer, and they said, we
Speaker 1: need we need some more people. And that's when they
Speaker 1: started picking up some names that are going to be
Speaker 1: familiar to more hardcore Beatles fans, but maybe not familiar
Speaker 1: to people who only know the Fab four.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they picked up a guy named Stu or Stuart Sutcliffe,
Speaker 2: who played a little bass. You know, you always think
Speaker 2: of Paul as playing the bass, So what was what
Speaker 2: was Paul playing if Stu was sitting on the bass.
Speaker 2: Were they three guitars strong plus bass?
Speaker 1: I believe so? So yeah, And at the time, here's
Speaker 1: Stuart's big contribution to the band. He is the one
Speaker 1: who suggested changing the group's name to the Beatles or
Speaker 1: the beat All and you'll hear a couple of different spellings,
Speaker 1: and he said this as a tribute to Buddy Holly
Speaker 1: and the Crickets, a group that both John Lennon and
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney had idolized for some time, and clearly Stu
Speaker 1: felt the same. Over the nineteen sixties, their name would
Speaker 1: change a few more times, first to the.
Speaker 2: Silver Beatles, always retaining that beat spelling though, which is
Speaker 2: important because that's sort of like the little bit of
Speaker 2: a play on words.
Speaker 1: It's Gold Jerry Gold.
Speaker 2: And I wonder too if it was a reference to
Speaker 2: There was a zine I guess for lack of a
Speaker 2: vetume called Mercy beat that one of John Lennon's high
Speaker 2: school buddies started, and that's Mercy me Er s Y
Speaker 2: b E A T. And that was actually the publication
Speaker 2: that kind of covered a lot of the early Beatles
Speaker 2: exploits in that skiffle movement or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah could be. You know a lot of times. Well,
Speaker 1: at least Stuart Sutcliffe himself will attribute that inspiration for
Speaker 1: the name to himself. It's probably true in some way,
Speaker 1: but also you know, people are fond of that kind
Speaker 1: of attribution. They while they were going through this name change,
Speaker 1: they said, okay, look we just need a drummer, and
Speaker 1: so they hired a guy named Pete Best and for
Speaker 1: a time they were playing as a five piece band.
Speaker 1: Their first British performance as the Beatles happens on December seventeenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty to a place called the Cosbak Coffee Club
Speaker 1: in Liverpool, CoSbAs and Rock and Thee And while they
Speaker 1: were recording for the first time in the studio in
Speaker 1: August of nineteen sixty two, during their first session together,
Speaker 1: Pete Best was apparently just not cutting the mustard and
Speaker 1: they got their manager to let go of Pete Best.
Speaker 2: Well, that was right after. I think it was even
Speaker 2: the manager, George Martin who said the drummers gotta go.
Speaker 1: They all all agreed.
Speaker 2: I've heard one story where that was definitely a thing.
Speaker 2: But apparently they had a problem with his haircut because
Speaker 2: he had kind of much more of the traditional kind
Speaker 2: of greaser pompadoor haircut, whereas by this point the dudes
Speaker 2: were rocking that British mod mop top that we know
Speaker 2: and love so well. That became the hallmark of their look.
Speaker 2: And it just goes to show that even early on
Speaker 2: in their career, they were very conscious of this image,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and their manager had famously told them that if
Speaker 1: they wanted to be big, it's like, look, you have
Speaker 1: to do better. Image wise. You can't because they were
Speaker 1: just showing up and smoking or eating and drinking on
Speaker 1: stage and wearing whatever they have been wearing that day.
Speaker 1: It's like, you need to get some proper trousers. There's
Speaker 1: some great quotes about it, especially because I guess that's
Speaker 1: back when people said trousers more often.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: And it's crazy because this is George Martin's career before
Speaker 2: he wrote those awesome Game of Thrones books. You know,
Speaker 2: who knew he actually had a story career as a
Speaker 2: record producer and manager.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he was really just doing the Beatles, I
Speaker 1: think to support his love of.
Speaker 2: And his love of frappuccinos.
Speaker 1: He's he's pretty candid about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They so they got rid of Pete Best and that's
Speaker 1: when Ringo Starr comes into the picture. Also, Stuart Sutcliffe
Speaker 1: had earlier left of his own accord to pursue a
Speaker 1: career in art. That had to be a real kick
Speaker 1: in the pants later for the guy. You know you're
Speaker 1: familiar with a lot of the discography. In October nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two, their first single, As the Beatles comes out.
Speaker 1: It's called Love Me Do Do It, enters the British
Speaker 1: charts reaches number seventeen, pretty good for a first time out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is like their earliest, earliest days and sound,
Speaker 2: which is much more akin to like the Phil Specter
Speaker 2: kind of traditional rock and roll, I mean really just
Speaker 2: kind of a lot more straightforward but very catchy melodies
Speaker 2: that they would continue to incorporate into their future stuff.
Speaker 2: But it obviously got a little weirder and cooler in
Speaker 2: my opinion thankfully.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because this is a little bit poppy boy bandy stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, a simple kind of three chord Buddy Holly
Speaker 1: esque for lack of a better word. In nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: February eleventh, they record their first album, Please Please Meet,
Speaker 1: and they do it all in one day. In November
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three, same year, With the Beatles becomes the
Speaker 1: first million selling album in Britain, and then they begin
Speaker 1: their crazy evolution. Their domination of the world, as well
Speaker 1: as their internal change as a band. In February of
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four, they tour the US for the first time.
Speaker 1: People lose their minds, they're out of their gourds, the
Speaker 1: barn doors wide open, whatever idiom you want to use,
Speaker 1: their nuts. This is where you see a lot of
Speaker 1: that archival footage of people just screaming and screeching as
Speaker 1: the guys get off the plane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, in particular young ladies. They were quite
Speaker 2: fond of these, these lads from these Liverpoodlian lads. Did
Speaker 2: you know that's the word for it, Liverpool. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: a weird inexplicable dal. Yeah. There's one story about how
Speaker 2: a woman came up behind Ringo and like snipped a
Speaker 2: lock of his hair. So this was during their first
Speaker 2: trip to the United States. I believe they did the
Speaker 2: At Sullivan Show and then broke TV.
Speaker 1: Record numbers blew up. And I know a lot of
Speaker 1: us listening today will say, well, yeah, of course somebody's
Speaker 1: gonna sneak up behind you and snip a lock your hair.
Speaker 1: That happens, you know, that happens on a semi regular basis.
Speaker 1: But this was a different time, So things begin to
Speaker 1: are you kidding?
Speaker 2: What are you kidding about? The lock of your hair? Snippery?
Speaker 1: No, that doesn't happen to you.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've reached those heights yet.
Speaker 1: We hang out, maybe just at different circles.
Speaker 2: I guess. So we hang out together a lot, though.
Speaker 2: But are people doing this to you? Are you okay?
Speaker 1: Are you dude? Do you want me to point it
Speaker 1: out when someone does it to you?
Speaker 2: Please?
Speaker 1: Okay? You have my word.
Speaker 2: Do you think they're just being really stealthy about it?
Speaker 2: I'm just not noticing.
Speaker 1: I feel like I've seen it happen, but you acted
Speaker 1: like it was normal.
Speaker 2: The wiser my friend.
Speaker 1: Well that is, you know what, as a team, we
Speaker 1: can all we can all do better. Also, typically it
Speaker 1: is Matt who is sneaking up behind you. I just
Speaker 1: want to put that out there.
Speaker 2: Oh I've caught him doing that before. It's in the hall.
Speaker 2: But listen, I wanted to point one thing out. Sure,
Speaker 2: move on. In sixty five, the Beatles play say Stadium
Speaker 2: and it's just like Bonker Nanza's and it's like that
Speaker 2: was literally the creation of the arena rock genre. Even
Speaker 2: though it's funny because the Beatles. You don't picture that
Speaker 2: as being a mega rock show because they're even even
Speaker 2: like their early stuff, it's a little more traditionally rock
Speaker 2: and roll.
Speaker 1: Again, it was a very different time. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that really pushed them
Speaker 1: to that arena status is the year earlier. On July
Speaker 1: sixth of nineteen sixty four, they had debuted the film
Speaker 1: A Hard Days Night, and they had released a soundtrack
Speaker 1: with that on August tenth that reached number one. It
Speaker 1: also that soundtrack included additional songs, so they were doing
Speaker 1: some thing very intelligent. They were releasing albums concurrently or
Speaker 1: roughly concurrently with films, so if you are a super fan,
Speaker 1: you can embrace multiple avenues of fandom. This way, they
Speaker 1: meet the Queen, they play the arena. As you said, Noel,
Speaker 1: they release another film, Help, and the group internally and
Speaker 1: content wise begins to change. On December third of nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five, they release Rubber Soul. This is often cited
Speaker 1: as a turning point for the band. They begin to
Speaker 1: depart from those very straightforward rock and roll roots we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. They released Revolver. In sixty six, they released
Speaker 1: Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in sixty seven, it
Speaker 1: becomes the highest selling British album of all time, and
Speaker 1: I think it still holds up. I really like that album,
Speaker 1: which one Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's called.
Speaker 6: Oh Ye's okay, Yeah it's okay.
Speaker 2: You know what they call it? Stone cold class my friend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. They released Magical Mystery Tour in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven.
Speaker 2: That's actually my favorite.
Speaker 1: November twenty seventh.
Speaker 2: That's just super psyche stuff by that is.
Speaker 1: More so than the the just the Beatles album in sixty.
Speaker 2: Eight, you know, the Wild album. Yeah, that to me,
Speaker 2: that's a different Beatles though. Like I really like like
Speaker 2: the Magical Mystery Tour and Sergeant Pepper are like the
Speaker 2: most kind of candy dripping psychedelic records that they have
Speaker 2: in their catalog. Then the White Album has some weird
Speaker 2: stuff on it, but it's much more of a songwriter,
Speaker 2: a straightforward kind of And they also say that was
Speaker 2: when they had their breakup. Was emine because a lot
Speaker 2: of people refer to that album as a series of
Speaker 2: solo songs.
Speaker 1: We's just referred to it as a he says, not
Speaker 1: a Beatles record. He said, it's a series of solo songs,
Speaker 1: and we all this is something where the fans perhaps
Speaker 1: one out over the creators, because the creators just released
Speaker 1: this white album cover and they called it the Beatles
Speaker 1: an eponymous record, but everyone else has called it the
Speaker 1: Wide Album, and that's what it goes down in history.
Speaker 1: As they've also been really films. But yes, their internal
Speaker 1: organization is beginning to stagnate and decay. In January of
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, a documentary is filmed. It's called Let
Speaker 1: It Be, and it's intended as an account of the Beatles' rebirth,
Speaker 1: but instead it ends up chronicling their demise and they
Speaker 1: are headed for an inevitable breakup. Speaking of breakups, let's
Speaker 1: take a break for a word from our sponsors. So
Speaker 1: as they're retaining this massive fame, the band members are
Speaker 1: growing increasingly distant. In nineteen sixty nine, John Lennon privately
Speaker 1: tells the rest of the band that he plans to
Speaker 1: leave the part Skid Daddle. They ask him to keep
Speaker 1: it under wraps, so they keep this statement private. In
Speaker 1: April of nineteen seventy, Ringo Starr is the only one
Speaker 1: to show up for a final studio session for a
Speaker 1: Beatles record. There's no real formal announcement. They had intended
Speaker 1: to let it peter out, but on April tenth, Paul
Speaker 1: publicly announces his own departure, and news spreads that The
Speaker 1: Beatles are no more. Their thirteenth and final album, Let
Speaker 1: It Be, is released on May eighth. In the aftermath,
Speaker 1: without delving into all the legal issues they had and
Speaker 1: all the personal acrimony that occurred, we should just say
Speaker 1: that the band's breakup did not end well. It was
Speaker 1: not amicable, and for a time several members, particularly Paul McCartney,
Speaker 1: felt really constrained and tied down by the various agreements
Speaker 1: they have made in as the Beatles. In December of
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty, John Lennon fatally shot. November of two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, George Harrison succumbs to lung cancer. As we
Speaker 1: record this, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney are still alive,
Speaker 1: still with us, the last living members of the world's
Speaker 1: best selling band, and oddly enough, many of their fans
Speaker 1: suspect these two men may hold secrets their bandmates took
Speaker 1: to the grave. So here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's hard to be a band that
Speaker 2: rises to such meteoric fames so quickly and sustains that fame,
Speaker 2: not only sustains it as a popular phenomenon, but actually
Speaker 2: as a critical darling, you know, and just considered to
Speaker 2: be incredible artists and songwriters and influencers of the zeitgeist
Speaker 2: and like recording techniques and everything you could possibly imagine
Speaker 2: pop culture wise, these guys had their hands in. You know,
Speaker 2: it's very difficult to be that influential and not have
Speaker 2: people coming up with some interesting theories about stuff that
Speaker 2: went on, especially considering that they were a little clandestine
Speaker 2: about certain aspects of their lives and their careers. Early on,
Speaker 2: they had this image of like this squeaky clean kind
Speaker 2: of boy band, almost like almost like a manufacturer thing
Speaker 2: with the screaming girls at Shay Stadium and whatnot. But
Speaker 2: then over time they evolved into much more guru like,
Speaker 2: you know, kings of psychedelia, and then even beyond them,
Speaker 2: became much more involved in activism and use their platform,
Speaker 2: especially Lenin to influence world events, which we'll get into.
Speaker 2: So when when you have those kind of conditions colliding,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's it brews up some pretty interesting conspiracy theories,
Speaker 2: and we're gonna talk about some of the most popular
Speaker 2: ones or the most Maybe some of them you may
Speaker 2: have heard of, and some of them are a little
Speaker 2: under the radar I have not heard of. But uh,
Speaker 2: they're the most They're the ones that interested us the most.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we have to. In honor of our compatriot, Matt,
Speaker 1: we want to start with one of your favorite ones. Matt.
Speaker 1: We know he's listening. Hey, Matt, it's that Paul McCartney
Speaker 1: is dead. This is, as you said, Noel, one of
Speaker 1: the most well known, perhaps strangest Beatles conspiracy theories. The
Speaker 1: idea is the following, the real Paul McCartney, the one
Speaker 1: that you see in various interviews or appearances or the
Speaker 1: occasional cameo. Isn't Paul McCartney at all. That man is
Speaker 1: an impostor the genuine Paul McCartney, the little uh what's
Speaker 1: the word, Noel Liverpudlian, Liverpoodlian, Liverpoodlian, the little Liver Poodlian,
Speaker 1: Little Liver Poodlian actually died in the early hours of
Speaker 1: November ninth, nineteen sixty six. After his car skidded off
Speaker 1: an icy road and crashed into a pole. According to
Speaker 1: the story, when John Lennon and George and Ringo found
Speaker 1: out about this death, they thought that they would not
Speaker 1: be able to come back from it because we just
Speaker 1: walked through their earlier timeline. This is sixty six. A
Speaker 1: lot of great things are happening, they're reaching heights, but
Speaker 1: they think they have further to go. So, according to
Speaker 1: this legend, they covered up his death, replacing him with
Speaker 1: a look alike, a guy named Billy Shears who already looked,
Speaker 1: acted and even sounded like the actual Paul McCartney.
Speaker 2: You mean Billy Shears from a little help from my
Speaker 2: friends on you know when they go.
Speaker 6: Bely She's and that's the that's the guy, that's Ringo's
Speaker 6: character in a little help for my friends.
Speaker 2: What would you think if I was saying, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: Billy Shears, So that's is that that's That's that a clue?
Speaker 1: Maybe it is, And I'm glad you mentioned clues here
Speaker 1: because they the question is are you hearing Billy Shears
Speaker 1: or Billy's here? You know this this is one of
Speaker 1: the one of the primary pieces of proof for people
Speaker 1: who believe this theory. They are these ideas that various
Speaker 1: audio artifacts have been hidden in inside Beatles recordings. They
Speaker 1: give you clues to the story, right, And that's that's
Speaker 1: one of them. But there's another one that might be
Speaker 1: even more more familiar to our fellow conspiracy realist.
Speaker 2: Well, there's there's a lot of them, and a lot
Speaker 2: of them. A lot of this one revolves around hidden images,
Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of most of these do
Speaker 2: revolve around things hidden in plain sight or plain audio.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, because it said audio artifacts earlier. But it's
Speaker 1: important to notice a lot of the album artwork itself
Speaker 1: is pointed to as proof of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, album art and even press photos and things like that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, So one of the lyrics on Sergeant Pepper's
Speaker 2: Lonely Hearts Club Band of one of the most gorgeous
Speaker 2: and probably most popular songs on that record, A Day
Speaker 2: in the Life, has the lyric he blew his mind
Speaker 2: out in a car he didn't notice that the lights
Speaker 2: had changed, and also that, you know, people point to
Speaker 2: that as being a reference to Paul his death. And
Speaker 2: then in Strawberry Fields Forever, there is a what's known
Speaker 2: as a backwards mask, which we've talked about quite a
Speaker 2: bit on the show. In that most recent episode we
Speaker 2: did about satanic panics in Italy. I think we talked
Speaker 2: about a led Zeppelin back mask. But in the song
Speaker 2: Strawberry Fields, there's a part where when you flip it backwards,
Speaker 2: it sounds like John Lennon saying I buried Paul. He
Speaker 2: actually would would correct the record on this and say
Speaker 2: I was saying Cranberry sauce. I'll let you be the judge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's play this. We can't play too many Beatles
Speaker 1: clips without getting into a crazy lawsuit, but we can
Speaker 1: get away with this one.
Speaker 2: Surely we can. Sure sounds like that to me. I
Speaker 2: don't hear Cranberry sauce. What do you hear? Ben?
Speaker 1: Well, the thing is doesn't It's very much an audio roarshack.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean by? And yeah, like
Speaker 1: Gershak painting but.
Speaker 2: For your ears or what do they call it? Baiter Mainhoff,
Speaker 2: where like you expect to see something and then you'll
Speaker 2: see it everywhere, or you think about a thing and
Speaker 2: then you start to see it everywhere.
Speaker 1: They're confirmation biaseds directly. Yeah, but you can see how
Speaker 1: if someone already believes this they would they would see
Speaker 1: more of these things as proof. And there are several
Speaker 1: other details in there, including, for example, on the White album,
Speaker 1: there's the claim that if you play the track Revolution
Speaker 1: nine backwards, you'll hear the message turn me on dead Man,
Speaker 1: turn me on dead Man, tear me on dead Man.
Speaker 1: And in nineteen sixty nine, on October twelfth, a student
Speaker 1: at Michigan University, a kid named Tom Zarski called a
Speaker 1: Detroit radio host named Russ Gibb, and he wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to us about the stories regarding Paul being dead.
Speaker 1: GiB was dismissive of the rumors, but Zarski talked him
Speaker 1: into playing Revolution nine backwards on air at w k
Speaker 1: N R FM, and everyone who tuned in thought they
Speaker 1: heard turn me on dead Man, turned me on dead Man,
Speaker 1: and the phones rang off the hooks, and this brought
Speaker 1: the conspiracy to national levels.
Speaker 2: Isn't this the kid that had a bunch of other
Speaker 2: theories about how?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: What was this guy's story? I feel like there was
Speaker 2: a part where in the research where he mentioned not
Speaker 2: having the resources to play every Beatles record backwards to
Speaker 2: find more hidden messages.
Speaker 1: You'll also hear people say that it was just a
Speaker 1: hoax that Zarski knowingly participated.
Speaker 2: It, and Ben I misspoke. There's actually a different kid
Speaker 2: that did that in the nineties who had some pretty
Speaker 2: interesting theories about backwards masking in Beatles songs relating to
Speaker 2: another conspiracy that we'll get into short ah.
Speaker 1: Okay, I see. And then so this also goes into
Speaker 1: the idea that you mentioned. Nola All l amend I think,
Speaker 1: I do think the nickname for super producer Paul is
Speaker 1: probably the best one we can have for today's episode
Speaker 1: because in the glass Onion song, John says, well, here's
Speaker 1: another clue for you all. The Walrus was Paul, and
Speaker 1: the people who believe this started thinking, Okay, get this,
Speaker 1: you have to walk with us here. So people who
Speaker 1: believe this one started spreading rumors that walrus was actually
Speaker 1: a Scandinavian word that meant death. That is factually inaccurate.
Speaker 1: Is the nicest way for me to say it. The
Speaker 1: word is actually derived from the old Norse rumshalver, which
Speaker 1: means walrus, not death. So while there are all these
Speaker 1: clues or purported clues about Paul McCartney secret death, the
Speaker 1: biggest question would be how could someone get away with this.
Speaker 1: How could they keep a secret if there is a
Speaker 1: look alike? How could he live his entire life as
Speaker 1: someone else without slipping up once?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and make all the Sick Wings records too, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, come on.
Speaker 1: I mean they're records.
Speaker 2: What are you talking about? Have you heard Ram? That's
Speaker 2: not considered Wings? But that record is fantastic. That is
Speaker 2: a really really great record. I don't really care much
Speaker 2: about the Wings stuff after that, but Ram is a classic,
Speaker 2: my friend.
Speaker 1: So this guy who was rumored to have replaced Paul McCartney,
Speaker 1: where'd he come from? Billy Shears? We called him. His
Speaker 1: full name's William Shears Campbell. He was the winner of
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty five Paul McCartney look alike competition.
Speaker 2: That's right. He apparently was an orphan who hailed from
Speaker 2: Edinburgh and it just so happened to my previous point, Ram.
Speaker 2: He was also a pretty good good mimic in terms
Speaker 2: of the type of songs that he could actually right himself,
Speaker 2: and the way he sang and his mannerisms. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is interesting detail here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But the issue with it is that for people
Speaker 1: who believe there is a body double, they believe there
Speaker 1: are minuscule discrepancies differences between the actual Paul's face and
Speaker 1: the impersonator or impostor's face. And you can find plenty
Speaker 1: of plenty of blogs and forums wherein they describe what
Speaker 1: they see is the multiple provable differences between the real
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney and the man they call fall Faul fake Paul.
Speaker 2: That's great. And there's another interesting detail here too. It
Speaker 2: was right around this time November of nineteen sixty six
Speaker 2: when supposedly this impost stepped in. That's when the Beatles stopped.
Speaker 2: They were never really much of a touring band. They
Speaker 2: played these handful of big, giant stadium shows around the world,
Speaker 2: but not in the sense that we know today in
Speaker 2: terms of bands that just grind it out on the
Speaker 2: road for a month at a time. They were not
Speaker 2: that kind of band, and they just stopped entirely to
Speaker 2: focus on their recorded output. And you know, some conspiracy
Speaker 2: minded types. My point to the idea that it's a
Speaker 2: lot easier to hide these kinds of things if you're
Speaker 2: not constantly out in the public eye and you can
Speaker 2: control your image and the output of photographs and liner
Speaker 2: notes and what have you.
Speaker 1: Right, that's a valid point for sure. And this this theory,
Speaker 1: of course, is also one of the oldest ones about
Speaker 1: the Beatles. You can trace it back to nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: nine when a guy named Tim Harper, who was the
Speaker 1: editor of a student newspaper Drake University, published an article
Speaker 1: called is Beatle Paul McCartney Dead? And then you know,
Speaker 1: later in that year it gets the Nash coverage because
Speaker 1: it's on the radio. It takes off like gangbusters, and
Speaker 1: people still believe it to some degree today, as you
Speaker 1: might imagine, as you might imagine the Paul McCartney or
Speaker 1: fake Paul McCartney, whichever you choose. Folks was asked about
Speaker 1: this before and he said that.
Speaker 2: He met He said something jovial and delightful, didn't.
Speaker 1: He He was pretty he was. He was surprisingly diplomatic.
Speaker 1: He said, well, you know, I haven't been in the
Speaker 1: public eye. I took some time off, so maybe that's
Speaker 1: why people thought I was dead. And then you know,
Speaker 1: there's that question of like, when you're at that level
Speaker 1: of fame and prominence, do people treat it like you're
Speaker 1: dead when you decide not to be on the front
Speaker 1: of magazines and these covers. If anything, you know, hopefully
Speaker 1: he looks at it as a flattering thing. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how to take it. What would you
Speaker 1: do if you were accused of being your own body double.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'd be tough man. I haven't accused of this though. Actually,
Speaker 2: someone on one of the forums mentioned that on this
Speaker 2: show I sound really serious, and on our other show,
Speaker 2: Ridiculous History, I sound much more upbeat. And is it
Speaker 2: possible that I have some sort of clones or double
Speaker 2: action going on?
Speaker 1: Saw that I imagined you'd be pretty delighted by it. I
Speaker 1: thought your answer was diplomatic.
Speaker 2: It was, you know, I try. I can't claim to
Speaker 2: be as a diplomatic as Sir Paul McCartney. But speaking of,
Speaker 2: let's talk about a couple of more image related clues
Speaker 2: to this particular one on the cover of Sergeant Peper's
Speaker 2: Lonely Hearts Club Band, which is just chock full of
Speaker 2: references and things and different characters from history, like I
Speaker 2: believe Karl Marx is on there. Also, all four Beatles
Speaker 2: are shown wearing band uniforms and gathered around this giant
Speaker 2: bass drum, and Paul has his right hand over his head,
Speaker 2: and this has been interpreted to represent an Eastern symbol
Speaker 2: that means death. And he also has a black clarinet
Speaker 2: while the other guys in the band have golden brass
Speaker 2: type instruments.
Speaker 1: And there's something with his dominant hand as it's pictured
Speaker 1: in the art right in.
Speaker 2: Terms of which one he's using to hold the clarinet. Right, Yeah, interesting, Okay,
Speaker 2: So there's there's actually a website called turn me on
Speaker 2: deadman dot com and has a whole page devoted to
Speaker 2: some of these Paula's Dead theories, and one of them
Speaker 2: involves taking a mirror and holding it up to the
Speaker 2: center of that Sergeant Pepper bass drum, at which point
Speaker 2: it says I ONYX he die, which would be I
Speaker 2: one nine he die, which also has an embedded reference
Speaker 2: to eleven nine November ninth, nineteen sixty six, which is
Speaker 2: when supposedly he had this fatal car crash.
Speaker 1: So is this a is this surreptitious communication? And if so,
Speaker 1: why and how if they want to keep it a secret,
Speaker 1: that's the question. This going back to what Paul McCartney
Speaker 1: said himself or his double said, he seems to have
Speaker 1: been kind of a sport about it. In nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: he gave a nod to this conspiracy theory in his
Speaker 1: album do you Know the Name of It?
Speaker 2: It was Paul is Live.
Speaker 1: Yes, it is Paul is Live. And despite that, the
Speaker 1: fury continues today as recently as just two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: even in Wired magazine, in the Italian version of the publication,
Speaker 1: there was a study done by two forensic scientists who
Speaker 1: used computer technology to compare the measurements of McCartney's skull
Speaker 1: before and after the car accident. They took on the
Speaker 1: project because they wanted to prove that the Paul is
Speaker 1: Dead thing at no basis. But what they claim to
Speaker 1: discover is that the point where the nose detaches from
Speaker 1: the face is different in both skulls, and the position
Speaker 1: of the years is different in a way that cannot
Speaker 1: be explained by surgery, and the shape of the palette
Speaker 1: is also different. So their story is that they went
Speaker 1: in to disprove it and they came out going, oh
Speaker 1: but an Italian.
Speaker 2: And I think at this point we can even move
Speaker 2: on to a slightly related one, that a very strange
Speaker 2: one that implies that every single beetle was in fact
Speaker 2: a double.
Speaker 1: A double or fixtional.
Speaker 2: Well, there's two there's one that says they were a
Speaker 2: series of humans that were actors that were hired to
Speaker 2: play them so they could like maximize their you know,
Speaker 2: grind time with all the different you know, responsibilities they
Speaker 2: would have being a giant band like that. So that's one,
Speaker 2: and I don't know, we don't have to even go
Speaker 2: into that one too dp, but that is one that's
Speaker 2: floating out there, the idea of a boy band sort
Speaker 2: of manufactured, like the Monkeys and things like that. The
Speaker 2: Beatles would have been the ones that kind of set
Speaker 2: that trend off. But this is the idea that they were,
Speaker 2: in fact all played by different actors.
Speaker 1: Is this the one that says the Beatles were created
Speaker 1: by the Illuminati.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a different one, but it's related. This is it.
Speaker 2: That's all I've got for that one. It's just I mean,
Speaker 2: it's really there's really not much to it. Yeah, here
Speaker 2: we go. So there's a guy named Chris Fischell, this
Speaker 2: is coming from a great Huffington Post article, who was
Speaker 2: looking into the idea McCartney had died, and in his
Speaker 2: research decided that in fact, every other Beatle had died
Speaker 2: except possibly Paul, and that there were tons of clues
Speaker 2: hidden in all of these record covers dating far back
Speaker 2: as nineteen sixty three, where Ringo's face on their sixty
Speaker 2: three record is not in line with the rest of them.
Speaker 2: And then in sixty four you've got a Hard Day's
Speaker 2: Night where George has his back to the camera and
Speaker 2: is holding a cigarette. This is all super stretchy to me.
Speaker 2: And then on Revolver we've got supposedly the second John
Speaker 2: Lennon singing the line I'm only sleeping sleep being a
Speaker 2: metaphor for death. And then we've got the Buried Paul
Speaker 2: thing in sixty seven. And you know, this guy goes
Speaker 2: into about two dozen or so pieces of evidence and
Speaker 2: decides that this is the one I was talking about earlier.
Speaker 2: He says he just didn't have the resources necessary to
Speaker 2: listen to every single song backwards. I guess he didn't
Speaker 2: have a computer yet, right, But that's it, Yeah, that's
Speaker 2: it. And then it goes on because there's another one saying
Speaker 2: that the Beatles had been played by different actors, every
Speaker 2: single one of them. And there's a list just like
Speaker 2: you said with Paul, for every Beatle, showing that there
Speaker 2: are different facial dissimilarities through various periods in their career.
Speaker 1: It's it's interesting because that is not as implausible principle
Speaker 1: a theory as we might initially think. It's not. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's particularly a secret, but it's probably an
Speaker 1: open secret. We can go ahead and say this something
Speaker 1: similar has occurred in the past and entertainment culture, and
Speaker 1: I have one example of something that's going on. Now.
Speaker 1: Have you heard this story about Morgan Freeman and voiceover?
Speaker 1: I think we talked about this off air. Morgan Freeman
Speaker 1: has an iconic voice and it'll lend it to anything
Speaker 1: you hear him. Often, even when he's in any film,
Speaker 1: he's just the narrator because he's that well known for this.
Speaker 2: So you got an AMEX card commercial, Morgan'll do it right.
Speaker 1: You got to break up with your girlfriend, Get Morgan
Speaker 1: Freeman on the phone, soften the blow, schwalk away, giving
Speaker 1: that voicemail message ten stars. Also, don't break up with
Speaker 1: your significant other over the phone. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Not nice be an adult. But uh. But the strange
Speaker 1: thing about Morrian Freeman, and that a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't know, is that he has been getting so much
Speaker 1: voice acting work and he is so well known and
Speaker 1: so popular in the industry that his prices go up.
Speaker 1: And if he doesn't have the time or the inclination,
Speaker 1: or if you don't have the money to afford him,
Speaker 1: he will recommend his secret voice. Double what there's a
Speaker 1: guy who just does Morgan Freeman esque voices. So if
Speaker 1: a mex can of Ford, he doesn't want to do it,
Speaker 1: but he still wants a piece of the action. He'll say,
Speaker 1: you know, well, you can't get me, but you can
Speaker 1: get this guy who sounds like me.
Speaker 2: And do you think that guy has to pay him
Speaker 2: like a finder's fee or some sort give him a cut?
Speaker 2: I bet he does. Surely he does.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he gets a cut. I don't know the
Speaker 1: nature of the relationships.
Speaker 2: Had to license that voice. And that's a very weird arrangement, bet,
Speaker 2: And what.
Speaker 1: An interesting interesting thing. So and then dictators often use
Speaker 1: body doubles. Saddam right, Saddam, Stalin, Goaddaffi. The list goes on.
Speaker 2: But Saddam in particular. I believe there was some forensic
Speaker 2: expert that went through dozens and dozens of photographs of
Speaker 2: Saddam Hussein and determined that they were at least I
Speaker 2: want to say six in play.
Speaker 1: Well there were several. Yeah, I think a couple of
Speaker 1: them died too. But we say all that to say
Speaker 1: it is not entirely out of the realm of possibility
Speaker 1: that someone could have a body double in the entertainment industry.
Speaker 1: What differentiates this theory is the idea that it would
Speaker 1: be so prolific and so successful. I mean, I wonder, frankly,
Speaker 1: I wonder if it happens with K pop, which is
Speaker 1: another huge industry. But not every Beatle as we know,
Speaker 1: ended up being one of the Fab four. Pete Best
Speaker 1: got kicked out. There's also this conspiracy theory that says
Speaker 1: the Beatles tried themselves to kill Pete Best. And these
Speaker 1: are just these are just some of the beginnings. We
Speaker 1: have some more to explore, but maybe let's give that
Speaker 1: some room to breathe. We'll be back after a word
Speaker 1: from our sponsor. Here's one of the darker ones, the
Speaker 1: John Lenning cover up. We mentioned earlier that he was
Speaker 1: shot on December eighth, nineteen eighty in Manhattan by a
Speaker 1: fellow named Mark David Chapman.
Speaker 2: And it's weird because he was simultaneously a crazed fan.
Speaker 2: He's been described that way many times. But he also
Speaker 2: had some real problems with Lenin, specifically with his atheism,
Speaker 2: because Chapman himself was a Christian and he did not
Speaker 2: appreciate John Lennin kind of spreading this notion that you
Speaker 2: know that Christianity, you know, it would never go so
Speaker 2: far as to say that it's stupid, but he just
Speaker 2: did not think it was important.
Speaker 1: That you the notion that you do not need a
Speaker 1: God or the threat of divine punishment to be a
Speaker 1: decent person. Atheism essentially absolutely somewhere between spiritualism and atheism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So he he shot Lenin four times in the back.
Speaker 1: I think he fired the gun five times, and then
Speaker 1: he just sat down on a curb and started reading
Speaker 1: The Catcher in the Rye, which he had brought with him.
Speaker 1: When he was arrested, he asked for a statement. He
Speaker 1: told police that the book The Catcher in the Rye
Speaker 1: was his statement. This has got to be a real
Speaker 1: terrible occurrence for JD. Salinger.
Speaker 2: Well, this is a recurring thing, this idea that Catcher
Speaker 2: in the Rye is somehow some sort of assassination trigger.
Speaker 2: Because the gentleman who made an attempt on Ronald Reagan's life,
Speaker 2: I believe was carrying a copy of it as well,
Speaker 2: And it's been talked about as an interesting you know,
Speaker 2: if anybody hasn't read it. It's told from the perspective
Speaker 2: of a young dude who was very kind of antisocial
Speaker 2: and telling the story from the confines of a psychiatric institution,
Speaker 2: and it of normalizes that kind of outsider mentality, you know,
Speaker 2: the kind of lone wolf no one. He doesn't kill
Speaker 2: anybody in the book spoiler alert, but he talks about
Speaker 2: things along those lines.
Speaker 1: And there's a there's a huge, a huge thematic thread
Speaker 1: going through this story in which Holden Callfield, the protagonist,
Speaker 1: or at least the main character, wrestles with the concept
Speaker 1: of what is real and what is fake, who is phony,
Speaker 1: who is sincere? And yes, it has been alleged in
Speaker 1: various conspiracy theories that Kettrin the Rye was used as
Speaker 1: a psychological trigger by intelligence agencies. So in this theory,
Speaker 1: John Lennon was not killed so much by Chapman himself.
Speaker 1: He was more killed by remote control. The ideas that
Speaker 1: Chapman was programmed by US government agents to kill Lenin,
Speaker 1: and they use the novel as a signal to go
Speaker 1: ahead with the operations. So either it was a subtle
Speaker 1: signal to Chapman that other people wouldn't understand, or it
Speaker 1: was a trigger that he was programmed, brainwashed essentially into following,
Speaker 1: you know, like he sees this or here's a passage
Speaker 1: read aloud and it triggers a certain set of actions.
Speaker 1: This sounds just this sounds like if it were a
Speaker 1: breakfast dish, it would be nuts and bananas. But it
Speaker 1: is true that John Lennon, like other celebrities and musicians
Speaker 1: and political activists, John Lennon was being monitored by US
Speaker 1: intelligence agencies to some degree. All this theory does is
Speaker 1: go further. We should also mention that Mark David Chapman,
Speaker 1: at the time of this recording is alive and well.
Speaker 1: He just had a parole hearing earlier this year. He
Speaker 1: was denied parole because the prole board wrote back to
Speaker 1: him and said, you admittedly carefully planned and executed the
Speaker 1: murder of a world famous person for no reason other
Speaker 1: than to gain notoriety. While no person's life is any
Speaker 1: more valuable than another's life, the fact that you chose
Speaker 1: someone who is not only a world renowned person and
Speaker 1: beloved by millions, regardless of pain and suffering you would
Speaker 1: cause to his family, friends, and many others. You demonstrated
Speaker 1: a callous disregard for the sanctity of human life and
Speaker 1: the pain and suffering of others. Not the most well
Speaker 1: written sentence, but you get what they're saying. You know
Speaker 1: what I mean.
Speaker 2: It has a bit of a run on, wasn't it was?
Speaker 1: It was they were trying to squeeze in a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff there.
Speaker 2: But does it mayby sound like too that they're really
Speaker 2: pushing the onus of this act really hard on him,
Speaker 2: saying for no reason, considering that this mk ultra esque
Speaker 2: type conditioning was perhaps in play. And then you know,
Speaker 2: and knowing what we know, maybe Ben talk a little
Speaker 2: bit more about why Lenin was being monitored. Lenin himself
Speaker 2: was being monitored by the government the same way that
Speaker 2: they would keep tabs on someone like Martin Luther King.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, so the concern here we have to look back.
Speaker 1: It's nineteen eighty, the Cold Wars in full swing. Domino
Speaker 1: theory of ideology is also it's not something that got
Speaker 1: left behind in Vietnam. You know. The idea here is
Speaker 1: that leftist activists who have a public platform could sway
Speaker 1: the US voter or the world stage that it was
Speaker 1: a big concern of the powers that be at the time.
Speaker 1: But the question then becomes one of technology involved. Has
Speaker 1: the US ever successfully managed to make an individual do
Speaker 1: something they would not normally do unconsciously, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Like sir Han Sirhan claims that he was
Speaker 1: a mentoring candidate as well. But then the second question
Speaker 1: goes to.
Speaker 2: Motivation.
Speaker 1: Had had John Lennon done something specific that would have
Speaker 1: been the straw on the proverbial camel's back. Had he
Speaker 1: done something that made someone in a shadowy room in
Speaker 1: DC or in Langley go, he's gone too far? Send
Speaker 1: the book, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I don't know, like when you asked this
Speaker 2: question about like have we really seen evidence that that
Speaker 2: this is even possible? And this might sound utterly ridiculous,
Speaker 2: but I'm going to put it out there. I have seen,
Speaker 2: you know, and you may have two successful hypnosis you know,
Speaker 2: And I know a lot of times it's like people
Speaker 2: certain people are more susceptible to it. But you know,
Speaker 2: I went to like a Renaissance fair here in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: and I don't know, I'm pretty skeptical about this stuff,
Speaker 2: but I saw some people who I saw walking around
Speaker 2: earlier at the festival and who were called up or
Speaker 2: volunteered to go up on stage and were hypnotized super
Speaker 2: quickly and made to do things that they wouldn't normally do,
Speaker 2: like cluck like a chicken, or you know, walk around.
Speaker 2: Who's to say you couldn't take that to the next
Speaker 2: level and trigger somebody with a word to make them,
Speaker 2: you know, really do something they wouldn't do, like kill
Speaker 2: a Man's interesting.
Speaker 1: Well, it goes into not just severity of action or
Speaker 1: extremity of action, but also a severity of time or
Speaker 1: distance from suggestion to action. It's something I would I've
Speaker 1: often called this the chloroform question. So you know how
Speaker 1: chloroform We all know this. Chloroform in fiction is depicted
Speaker 1: as something that you it's put dows on a rag
Speaker 1: and then you put it over someone's face, right their
Speaker 1: mouth and their nose, and they pass out for some
Speaker 1: amount of time. Real chloroform application, or the real usage
Speaker 1: of it, is much different. You have to hold it
Speaker 1: there longer, and it keeps people under only as long
Speaker 1: really as it's on them. They'll wake up shortly thereafter
Speaker 1: and real hypnosis. We know it can have these short
Speaker 1: term effects. People cluck like a chicken. They will do
Speaker 1: acts that they might not normally do, but we don't
Speaker 1: know if it can force them to do things that
Speaker 1: we would considered depraved, like murder or you know, cannibalism.
Speaker 1: Maybe you could get somebody to light a fire if
Speaker 1: they were if they disassociated it from human harm. But
Speaker 1: the big question is can we make some sort of
Speaker 1: suggestion that will stay for months or years. That's the
Speaker 1: big question, right, Can the Renaissance fair hypnotist make someone
Speaker 1: cluck like a chicken in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: And then recall it with yes, now I understand, I understand,
Speaker 2: but it's still it's interesting to see that happen in
Speaker 2: real time. The potentials there, The potential seems to be there,
Speaker 2: but you know, like we say, the human mind is
Speaker 2: even less understood than you know, what we understand about space.
Speaker 2: So he did.
Speaker 1: Chapman did apologize for being such an idiot and choosing
Speaker 1: the wrong way for glory to Yoko Ono after he
Speaker 1: shot her husband, and then choosing the what choosing the
Speaker 1: wrong way for glory, So.
Speaker 2: He almost admitted that he did it for like a
Speaker 2: notoriety in some way.
Speaker 1: Right, he is eligible for parole in twenty twenty. Unlike
Speaker 1: Sirhan Sirhan he has not made ardent, consistent claims that
Speaker 1: he was brainwashed by any intelligence agency. But that that's
Speaker 1: where we leave it. And it's the thing that makes
Speaker 1: this one so tantalizing is that we know, we know,
Speaker 1: years and decades later, that the intelligence agencies of the US,
Speaker 1: at the very least did actively monitor people they considered
Speaker 1: to be dangerous political activists, and they also actively harassed them.
Speaker 1: Like you said earlier with doctor King, they really did that,
Speaker 1: right Cohen, telpro was a real thing. The question is
Speaker 1: just how far it went. And if you want to
Speaker 1: read more about this, check out John Potash's book Drugs
Speaker 1: Is Weapons against Us, which says that these agencies did
Speaker 1: not just target John Lennon, but they also targeted Tupac
Speaker 1: Shakur and Kirk Cobain and many other celebrities. But here's
Speaker 1: here's a question of what if there's something bigger than
Speaker 1: intelligence agencies at work. What if it's bigger than the CIA,
Speaker 1: What if it's bigger than the FBI, What if it's
Speaker 1: the Illuminati?
Speaker 2: The illuminati the very same. Oh wow, okay, and within
Speaker 2: that we have some subsets, don't we sure this idea
Speaker 2: of the illuminati. We have two in particular that we're
Speaker 2: talking about. One that's a research wing of the UK
Speaker 2: that supposedly receives government funding from the United States, and
Speaker 2: that was very particularly tied to MK Ultra we talked
Speaker 2: about a little while ago, which is something called the
Speaker 2: Tavistock Institute for Human Relations.
Speaker 1: Yes, the Tavistike is.
Speaker 2: In addition to the Committee of three hundred. First off,
Speaker 2: let's talk a little bit about the Tavistock Institute. They
Speaker 2: are essentially a nonprofit, at least on the surface that
Speaker 2: a British based nonprofit that has done kind of a
Speaker 2: think tank, I guess you could call it, that has
Speaker 2: done research on how to solve societal problems.
Speaker 1: Quote, helping organizations, groups and individuals to learn, change, innovate
Speaker 1: and develop. How much more vague could you be. They
Speaker 1: were started back in forty seven, right.
Speaker 2: That's right, and they have since their inception been intimately
Speaker 2: tied to the field of psychiatry. And again they were
Speaker 2: connected to the mk ulture experiment as we talked about earlier,
Speaker 2: which if we didn't go too deep into it. Surely
Speaker 2: you guys know what this is. We've done episodes on
Speaker 2: in the past. But it is that Manchurian candidate kind
Speaker 2: of research that was ruled to be not cool, you know,
Speaker 2: by the US government, the idea of turning people into
Speaker 2: secret sleeper soldiers, among other things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they are commonly associated with the Beatles and
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones. You can find a couple of books
Speaker 1: focusing on this, one by Daniel Eastland called Tavistock Institute,
Speaker 1: Social Engineering and the Masses. That's the more recent one.
Speaker 1: It came out in twenty fifteen. But the concept here
Speaker 1: is that there's a totalitarian agenda which ultimately will result
Speaker 1: in the Illuminati taking over America with the intent of
Speaker 1: utterly destroying it through rock music and drugs to rebel
Speaker 1: against the status quo, undermine the family unit, dogs and
Speaker 1: cats sleeping together, people barefoot in the streets and wearing
Speaker 1: shoes in their houses.
Speaker 2: Well, it reminds me of that episode we did a
Speaker 2: while back about did the CIA manufacture of the counterculture?
Speaker 2: A very similar end, you know, in theory would be
Speaker 2: to cause the breakdown of civilized society in some way
Speaker 2: or to demonize a particular group, which is I think
Speaker 2: more of what the CIA theory was about, but this
Speaker 2: one is much more watched the world burn type stuff,
Speaker 2: hasn't it been?
Speaker 1: Yeah it is. No, there's the idea is that the
Speaker 1: Beatles were created purposefully with intent by the Illuminati or
Speaker 1: these various subsidiaries to introduce counterculture, to introduce drugs. And
Speaker 1: this part is something larger, called the Aquarium conspiracy by
Speaker 1: its opponent. So it was started by a guy named
Speaker 1: John Coleman as recently as the nineteen nineties. He used
Speaker 1: to work for MI six and that gave him some
Speaker 1: street crad with people. He said that the Tavistock Institute
Speaker 1: for Human Relations was instrumental in creating this band, and
Speaker 1: they do. Some of his claims rest on the similar
Speaker 1: idea of subtle visual or audible clues, like he says
Speaker 1: there's a promo picture from the Yellow Submarine that shows
Speaker 1: John Lennon flash the Devil's Horn sign associated with this
Speaker 1: mysterious group, and that Paul is making the six six
Speaker 1: six or I of Horace hand signed or as I
Speaker 1: like to refer.
Speaker 2: To it, the a ok emoji hand.
Speaker 1: Is that what it is?
Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of I mean, it's just like putting your
Speaker 2: finger and your thumb together in a circle and holding
Speaker 2: out your other three fingers. But you know, if you
Speaker 2: if you draw a line through that that oh that
Speaker 2: you're making, and then the remaining three fingers, you get
Speaker 2: three sixes. But it's also it's literally you know, that's.
Speaker 1: What the six six.
Speaker 2: But it's also literally you know, an emoji for and
Speaker 2: it just means cool. Everything is a ok.
Speaker 1: You know, well in some places it means butthole.
Speaker 2: That's fair.
Speaker 1: That's that's I think that's unfair to tourists who don't
Speaker 1: know that way the traveling.
Speaker 2: There was another conspiracy theory or you know, kind of
Speaker 2: an alarmist thing that was making the round power. Well
Speaker 2: wasn't why power. I think it was like the teenagers
Speaker 2: were using that symbol in pictures and it showed that
Speaker 2: they were what the kids called DTF down to.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, there's also one of the one of the
Speaker 1: pieces of evidence for the Illuminati idea is that the
Speaker 1: cover of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band also includes
Speaker 1: a host of quote Illuminati stooges such as Alvis Huxley,
Speaker 1: Karl Marx, HG. Wells and playwright George Bernard Shaw.
Speaker 2: That's right, Shaw was in it too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, a known Illuminati stooge. I just love it
Speaker 1: when people are called stooges or tycoons. We do have
Speaker 1: something else, and one more tad on the pile here,
Speaker 1: and that's the idea that the Beatles did not release
Speaker 1: all their songs. Did you ever hear this?
Speaker 2: Yeah? This one's pretty pretty debunkable, but it's one of
Speaker 2: those ones that I think rabid fans were so jazzed
Speaker 2: about the idea of they just wanted to let it ride.
Speaker 2: But what's the backstory?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it goes back to nineteen seventy one. There's a
Speaker 1: British teenager named Martin Lewis and he sends bootleg Beatles
Speaker 1: recording to a magazine and he includes extra track names
Speaker 1: on the bootleg songs like Colliding Circles, left is Right
Speaker 1: and Right is Wrong, deck Chair and pink Litmus paper
Speaker 1: Shirt and claim they have been hidden away in the
Speaker 1: Apple Records vault. The thing is, of course people thought
Speaker 1: this is amazing. They wanted to hear these new songs.
Speaker 1: But the thing is that later Lewis confesses and says
Speaker 1: the whole thing is a hoax, and like you said, Noel,
Speaker 1: people don't believe him. He even explained it in an
Speaker 1: interview with USA Today when he said, to my shock
Speaker 1: and horror, many Beatles fans refused to believe me. People
Speaker 1: told me your confession is a hoax. I know someone
Speaker 1: who's got those songs. And so he says, I'm letting
Speaker 1: the cat out of the bag again. There are no
Speaker 1: hidden songs, which is where we begin to wrap up
Speaker 1: the show today, folks, because for some of these theories
Speaker 1: that we've described, some more plausible than others. There are
Speaker 1: always going to be people who say, if you are
Speaker 1: attempting to disprove what I believe, then that means you
Speaker 1: are part of the vast Beatles conspiracy. But what do
Speaker 1: you think? No, what do you think? Do you think
Speaker 1: any of these could have some sand or a grain
Speaker 1: of truth? Do you think Paul McCartney died in the sixties.
Speaker 2: I don't know, man, I hope not. He seems like
Speaker 2: the same old Paul, you know.
Speaker 1: And also it's on balance we have to think of
Speaker 1: the ratio to be fair, if there's a body double,
Speaker 1: he spent more time now being Paul McCartney than Paul
Speaker 1: McCartney did when he was alive. Well, so you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of just time spent as Paul, who is
Speaker 1: more genuine. I know that makes me sound like a
Speaker 1: horrible person.
Speaker 2: Not at all, not at all.
Speaker 1: But we also want to hear from you, folks, fellow
Speaker 1: conspiracy realists, skeptics alike. Do you think that any of
Speaker 1: these claims have an amount of an amount of sand.
Speaker 1: One thing we did not talk about, which is a
Speaker 1: provable improven conspiracy, be corruption in the music industry and
Speaker 1: the ways in which artists back then and today were
Speaker 1: chosen sometimes to be successful through practices like payola, through
Speaker 1: practices like you know, suppressing one record label's output to
Speaker 1: play the records of another label. Hopefully that's something that
Speaker 1: we can we can explore in a future episode, but
Speaker 1: in the meantime, let us know what you think. You
Speaker 1: can find us on Instagram, you can find us on Twitter,
Speaker 1: you can find us on Facebook. On our various community pages,
Speaker 1: the one for this one is Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 1: Longtime listeners, you probably you hopefully heard Nol and Matt
Speaker 1: do an episode recently that was entirely composed of fascinating
Speaker 1: stuff from our community page right, nol.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a fun one. Those are always fun
Speaker 2: to do. And Ben, there was a very disc concerting
Speaker 2: Ben shaped abyss in the room with us at that time,
Speaker 2: but you yourself were not corporeally present, but we did
Speaker 2: commune with the abyss a couple of times.
Speaker 1: Very kind. I am often described as a bend shaped abyss.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: So you can and that's the end of this classic episode.
Speaker 3: If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode,
Speaker 3: you can get into contact with us in a number
Speaker 3: of different ways. One of the best is to give
Speaker 3: us a call. Our number is one eight three three STDWYTK.
Speaker 3: If you don't want to do that, you can send
Speaker 3: us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3: Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production
Speaker 3: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.