The Paranoid Style Podcast
The Paranoid Style Podcast
The Beatles - Paul Is Dead Pt. 2
This week The Paranoid Style Podcast is back with Part 2 of The Beatles - Paul Is Dead! We keep scouring The Beatles’ discography for the clues that will break this case wide open. From India to Abbey Road. From the black mass rites of Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, to the shade thrown on How Do You Sleep? From the Manson’s Family’s Helter-Skelter to the walrus, who we’re pretty sure wasn’t Paul. Oh! And did we mention that this time playing the songs forward is not enough? G-N-I-K-S-A-M-K-C-A-B! Warning: After bad-mouthing other people’s Liverpudlian accent, we produce quite possibly the worst of all time. Our apologies to the lovely people of Liverpool…
If you have any topic suggestions for the show or any tales to share, please email us at theparanoidstylepod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram @theparanoidstylepod or on twitter @style_paranoid.
Music used in this episode is from: Purple Planet Royalty Free Music
Opening theme music provided by Tony Molina. You can hear more of his music at https://tonymolina650.bandcamp.com/
***Begin Part 2***
ARK: Hey, Bulldog!
CCK: Hey Sister
ARK: Hey, listeners! And welcome back to the Paranoid Style Podcast. If you would like to let us know what you think about our podcast, there are two great ways to do it. First, you can rate and review us on Apple iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Second, you can always reach out and tell us personally by emailing us at theparanoidstylepod@gmail.com. My name is Amanda and I totally have gone through Beatles phases…
Without further ado… Ladies and gentlemen, Part 2 of Paul Is Dead!
CCK: A quick recap, The Beatles were a super popular rock and roll group from England that took the world by storm in the early 1960’s. The group was John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Paul McCartney, except, there are some people that think that sometime around 1966, Paul McCartney died and the Beatles, their manager, and the British Intelligence Agency, MI5, decided to cover-up the death by employing use of a Paul McCartney lookalike. There are rumors that this lookalike’s real name was Bill Campbell, but he was less affectionately known as Fake Paul or Faul.
ARK: The three remaining Beatles, John, George and Ringo, agreed to go along with the plan. However, with MI5 involved, some people think the remaining Beatles were under threat of death if they came out with the truth. So, the band decided that they would leave clues for the fans to find. The clues about Paul’s death and replacement with a body double were hidden in album cover art, photos of the band, song lyrics, and perhaps a few other places. Last week, we dissected the band’s first album released post Paul’s death, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which was lousy with images, hidden messages, and lyrics that could be interpreted as pointing to the death of their friend and bandmate, Paul McCartney. And if you do believe that all those symbols and hidden messages are true, then it would be easy to see how this may have angered the MI5 agent, known simply as Maxwell, that was overseeing the plan to coverup Paul’s death. And then shortly after Sgt. Pepper was released…
CCK: The band’s longtime friend and manager, Brian Epstein, died from an accidental overdose!
ARK: That’s right! If you believe that MI5 was involved in keeping Paul McCartney’s death a secret, and then the Beatles release an album that allegedly include all these hints to the truth, then it’s not that hard to believe that maybe Brian Epstein was killed as warning to the remaining Beatles to be careful about what they were doing. And if that were true, then you know what that means?
CCK: Don’t say it.
ARK: It means that maybe, just maybe…
CCK: Stop.
ARK: Epstein. Didn’t…
CCK: No.
ARK: Kill himself?
CCK: I quit the podcast.
ARK: You didn’t let me finish… with an accidental drug overdose.
CCK: As we briefly mentioned in the first part of this series, this tragic death hit the Beatles hard. And it was Paul McCartney that really pushed the band to concentrate on finishing their next album, which was to be a soundtrack to a film written, directed, and starring the Beatles. The other Beatles eventually agreed, and it was back in the studio to finish their ninth album, Magical Mystery Tour.
ARK: Let’s start with the cover again, and with a symbol that would come be synonymous with the PID theory, the walrus. The cover of Magical Mystery Tour shows the four band members dressed in rather crude and disturbing animal costumes: a hippopotamus, a rabbit, a rooster, and front and center, a walrus. All but the walrus have white fun-fur bodies, the walrus’s body is black. They all have eyes, or glasses in the case of the rooster, but the walrus just has two rough circles cut out for the eyes. There are theories that it is Paul McCartney, or perhaps Faul, in the walrus costume, the only one in black indicating death. But, I don’t think it was Paul in the walrus costume; I’m pretty sure it’s John Lennon. Ringo is the rooster and to confuse matters, he’s wearing John’s granny glasses. George is the rabbit. As for Faul, he’s the hippo, his white fur coat bulges open in the front right over the area of his heart. Some say this is to signify that this person has no heart or soul, he’s not the real Paul.
CCK: People became obsessed with the walrus symbolism as it relates to Paul’s alleged death. I saw several people claiming that the black walrus is a symbol for death in some cultures; as a matter of fact, this was one of those rumors that got started with the initial college newspaper articles in 1969. However, I could not find anything to indicate this is true. Most things I read said that the walrus is a symbol of friendship and family bonds. But, there are examples of the walrus being used in mythical symbolism to represent a shape shifter, I think this is a more interesting correlation to the PID myth anyway. There is also the symbolism of the walrus in the Lewis Carroll poem “The Walrus and The Carpenter”. The walrus is a trickster, someone who is not what he seems.
ARK: Let’s move onto the word Beatles spelled out in stars across the top of the album cover. This is interesting for a couple of reasons: one, it appears they are no longer THE Beatles, but simply Beatles now, indicating a change to the band. Two, when the album is flipped upside down, it does look like the letters are numbers – 5371038; allegedly, at one time this number on the London telephone exchange rang through to a funeral home. Or if you held a mirror up to it, the number you get looks a little different, this time: 2317438 and when calling this number, you would get a recorded message of a voice that says, “You’re getting closer”. Alas, I could find no confirmation if either of these rumors were ever true.
CCK: Once again, the alleged clues don’t end at the cover, this album also includes stills from the film itself. It’s a picture of all four Beatles dressed in white suits. Three of the Beatles have red flowers in their lapels, Paul’s boutonniere is black. There is a cartoon drawing of the band, drawn as wizards; however, Paul’s wizard hat obscures one eye and a portion of the top of his skull. And then there’s the odd little story under the drawing. It begins, “Away in the sky, beyond the clouds, live 4 or 5 Magicians…” Not four, like the picture, like the Beatles… but four or five. There are a couple of stills from the film of Paul. In the first he is in military uniform and in front of him is a sign that reads “I Was”, the second is a photo of Paul and there is an opened palm hand outstretched over his head, as if a priest giving a blessing, like we saw on the Sgt. Pepper album cover.
ARK: Last thing, before we move onto more lyrical clues… There is a photograph of John Lennon standing next to a sign that reads, “The Way to go is by M&D Co” Some people have claimed that M&D Co is the name of a funeral parlour in England. I could not confirm this , but it is interesting to note that the “O” in co is obscured, so Lennon is standing next to a sign that says “The way to go is by MDC” Mark David Chapman, the man that would shoot and kill John Lennon, thirteen years to the day that Magical Mystery Tour was released!
CCK: Please, I can only take one Beatle conspiracy at a time. So let’s move onto the lyrics. Although, there might be some interesting threads to pull at on this album, we will focus on just two of the songs for now. First up, I Am the Walrus. Right off the bat, the song begins with the line, “I am he as you are he and you are me and we are all together” sorta nonsensical, but also sorta indicative of a confusion about who someone claims to be. Or who we perceive people to be from the outside… in those fur suits, I could not tell who was he or who was me, etc. From the same song is the line “Stupid bloody Tuesday” while it somewhat contradicts the Wednesday morning timeline we already established, it’s pretty easy to imagine that the fighting amongst the group that led to Paul leaving the studio that fateful Wednesday morning might have began the night before. There is also the line that is repeated a lot throughout the song, “I am the egg man” serving Humpty Dumpty realness, and we all know how that story ended.
ARK: You mean MI5 couldn’t put him back together again, so they had to go find an egg that was a close proximity to him?! Another line from this song, "Man, you've been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long." I haven't seen this referred to very often, but I think it's super interesting since one of the physical differences that people point to as being proof that pre-1967 Paul McCartney is not the same person as post 1967 Paul is the face shape. Younger Paul had a very round face and Faul's face is much longer and more angular. And then there's the moment at the very end of the song that seems to flat out say Paul is Dead. But, actually, it’s saying Oswald is dead. A live radio feed was mixed onto the master tapes. Ringo was manning the radio and every time John signaled him with a head nod, Ringo was to scan to a new frequency until he picked something up. And it just so happened to capture a production of King Lear, airing on BBC. Specifically they picked up a snippet of Act 4, Scene 6, the death of Oswald and his parting words, “If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body… O, untimely death! Death!” And then Gloucester’s response: “What, is he dead?” and finally Edgar speaks the words: “He’s dead.”.
CCK: The second song of note on the Magical Mystery Tour is Strawberry Fields, at the very end of the song, you hear a strange voice, most likely slowed down and it sounds like the voice says, “I buried Paul”. John Lennon would later claim that he was actually saying “Cranberry sauce”… because why not?
ARK: mmm… I love cranberry sauce… After the release of Magical Mystery Tour, the Beatles went on a magical mystery tour of their own. They finally made that group trip to India to study Transcendental Meditation at the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The group had decided that they were ditching the drugs and switching to meditation for all their mind altering needs going forward. But, I heard a fantastic theory about how this trip also relates to the Paul Is Dead theory. As far as I can tell, the original source for this story is from a movie called, "Paul McCartney Really Is Dead: The Last Testament of George Harrison". Now, let me be 100% clear on this. This movie is a mockumentary. It is a spoof. This film is not meant to be taken as truth any more than say, Spinal Tap.
CCK: The movie's premise is that the director, Joel Gilbert, received a mysterious package at his film production company in 2005 and that package contained two mini-cassette tapes which allegedly was the recorded last testament of Beatle, George Harrison, shortly after a brush with death Harrison had in 1999. In the tapes the voice claims that the Paul is Dead hoax was all 100% true and then goes on to explain the entire story about how and why McCartney's death was covered up. And really, this movie makes Spinal Tap look like a Ken Burns production.
ARK: There are a lot liberties taken with facts in this movie. Inconsistencies that could have easily been researched and confirmed. And then there's the fact that the voice supposedly belonging to George Harrison sounds nothing like George Harrison. I mean, the least they could have done is actually hire an actor from Liverpool to record the voice.
CCK: Hashtag: No offence to actor that performed the voice of Harrison, Lance Lewman, best known for his work as Detective Andriotti, in the 1986 horror, sci-fi film, Breeders.
ARK: But despite all this, there was one creative take on the Beatles' trip to India, which I thought was funny and clever, so I wanted to include it here. According to the mysterious deathbed confession tapes left behind by Lance Lewman, I mean, George Harrison, the reason they went to India to stay with Maharishi was not to learn meditation techniques, but they were hoping that Maharishi would be able to put Paul McCartney's soul into the body of Bill Campbell, aka Fake Paul without his knowledge.
CCK: Well, fuck my drag I guess…
ARK: Exactly! I just thought that was so funny… I wanted to include it. Like come on buddy we're going on this awesome trip and we want you there, now here let us strap you down to this rock while Maharishi does his thing. And then, if it had worked? It just opens up so many questions… Would Paul's soul be pissed to be back in an earthly vessel? Are we sure we're not creating some kind of possession condition? Would Faul's soul still be in there with Paul's soul? In which case we might be looking at a Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin "All of Me" situation.
CCK: This time in India was extremely productive for the Beatles' in terms of songwriting… the whole soul transference thing never panned out. And it brings us to our next album up for examination. Released in November 1968, the double album entitled, simply The Beatles, is more commonly referred to as The White Album. It has a stark white cover with no graphics, no text, other than the band's name and a serial number embossed on the first printing. Later printings would have The Beatles name in light colored print. It is the antithesis of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover art, and that it why some people think this might be the result of a stern warning aka beating that Maxwell, the MI5 agent, administered to John Lennon as a result of his ongoing insistence on leaving clues in songs and in the cover art. It is also an interesting album in terms of the diversity of the musical styles, and that according to John Lennon "Every track is an individual track; there isn't any Beatles music on it." But, guess what there is on it… Paul is Dead clues! While the front cover, back cover, and gatefold seem pretty devoid of any sort of hints, the album came with a poster which is a photo collage of the Beatles and there are a couple of interesting pictures included. There is a photo of Paul McCartney dancing and what appears to be two ghostly hands reaching out to grab him, there’s a picture of Paul laying in a bubble bath with his eyes closed, some say this photo suggests Paul laying on a slab in the morgue or perhaps the immediate aftermath of the accident. And finally the infamous passport photo of Paul McCartney.
ARK: Yeah, this picture. It definitely sort of looks like Paul McCartney, but it also doesn’t. And that is why this picture tends to circulate as being a picture of Bill Campbell aka Fake Paul before he got the facial reconstruction to turn him fully into Paul.
CCK: The story of this photo from the Beatles camp is that this is Paul, in the disguise he was using for his travels through France in 1966. The glasses and the moustache in the photo are fake. Paul claims that as soon as he was past French customs, he would glue on the mustache, made from his own hair, the clear glasses, slick his hair back, and throw on a long coat. Which was enough to let him get around France without being noticed.
ARK: Let's move onto lyrics. The White Album. We're skipping ahead to track number three, Glass Onion. This song, per John Lennon, was said to be his response to people that were trying to find hidden messages in their lyrics. So, he purposely referenced other songs as a red herring to the people looking for clues. I can't decide if he did a good job or not, 'cause these are the lines that stick out for me. First of all, the title Glass Onion, not only does it invoke images of something that is both simultaneously multi-layered, but also transparent. But, I think it could also be referring to an onion bottle. This was a bottle used in the 17th century to hold wine or other spirits, of the alcohol variety, not of the dead bassist variety… although…
CCK: Focus.
ARK: Right. Onion bottles were not clear glass; they tended to be either dark green or brown due to a combination of the sand used to make them and the coal heating process. Therefore, the line "looking through a glass onion" implies that you are not seeing the full truth. You may be getting general shapes or impressions, but you cannot actually see a true picture. Continuing, "I told you about Strawberry Fields, you know the place where nothing is real" There's that statement again. You can't trust what you see or hear because it's not real… If you believe Paul is dead, then the man you see playing bass guitar and singing is not the real Paul. But, if you believe John Lennon's story about this song, then you can't trust your interpretations of the things he has said or sung. Next lyric, and this one is a doozy for proponents of the PID theory, "Here's another clue for you all. The walrus was Paul."
CCK: Not this freakin' walrus again.
ARK: Yep. It's back. And I don't know why it matters, since as we pointed out before it's not even a symbol of death, but what I can tell you is that I watched the "I Am the Walrus" segment from Magical Mystery Tour movie like 30 times, and I don't think Paul McCartney was ever the walrus. Not on the album cover, not in the film, despite the fact that later in his life he would claim that it was him wearing the walrus costume in the film because even though it was intended for Lennon, it was a better fit on McCartney. He's lying. And so was John Lennon. Finally, "I told you about the fool on the hill I tell you man, he living there still" is this a way to imply that the fool on the hill is actually buried there? Before we begin to speak about our next song, I just want to take a moment to warn the more sensitive listeners cause it's about to get dark and spooky on this episode.
CCK: I think I know what song we're going to speak about next. Heavy for the Beatles, seemingly esoteric lyrics, possibly the inspiration for multiple brutal murders…
ARK: That's right, Sister. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.
CCK: What?! "If you want some fun? Sing Ob-La-Di-Bla-Da?!" As far as I know the only murder this song almost inspired was amongst the band members. Apparently, this Paul McCartney song was especially disliked by John Lennon, who referred to it as quote "Paul's granny music shit", but even George Harrison made his thoughts known on his song Savoy Truffle with the line, "We all know ob-la-di-bla-da, but can you show me where you are?". This song would cause further rifts between not only the band, but even their producer, George Martin and their sound engineer, Geoff Emerick, who quit during one of the recording sessions of this song, which took over three days to record, mostly due to McCartney's insistence on his idea of perfection.
ARK: Oh! It seems sugary sweet enough, but, perhaps this was Fake Paul's retribution after he found out about the band's true intentions with their India trip. You see, Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da is actually an anagram of Diablo La Boda, The Satanic Wedding! Writer, David Malocco, makes the case that a Satanic wedding is an ancient occult ritual that is meant to join a soul with another person, either living or near death, much like the attempt to transfer McCartney's soul into Faul's body. I couldn't find another source to confirm that a Satanic wedding is an ancient occult ritual, I mean, show me a wedding that's not, am I right? As far as I can tell, at least in these modern times, a satanic wedding is just a normal, lovely wedding between two satanists.
CCK: We’re skipping a few songs here to get to the next song we’ll discuss. While My Guitar Gently Weeps, a George Harrison song. Nothing suspicious happening in the lyrics, but at the end of the song, it does sound like George is saying "Paul" over and over in a painful wail. Next song, was a number one hit in Denmark and was written by none other than Mr. Ringo Starr. “Don’t Pass Me By” I believe this is the first solo Starr writing credit and it includes a few choice lines, including “I listen for your footsteps coming up the drive. Listen for your footsteps but they don’t arrive.” Possible a reference to the early morning recording session when McCartney stormed out and Ringo figured he’d hear him come back again, like he usually did. Continuing “You were in a car crash and you lost your hair.” pretty clear imagery if you believe the description that Paul McCartney was essentially scalped in the accident.
ARK: Hey! I think we're finally on to album number two! Starting with Yer Blues, "Yes, I'm lonely wanna die. If I ain't dead already, oooh, Girl you know the reason why"… Is that reason that at this point, the three remaining Beatles are expected to be replaced if and when the need arises?
CCK: And now at this time, I'd like to take a moment to discuss a very important issue. Sure, we've had a good time scouring these songs for potential hidden meaning, but there is such a thing as taking it too far. So, I'd like to briefly recount the tale of the song Helter Skelter, and a little guy we like to call Charles Manson. Charles Manson led the California based cult, known as the Manson Family. Some of the members of said family would go on to commit nine murders over the course of a couple months, in four different locations. The most notorious of those crimes were the ones that took place at the Tate residence on August 8th 1969 and then the LaBianca residence the following day. Lead prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi, based on the testimony of Paul "Tex" Watkins, a Manson family member that was involved with the murders at the Tate residence, put forth a version of the murders that was entirely based on Charles Manson's vision of future race war. According to Tex, Manson had been speaking of this race war and how the family would reap the benefits of it after the major outfall, since the beginning, but it was after the release of The Beatles, aka The White Album, that Charlie ramped up his plans due to what he felt were hidden messages in the songs that provided motive to start the war. And the song Helter Skelter finally gave Manson a term to represent this race war and his family's place in it. So, much so that the words Helter Skelter were written at the scene of the second murders, at the LaBianca residence. Although, misspelled as H-E-A-L-T-E-R.
ARK: Uh-huh. So, you're saying that spending too much time looking for hidden meaning in something like song lyrics could potentially make you go full Manson.
CCK: Yup.
ARK: Probably something that should have been brought to my attention last week.
CCK: I wouldn't worry too much. Manson always denied there being any sort of inspiration on his part from listening to the Beatles and maintained that it was just a prosecutor trick to tie him to the murders. Plus, we all know if any pop band is to blame for creating Charles Manson, it's The Beach Boys.
ARK: Ok. Next up… Revolution 9; oooh, boy. This song is as avant garde as Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da is saccharine. It is eight minutes of sound effects, tape loops, overdubbed speech. It is not always easy to hear, much less try to interpret, but there are a couple of spoken phrases I was able to pick out. Like "we better go see a surgeon" and "we went to see a dentist instead who gave him a pair of teeth, which wasn't any good at all" both of these phrases could speak to the surgical procedures that Bill Campbell aka Faul had to have in order to make him a closer physical match to the original Paul McCartney. There is also the line, "My wings are broken and so is my hair" Another reference to the state of Paul McCartney's body post-accident. Good night!
CCK: Are there clues in the song, Good Night?
ARK: No… I'm just done with the White Album… for now. Moving onto the Sea of Indifference and the Yellow Submarine. This album was recorded before the White Album, but was released after. It was not a particularly significant project for the band, as it was a contractual obligation to United Artists' to supply four new songs for the animated film of the same name. On the cover, surprise! The cartoon Lennon is holding his hand over the cartoon McCartney's head. And on the UK printing of this album, in small letters under the album title is the phrase "nothing is real". Song wise, we'll start with the George Harrison song Only a Northern Song, and the second verse "When you're listening late at night, You may think the band are not quite right…" And finally, Hey Bulldog, with the following line that seems like it could be an appeal directly from Fake Paul himself: "You may think you know me, But you haven't got a clue".
CCK: The movie itself has a pretty interesting visual. That of the animated Beatles. There’s John and George and Ringo and Paul and PAUL! In this scene there are two Pauls visible, perhaps one is Bill Campbell? We’ve made it to the penultimate Beatles album, Abbey Road. Abbey Road and it’s various symbolism which may or may not point to a dead Paul McCartney is interesting because this is the album that was brand new at the same time that the Paul Is Dead rumors were really taking off in the United States. So for many of the people looking for hints about Paul’s death, this was the album at the top of the rotation. And it did not disappoint. Some of the most well-known PID analysis come from the striking cover image of Abbey Road. The album cover includes neither the band’s name or the title of the album. It is a photograph taken outside the Abbey Road studios. The band walks single file across a zebra crosswalk. John Lennon, in the lead, is dressed all in white; he is the preacher that will conduct the funeral rites. Next in line is Ringo Starr; like Lennon, Starr also wears a suit, but his is all black. He is the undertaker and coming up behind him is the deceased. Paul McCartney, walking behind Ringo Starr, is also dressed in a suit, but he is barefoot. This is said to symbolize the practice of burying a body without shoes on. McCartney's eyes appear to be closed; he is also out of step with all the other Beatles. And he is the only one smoking a cigarette in the picture; an interesting association is that a slang term for cigarettes is coffin nails, and the left-handed McCartney just happens to be holding that coffin nail in his right hand. Finally, the last one in line is of course the grave digger, George Harrison, dressed in jeans and a denim work shirt.
ARK: I do want to briefly talk about the fifth Beetle in the picture. A white, VW beetle parked on the curb on the left-hand side of the picture. First, the story goes that they had wanted to move that car out of the shot, but couldn't locate the owner to move it. But, it's a beetle! It seems too perfect for it to be there. Some PID believers think that the beetle's license plate is actually another clue. LMW 28IF; it has been speculated that LMW could stand for Linda McCartney Weeps, but I call foul on that one, since Linda McCartney nee Eastman, would have never know the original Paul McCartney and only would have known Faul, as her husband unless we're on a completely different timeline for his death now. And the 28IF is supposed to mean 28 if, as in Paul McCartney would have been 28 IF he had lived to take this picture. I believe Paul was 27 years old at the time this photograph was shot. To the right of the image is a black police van. I have seen various theories that this van is a symbol of how the police were complicit in keeping the death of Paul McCartney a secret, but I haven't seen anyone point out that the police van's license plate, SYD 724F, when presented backwards kinda spells out FAST DYS, as in Paul McCartney died quickly, and as a result of speeding in his car. And I came up with that one myself! Man! I love playing the kooky conspiracy home game version.
CCK: Let's move to the back cover, while my sister's brain cell is firing on all cylinder. The back cover image is of a wall, with tiles spelling out the band's name and the name of the album, Abbey Road, there is also a figure captured while walking out of the frame. Here are clues that some people found, from left to right, top to bottom… First there are eight dots at the top of the wall and right before the tiles that spells out Beatles. People say if you connect these dots you draw a three, meaning 3 Beatles, not four. There is also a crack running through the wall and the "S" tile in Beatles, this might indicate that there is a fracture in the group. Which if the original Paul McCartney was dead or not, would prove to be accurate, as one week before the release of Abbey Road, McCartney announced to John, Ringo, George, and their manager, Allen Klein, that he was leaving the group. To the right of the Beatles tiles is a shadow cast on the wall and it does sort of look like a skull.
ARK: It kinda looks like the Crimson Ghost aka the fiend skull popularized by the punk band The Misfits.
CCK: And finally, that figure that is walking out of the frame… it's a woman, in a blue dress. Could this be a representation of the lovely Rita, in her blue dress, that was with Paul that rainy morning when he died? Both photos, iconic front and back, were taken by Iain Macmillan, no conspiracy here, just credit where it’s due.
ARK: It's time for lyrics. First up, Come Together, lyric: "Here come ol' flat top" Possibly a reference, once again, to the extent of Paul McCartney's fatal injuries, but definitely a total rip-off of the Chuck Berry song "You Can't Catch Me" which includes the lyrics: "Here come a flat-top, he was movin' up with me". Continuing with Come Together, "he got joo joo eyeball" again, possibly invoking the imagery of Paul's missing eyeball, or perhaps the one remaining eyeball. "He bag production. He got walrus gumboot." Paul bagged production when he died, and once again we have the "W" word. "One and one and one is three" Got to be good looking 'cause he so hard to see". Three referring to the three remaining original Beatles and the Fake Paul, must be good looking since he was able to replace Paul McCartney, and the fans seem unable to see the differences. Next song on the chopping block: Maxwell's Silver Hammer. It's funny 'cause I assume the legend of the MI5 agent's name came from a need to hook it back up to this song, but yet, I never see anyone refer to this song when discussing the PID theory. So, I will. That Maxwell in the song is obviously just a total psychopath, and quite possibly the exact kind of psychopath you'd expect to want to be the kind of intelligence officer that can so easily keep people in line with threats of death. And as Lennon possibly learned by pushing Maxwell one too many times, "Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon his head". And we're done.
CCK: You mean with that song?
ARK: No, I mean with this album and all the albums. I mean, the Beatles' final studio album, Let It Be, was released two months after the band had broken up. And for the most part, the only conspiracy thing I ever see mentioned on that album is that the photos on the album cover show Ringo, George, and John on white backgrounds and Paul on a red background.
CCK: The color of blood!
ARK: Exactly, but otherwise, there is not much that people talk about song or lyric wise on this album.
CCK: Wow. So, we're really done.
ARK: Yes. We are really done analyzing every single phrase, lyric and word of the Beatles catalog… while playing them forward.
CCK: oh, no.
ARK: And now, we will play all of them backward. Because you see. Some of the most compelling hints were not just left out in the open where anyone could hear them. Some of them were hidden in the devil's tracks aka playing the song backwards! Which now brings us to the Beatles and Backmasking! But, first… a little (illumination) clarification.
CCK: And now it's time for Clarification Corner with CCK. Backmasking refers to a recording technique where a sound or phrase is recorded backward onto a track that will ultimately play forward. This is a deliberate process, making that particular message understandable only by playing it backwards. This is not to be confused with a phenomenon known as pareidolia (pear-a-dough-lia), which is the human's tendency to see patterns or meaning when there is none, like seeing shapes in the clouds or the face of a man in the moon. While it does usually refer to visual stimulus, pareidolia can also occur within sounds, like the late night fog horns that sometimes sound like a train. Or thinking that George Harrison's moans at the end of While My Guitar Gently Weeps sounds like he's saying Paul. As we spoke about in our Satanic Panic episode, there were some Christian groups and the Parents Music Resource Center that feared that the use of backmasking by musicians was to either push a Satanist agenda, or to alter the behavior of their listeners subliminally. The concept of using this backwards method to create new sounds was around since the invention of the phonograph by Thomas Edison in 1877. Edison himself remarked that rotating the cylinder backwards the sounds were quote "Still melodious in many cases, and some of the strains are sweet and novel, but altogether different from the song reproduced in the right way". The Beatles often made use of this backward recording technique to create new and fuller sounds, but they were not the first to use it. In 1959 a group called The Eligibles released a song called "Car Trouble" that contained a nonsensical phrase that when played backward revealed the following advice from the band: "Now, lookit here, cats, stop running these records backwards!". And this has been clarification corner with CCK.
ARK: For the examples of possible backmasking messages left by the Beatles to point to a dead Paul McCartney, I have two points to make. One, we will not be going in any specific order with these and two, I did not actually try to re-create any of these backwards messages for myself. So, everything we are about to talk about is stuff that we have to take the internet's word for, which is not something that I normally recommend. Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, we're going to start with the grandpappy of all backmasking PID clues, which is certainly from Revolution 9 from the White Album. The "number 9, number 9" played backwards sounds like "Turn me on dead man". Which is fucking rock and roll, but to this day, I'm not sure why this was the smoking gun for Paul is Dead theorists? Especially, since there are claims that the chorus for "Getting Better" when played in reverse says "After all Paul is dead, he lost his head". Shouldn't that be the grandpappy of hidden PID messages?
CCK: The song "All Together Now" when played backwards reveals the line "I buried Paul". And the "Please don't be very long" refrains from George Harrison's Blue Jay Way sounds like Paul is Bloody. "I Am the Walrus" has a chanting section at the end of the song, reversed it apparently claims: Ha! Ha! Paul is Dead! Ha! Ha! Paul is Dead! And remember that Sgt. Pepper Reprise we just skipped over in the first part of this episode.
ARK: Yes.
CCK: Played backwards it reveals perhaps the most damning and potentially true thing about Paul McCartney at this time… "It was a fake moustache. It was a fake moustache."
ARK: I think we just busted this case wide open, Sister. But, speaking of fake moustaches…
CCK: Is mine crooked?
ARK: No, no. You're good. I was going to say, speaking of fake moustaches, there are also some people that have dedicated time to pointing out what appear to be physical differences between Paul before 1967 and Paul after. Knowing that podcasts are not a visual medium, we won't go into too much detail, but just a handful of examples I've seen are that his chin and jawline look different, giving his head a longer, more angular shape than the round Beatlemania era shape. His earlobes appear different in some shots, sometimes he looks like he has attached earlobes and sometimes they are bit more droopy and detached. There's also some variations in height. I know it's unreliable to tell just from photos on the internet, since it's hard to tell perspective or if anyone might be standing on apple boxes or have lifts in their Cuban heels, but in the early 60's era of the Beatles, it did appear that Paul and John were roughly the same height, but then later it does seem like McCartney sometimes stands over Lennon by what seems like at least an inch or two.
CCK: But, it's also easy to forget that these guys, especially Paul and George, were babies when they started. Literally, the first pictures taken of them together as a band they were all teenagers.
ARK: And there's the voice. Despite the various ways that all of the Beatles' voices matured they didn't really change all that much. I mean you can tell that the voice is the same. But, there are other ways that people can change, and the less than amicable end of the Beatles is perhaps most bitterly summed up in the John Lennon song "How Do You Sleep?" which includes the lines: "So Sgt. Pepper took you by surprise. You better see right through that mother's eyes. Those freaks were right when they said you was dead.". Or maybe that's literal and the freaks were right. And if it was literal and John finally came out and said the truth, well then Maxwell, in conjunction with the MI5 and possibly the CIA made good on his promise to keep the Paul McCartney death secret. On December 8, 1980, John Lennon was returning home to his Manhattan apartment, when he was shot four times in the back. He was rushed to the hospital, but was officially pronounced dead at 11:15pm Eastern Time.
CCK: Mark David Chapman is a character that we may have to delve more into on another episode, mostly due to some peoples' belief that he was a product of the CIA's MK Ultra project. And then there was the rather odd knife attack on George Harrison on December 30, 1999. An intruder broke into Harrison's home around 3 in the morning. Harrison encountered the intruder and ended up in a struggle with the man. Harrison was stabbed forty times and barely survived. The attacker, Michael Abram, said at his trial, quote: "…I was at the time not in control of my actions." Which also has an eerily similar MK Ultra ring to it. George Harrison died about 2 years later from lung cancer. But these weird, yet tragic deaths are mysteries that will need to be looked at in depth in the future.
ARK: Yes. And now to begin Part three of our series…
CCK: Part three?
ARK: Yes, Part three. This time we examine the conspiracy that Paul McCartney did not die and was replaced by a lookalike, but it was actually the other three Beatles, John, George, and Ringo that all died in the early 60's and were replaced.
CCK: I'm disconnecting your microphone… (internet)?
ARK: (off mic) I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the podcast and ourselves and I hope we passed the audition!