April 17, 2025 • 45 mins
After a US-based college student pens a satirical article exploring hippy folklore and the Beatles, mainstream media takes off -- "Is Paul McCartney actually dead?" they ask, in a growing fever pitch. In part two of this series, Ben, Noel and Max explore the continuing saga of the greatest conspiracy theory in all of modern music.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the Man,
the Myth, the Legend, our super producer, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Z azaltop.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
As we were talking beforehand trying to figure out when
it is, and I had forgotten this. On April twentieth,
twenty twenty five will be four years I've been on
Ridiculous History.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Of the first episode I edited in Doctor T. W.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Stallings, the One Man's corvid hating quest make Oklahoma literally
eat Crow.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
It didn't cut off. I had to click it into it.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
But yeah, we love core here. Well, we should have
brought you some flowers or a cupcake or something.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Pupcakes or like a basket of crows.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
It could be we could. I'm sure we could find
a way to serve you a cupcake. Man. Surely there's
a condition approved cupcake.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
There's actually muffins and stuff cupcakes.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
There are what is a muffin if not a cup
a healthy cupcake?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Or what is a cupcake if it's not an unhealthy
muffin or actually healthy?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
For the soul muffin right right, and again you'll get
your basket of crows once accounting approves. Folks, we couldn't
be more excited to join with you for our continuing
exploration of Paul is Dead courtesy of our research associate,
(01:52):
Jordan's Noel.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
How you feeling good, great jubilants. All you need is love,
baby piece and love, peace and love always. That's what
Ringo says. Nowadays he's all about peace and love. But
back in the day he knew how to throw some punches,
and potentially he was responsible for Sir Paul McCartney running
out of Abbey Road Studios and driving like a bat
(02:15):
out of Hell and his Aston Martin, which led to
his untimely demise, at which point a plot was cracked
or hatched by mi I five, the British Secret Service
and the Beatles themselves being complicted and covering up Paul's
death and replacing him with the Canadian doppelganger by the
name of Billy Shears. And then later they regretted it
(02:36):
and decided it was only fair since they couldn't come
out and speak about it openly, to just sprinkle in
some little tidbits that fans could decode to let them
know that Paul was dead. I don't understand to what end,
but you know, it's a fun story, that's for sure,
and we're entering part two of it in terms of
the albums, and said clues sprinkled therein that's.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
An excellent recap by none other than mister Old Brown.
They call me Ben Bilin. This is part two of
Paul Is Dead, which, folks spoiler, may well be a
three part series because we've got so much stuff to
get to off air. We were hobnobbing a bit and
(03:21):
Nola you brought up a great point that maybe we
should go album by album. At this juncture, Paul Prime,
according to the tail Dies, is decapitated in a car
accident in nineteen sixty six. Let's go to the white album.
(03:46):
When was that nineteen sixty eight? Right, So now Billy
Shears is already Paul Prime's body double.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
But before we do that, Ben, there was one really
cool tidbit that we referenced, and I think is worth
mentioning for the song Strawberry Fields Forever, one of the Beatles'
most famous jams, lovely little mellotron flutes. There at the beginning,
we talked about the idea that John Lennon, in his grief,
was somehow responsible for burying Paul McCartney Paul Prime's mangled
(04:16):
corpse in a shallow, unmarked grave in Strawberry Fields Salvation
Army Park there in Liverpool. And supposedly there are tons
of little hints to this occurrence buried, unintended, intended whatever.
In the song Strawberry Fields Forever, there's a giant sun
(04:37):
of music concrete sound collage fade out at the end
where you can hear John saying what sounds like I
buried Paul, though it has been determined that he was
actually saying Cranberry sauce. You know, let me hear what
you want to hear, like you said, And it's a
little bit more apparent on an out take version of
(04:58):
the song that you can find on the Beatles endthology,
which is pretty cool. Paul later explained that's John's humor.
John would say something totally out of sync like Cranberry's sauce.
If you've seen the Let It Be Recording documentary multi
part series that came out on Disney Plus that Peter
Jackson put together, you can really see John Lennon's rye
(05:18):
wit on full display, where he's always changing the lyrics
to songs and making little goofs. So Paul characterized it
as saying, if you don't realize that John's apt to
say something like Cranberry's sauce when he feels like it,
then you start to hear a little funny word there
and you think, aha. As another example, during a day
in the life, you can hear him saying sugar plump fairy,
(05:38):
sugar plumb fairy. But Ben, you teed up the White Album,
which is it's hard to pick a favorite. It's like
Stars in the Sky. But the White Album is when
you start hearing the Beatles kind of beginning to go
their separate ways, and they have kind of each of
their own personalities represented much more fully on this album,
where you really start to hear each of them kind
of have their own songs. Glass Onion is an incredible song.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Oh wait, we can we spend a second here on
that pronunciation, because I think it's important what you're saying,
cranberry sauce, iburry, Paul. It's like house of Lord's House
of Paul.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I also have to point out with respect to our
research associate Jordan run talk that if this theory is true,
it is not Paul Prime, later.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Explaining this, it is what's true. Billy Shears, that's true.
Billy Shears, Yeah, aka Paul fall right for Paul. Yeah,
so let's jump right into the white album with the
song glass on You.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, it's all about this pivotal line. Here's another clue
for you. All. The Walrus was Paul, And for proponents
of the Paul is Dead theory, the guy who replaces
Paul Prime is seen wearing a Walbrius costume on the
cover of Magical Mystery Tour a year earlier, in nineteen
(07:08):
sixty seven. So if you ask armchair folkloors and speculators,
they will tell you that the Walbrius is a mythical
symbol of death in certain cultures. Issue is nobody really
(07:28):
seems to be able to agree on which cultures fine
walers as a symbol of death.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
I've never really heard that one. He's certainly not on
tarot cart or anything. I've never thought of the walrus
as being a harbinger of death. I think it's also
important to mention we're going to get more into this.
I think in part three. But at this point, the
discourse around Paula's dead is heavy in the press, and
they're getting asked about it a lot, and they are
(07:55):
absolutely fed up with it. So they're honestly at a
certain points starting to play into it for their own
amusement and also as a little middle finger to all
the folks that they perceive as being dumb dums asking
about this stuff and the press bugging them about it.
So him saying, and here's another clue for you all.
He says it with some stank on it in the song,
(08:17):
very kind of almost sneeringly. The walrus was paul So
you know, it's definitely John Lennon's very punk kind of
snotty sensibility coming out in his delivery of that line.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, and we can dissect this a little bit. If
you go to the Michigan Daily shout Out to Michigan
by Fred Labor, you'll see a claim that walrus is
the Greek word for corpse. Sorry, Fred, that is not true.
Diplomatically put, you could see the Chicago Sun Times noting
(08:53):
that the walrus is the Viking symbol of death. You
can see the Washington Post speculation that it's a symbol
of death for modern indigenous communities. They used a word
we're not going to use.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
We we see a lot of people sort of passing
around this idea of walrus as a symbol of mortality,
and the as you dive into it, what you'll find
is there's really no supporting evidence. People were looking for
connections that may not actually exist. But I love that
(09:33):
you're bringing up glass onion because you know, uh, it's
up to interpretation. Perhaps a glass onion refers to the
glass topped coffins of yesteryear that allow mourners to look inside. Uh,
it's it's a whole bag of badgers. It's a it's
(09:54):
a pickle. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
And the song I mean as a whole is is
John Lennon just strike out against the whole Paul is
dead thing. You know. So if you want to read
it as more clues and you're kind of missing the
point of what the song is about in the first place,
there's references to tons. It's very self referential. I told
you about strawberry Fields, you know, the place where nothing
is real. Well, here's another place you can go, like
(10:20):
straight to hell, where everything flows like lava. You know
he's talking to the press looking through the bent back
tulips to see how the other half lives, looking through
a glass onion. It's just about seeing what you want
to see. Let's say he says, I told you about
the fool on the hill. I tell you, man, he's
living there. Still. Well, here's another place you can be
(10:42):
Listen to me. I mean, it's the whole point of
the song Glass Onion is John Lennon saying, you guys
are barking up the wrong onion here.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
M yeah, yeah, you're crossing the wrong Gabby road. And
if we were to summarize perhaps the metacognitive state of
John Lennon at this point, we would have to go
to I'm So Tired. At the very end of I'm
So Tired, you can hear Lenin doing some proper backmasking,
(11:16):
which we are huge fans of. If you play if
you play this apparently ostensibly incoherent mumbling at the end
of the song from Lenin, then you will hear the
line Paul is a dead man. Miss him, miss him supposedly.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Yeah, And we referenced this in our live show with
stuff that I want you to know that we did
in Brooklyn is part of on AirFest recently, which is
actually going to come out as an episode in the
Stuff that I Want You to Know Feeds. And we
had the lovely Justin Richmond from Broken Record on the
Live show as a guest, and we talked about these
different messages and had a little game where we played
(11:55):
things backwards and tried to figure out what they were
supposed to be saying, and then sort of like you know,
played them forwards and talked a little bit about the
history behind each of those examples. And the Paul is
Dead man miss Him Miss Him is one of the
ones that we reference, and that's really where in many ways,
the whole kind of Paul Is Dead as a concept
that is what is being referenced is that very very
(12:18):
clip so much like Cranberry Sauce in Strawberry Fields. It's
just an example of him just kind of riffing and
speaking kind of random gibberish. She was a huge fan
of the incredible character actor and artist Peter Sellers and
a show that I'm not familiar with. He apparently had
a radio career in kind of satire and had a
(12:39):
show called The Goon Show, which is a surrealist radio
play series that would do things like that, like a
make up kind of you know, nonsense language, which I'm
a fan of it. I got to check out the
Goon Show.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
I don't know what goon meant. A very different thing
back then to Goon.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Yeah, yeah, the Goon Squad is something very very differ today. Yeah,
for sure.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Shout out to Leonard Peltier in that regard. Let's talk
about Revolution number nine. Would you describe that as a
sound collage?
Speaker 4 (13:13):
Yeah, it's again like I've used the term music concrete,
which refers to a style of tape magnetic tape manipulation
that was sort of spearheaded and developed in France around
the same I think eras like Dadaism was starting to
become very popular in art in the art world, and
(13:34):
it is a way of taking a medium and using
it incorrectly more or less. I mean that term is
sort of relative, I guess, but you know, you're taking
pieces of tape, splicing them together, recording bits and stuff
off the radio like John did and I am the
Walrus with that King lear bit, and Revolution number nine
is them taking this to kind of a further extreme.
(13:56):
It is a sound collage with lots of backwards voices
and different clips. It sounds like something you might hear
on a Pink Floyd record as well, very very psychedelic
bits of chatter, things like the voice saying his voice
was low and his eyes were high, and his eyes
were closed. Paul died. My fingers are broken and so
is my hair. But a thing like that, like my
(14:17):
fingers are broken and so is my hair, is a
perfect example of kind of data nonsense. You know, there's
a wonderful band out of Athens, Storgia called the Olivia
Trimmer Control, which is an absolute nonsense phrase, and this
is very similar to that.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I think the thing that stands out the most to
proponents of the Paul is Dead theory is the number nine,
number nine refrain. It repeats, you know, at the beginning,
and depending upon your ears, you may hear turn me
(14:54):
on Dead Man, turn me on Dead Man. When it's
played in reverse. Again, your interpretive mileage may vary.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
Yeah, But a big part of music concrete and this
type of sampling plunder phonic type of you know, music creation.
A lot of it's just about taking a sound object
and manipulating it and the intent it usually isn't about intent.
It's about like taking something that already exists and twisting
it around. So number literature a million percent ben exactly right,
(15:27):
But like number nine, number nine, that's what the guy's saying.
It's very clear. So yeah, okay, when you flip it backwards,
it maybe sounds a little bit like, you know, turn
me on dead Man, turn me on dead Man. But
clearly the source material was number nine. And I don't
know who is saying that. I don't know the history
of that part, or if that's something they grabbed off
(15:47):
of radio broadcasts or what, but I think they were
just fascinated by the cadence of it and the sound
of it, to the point where they made that the
name of the song, and Revolution, of course, is a
song in and of itself you say you want to
rev So this is like almost like a weird artsy
remix of that in concept. But I don't know that
there are any bits of actual the actual song revolution
(16:09):
in Revolution number nine. It's just them being pretty data,
which I think is awesome.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
And again we're we're seeing that at this point when
Revolution number nine hits the airwaves, people are already primed
to think that Paul is dead, so they're actively looking
for stuff that confirms that pattern. So now we're returning
(16:39):
to something we talked about in our first episode in
this series, Abby Road.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
It is a road, the studios.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
The record, Yeah, the rides, yes, yes, yes, the experience
Abby Road the album not to be confused with the studio,
nor with the crosswalk, nor with the street, nor with
the ride. It comes out in nineteen sixty nine, and
this delivers arguably the most well known clue in the
(17:17):
conspiracy or folklore that Paul McCartney died in nineteen sixty six.
Is it depicting a funeral?
Speaker 4 (17:25):
It's a good question, I mean, and there's a whole
thing about him having shoes off. We'll get to. Let's
just go through some of the other things. This idea
of a funeral procession, John leading the procession as he
is wearing white, all white like a priest, while Ringo
follows behind as a pallbearer or an undertaker, and all
black Paul bearer. Paul is the third in the procession,
(17:50):
would be the corpse in the order of operations, that
is a funeral procession with his eyes closed and barefoot. Allegedly,
how they bury in Italy or in India or England
or I don't know about that, guys. I think your
resultsate Harry there too, and literally out of step with
the others. He is once again turning his back on life.
(18:14):
He is not of this mortal plane, you know, he's
he's two step in in the afterlife.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, and then of course we're all asking where is George.
George Harrison is right in drogue. He's taking up the
rear as the grave digger if you but if you
look at outtakes of the photo session, because it was
a photo session, there were multiple photos taken for the album,
(18:44):
you'll see that in several our buddy Paul Prime is
wearing sandals, or excuse me, Billy Shears is wearing sandals.
And word on the street is he ultimately got rid
of the sandals because it was too hot outside. And
whether you think this is Paul or fall, someone say
(19:07):
they are. Paul McCartney spoke in a interview with Life
magazine in nineteen sixty nine and said, it is all
bloody stupid. We were wearing our ordinary clothes. I was
walking barefoot because it was a hot day. And what
I love about this norm is that you can we
(19:28):
can tell with direct quotes from Paul McCartney Postscar Crash, allegedly,
we could tell that he is aware of this theory,
and at first he's being kind of like a good sport,
but he seems increasingly irritated with it, and you have
to wonder, like, how would you feel if people kept
(19:51):
coming up to you and telling you that you were
a body double of yourself?
Speaker 4 (19:56):
Yeah, it could probably get all It'd probably be amusing
for a hot second and then get real tiresome, real quick.
The photo series, by the way, was taken the day
Charles Manson he might have heard him order the deaths
of Sharon Tate and her pals there at the was
it Clo Drive mansion. And this is directly as a
(20:18):
result of reading too much into Beatles lyrics. Specifically, the
one that gets referenced a lot is the song Helter
Skelter off the White album, So that's much has been
made of that outside of the Paula's Dead stuff. So
at this point there is a lot being made of
the idea that this is early example of outrage surrounding
(20:41):
the idea of supposed backmasking or satanic messages hidden in
popular music. So at this point the Beatles are damn
aware of this outside of just the Paul is Dead thing,
and are probably pretty pretty on edge about potentially being
associated with stuff like that. If there was any clever,
(21:01):
you know, trickery going on, they probably abandoned it for
Abbey Road.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Let's just put that out there right now. Yeah, they
probably stepped it back.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
You know.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
You can also see Paul McCartney smoking a cigarette. That
got a lot of attention, partially because cigarettes are associated
with mortality, but also because he's smoking with his right hand.
So for people who thought Paul Prime had been replaced,
(21:32):
this was an indication that the purported Paul was a fake.
And this doesn't even get us to you know, the
Volkswagen Beetle. It's in the background of that Abbey Road
crosswalk that has disappointed so many tourists when they find
out it's just a crosswalk on a road. This Beatle
(21:55):
b E t L E has a license plate. Since
plate reads twenty eight if so, people are going to
tell you that twenty eight if means Paul McCartney would
have been twenty eight years old at the time if
he lived. That's factually inaccurate. He would have been twenty seven.
(22:22):
It just goes on. People will see the letters LMW
and say that means Linda McCartney weeps. But honestly, Noel,
this is that's a little far for me, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 4 (22:36):
Yeah, for sure, farther even than some of the other
more slightly plausible ones. And again, you know, with the
Manson stuff and all of the hullabaloo and the press
feeding frenzy surrounding that, pretty sure they were not going
out of their way to hide anything. And whether it
be the album cover or beyond. And you know, to
Paul's point about the cover of Abbey Road, and they
(22:58):
were all wearing their their clothes was despite it looking
like you know, maybe there was wardrobe for this, I
can confirm. And anyone that maybe has seen the get
back not let it be get back. That's what the
documentaries called. This is kind of how they dressed. Yeah,
John Lennon around this dime, he wore these very lavish,
flashy white suits with you know, platform he type shoes
(23:21):
all the time. He's a super fashionable guy. And George
warlike bell bottoms and like Denham and stuff. I mean this.
It absolutely tracks that they just turned up in their
street clothes and this is the photo they got.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
And speaking of turning things up, let's turn up the
rumors a little bit. Let's travel in time back to
nineteen sixty seven. In January of nineteen sixty seven, we
see that reports of Paul McCartney's death date back years
(23:55):
before the idea that Paul is dead became a phenomenon.
There was this rumor he had been killed in a
car crash on January seventh, nineteen sixty seven, this time
not an Aston Martin, a Mini Cooper involved in a
car accident on the M one motorway or highway.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Yeah, he was just leaving the Italian job and he
was driving a little too fast to making his getaway.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Yeah. The thing is, Paul Prime was not actually in
the car. It was instead being driven by a guy
named Mohammed a Hadigit, a Moroccan student, an employee of
a guy named Robert Fraser who's an art dealer in
London at the time. Robert Fraser is a close friend
(24:43):
of Paul McCartney's. You know, no, we've talked about it
in the past off air. Paul McCartney has always been
a champion of the arts.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Right, and we talked about it recently on the Apple
Versus Apple Computers Versus Apple Records episode about how Paul
came up with the whole idea of the Apple imagery
surrounding that record label and that brand from a rename
of great painting as we know, the famous one with
the Apple kind of floating in space.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
And to bust the again, to bust the boorish tendency
of only picking between the Rolling Stones and the Beatles.
That's still that's still something that grinds my gears. Check
this out, ridiculous historians. Mohammed and Paul and co. Are
(25:31):
all heading to a party at Mick Jagger's house, so
they do hang out, yes, so they're not really enemies.
What we can assume here is that somebody in the aggressive,
pretty brutal British tabloid press did a license plate check
(25:52):
and the story spread around the world that Paul McCartney
was either injured or dead. The rumors were so pervasive,
and let's keep in mind this is pre Internet. They're
so ubiquitous that the band itself, the Beatles, go to
their official fan magazine because of course, they have Beatles
(26:16):
monthly and they print a denial. We do know that
Paul did have some car problems at some point.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
Right, But the closest Paul ever came to a full scale,
you know, motor crash wipeout was in December of nineteen
sixty five when he was riding his moped late one
night while visiting Liverpool, their hometown, for Christmas. And he's
described as refreshed as he's had some adult beverages, some refreshments.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
As they say he got nogged on some eggs.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
I think it's probably true. And he flipped himself straight
over the handlebars and landed right on his face and
shipped a tooth in the process, and he was seen
by a doctor who sewed him up. And this incident
actually inspired a line about a drunken doctor in the
song Rocky Raccoon, which is another personal favorite, really fun song.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
H Yeah, I always thought I always thought that the
interesting thing about the Lennon McCartney partnership is that Lenin
is a beast at lyrics and Paul is a beast
at instrumentation and composition.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know's I'm a big fan
of both of their lyrics. But you're right. John is
definitely more of a rocker and a little bit more
known for his sardonic wordplay, and Paul has definitely thought
of as being more of the studio wizards and the
kind of you know, arranger of the two of them.
I agree with you completely.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
So, Noel, could you take us to the first known
printed reference to this theory that Paul McCartney is dead?
Speaker 4 (27:57):
Sure thing? It appeared in the septem number seventeenth, nineteen
sixty nine issue of The Times Delphic, which was a
student newspaper at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, of
all places. Okay, so not the UK. No. No. A
nineteen year old egelid eared fan Tim Harper wrote an
article with the headline is Beatle Paul McCartney Dead, wherein
(28:19):
he details the quote distinct possibility that McCartney may indeed
be insane, freaked out, or even dead. Examining a lot
of the clues and album arts lyrics that we have mentioned.
He though, he I mean, I'm sorry I took him
as a fan, but he says here he didn't own
a Beatles record, and he talked with others about the
(28:41):
known rumor which has already already been making I guess
its rounds in certain beatnik kind of hipster circles. Very interesting.
But he decided to kind of make a little bit
of an oral account of a lot of these things
that were already kind of known in the scene. Yeah,
he is.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Clearly a student right into a deadline. And he gets
word of this from his editor and I love this name,
d'Artagnan Brown. Are you guys related.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
I wish I want to change my name in this
sick name.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
So d'Artagnan Brown, the editor of the Times Delphic, says,
all right, I've heard these rumors. He's talking to Tim Harper.
He says, Tim, Buddy, I've heard these rumors throughout the underground,
the counterculture, you know, crying of Lot forty nine, kind
(29:36):
of underground. I went to California and people are saying
that Paul McCartney is dead and has been replaced by
you know, some kind of Canadian, some kind of Canadian
that's a good name for something, of course. So all right,
the story goes pre internet viral, and Tim Harper comes
(29:58):
out very quickly after the story takes off, and he says, look,
I'm satirical. I'm a student writing for fun. This so
called Expose eight is for you know, shuffles and giggles.
He specifically says it was just a joke. I was
the first one to put it all together. And he's
(30:21):
talking to the Chicago Sun Times when he says this
in October of nineteen sixty nine. He says, I knew
when I wrote the story that it wasn't true, but
I think the horse left the barn at that point,
well for sure.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
And like I mean, like I was saying, it really
is just sort of an oral account, you know, of
all of these different sort of pieces of hippie folklore
that had been making the rounds during a time when
because of the debacle of the Vietnam War and just
wide rife, discontentments and distrust of the government that folks,
(31:00):
we're a lot more willing to believe in these types
of conspiracy theories than maybe in generation's past.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Yeah, and imagine you are this kid, you are Tim Harper.
You write something that is essentially an onion article, you know,
and now on article there we go, and now the
press is picking this up, broadcast radio is picking this up.
(31:31):
He goes from LA to Chicago, speaking on a Baker's
dozen of radio stations for ten bucks. By the end
of September, there are tabloids in the UK that pick
(31:54):
up the story. Ultimately Tim Harper, who has always been
on it about you know, the satirical nature of his
original article. Ultimately, Tim Harper says, there were there was,
to your point, Noll, a convergence, a nexus of factors
(32:16):
in the culture that helped this rumor spread and empowered
it because of Vietnam, because the common American member of
the public was recognizing the threat of people in power,
the establishment. People were cynical, they were disillusioned, They were
(32:36):
ready willing and able to believe in quote unquote alternative facts.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Correct the Warren Commission, of course, creating what has historically
been referred to as a credibility.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Gap, because we see right now in this milieu, we
see that there are genuine conspiracies being on covered by
the public. We know co Intel pro is real. We
know that the US government is conspiring to do all
sorts of shenanigans. We know that the British government and
(33:11):
other European governments are doing the same. So if you're
the average person hearing the radio. Is it too crazy?
Is it too crazy to think that just maybe Paul
McCartney might be dead.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
No, no, it's not, although, you know, in retrospect, pretty ridiculous.
That's why we're here, folks. But no, at the time,
there was out of that. Okay, let me walk that back.
That's why I'm confused, because the Beatles represent everything that
is in opposition to the establishment, though they have gotten
(33:50):
so so popular and successful that maybe there was a
certain souring to them that maybe would yield a little
distrust or treat them as a corporate entity. I don't know.
I wasn't there, but I am curious as to how
that same conspiracy, conspiratorial thinking would apply to your favorite
(34:10):
counterculture band, because the assumption there would be the Beatles
were in on this, and I just find that interesting
and a little bit antithetical to the idea of them
being you know, these you know, kind of rebel rousers.
That to the point we made earlier, I think the
last episode were often targeted by the governments, you know.
John Lennon of course himself was assassinated and was treated
(34:34):
as a political personality because of his ability to speak
truth to power. So that part of it confuses me
a little bit.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
M hmm, yeah. Same. And going to the radio aspect
of the mass communication, we know that the I wouldn't
quite call it hysteria, but the purported credibility of the
poll is dead. Theory awesomes. On twelve October nineteen sixty nine,
(35:04):
an anonymous individual calls into the radio show on Detroit's WKNR.
It's a radio show hosted by the legendary Russ Gibb,
and this anonymous individual is over the moon to tell
Russ that he is very upset over rumors that Paul
(35:27):
McCartney has died and has been further replaced by an impostor.
Our buddy, Russ Gibb, Let's.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
Just be honest.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
He has no clue who this guy is. He has
no clue what the guy is talking about, and so
he keeps him on the line because it's great radio,
and he's saying, all right, will tell me more of
these clues, and this person, whomever they may be, introduces
the American public to some of the clues that we
(35:59):
explore in part one of this series as well as
the beginning of this show.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
All Right, he has n't spin the records backwards live
on air. Yes, compelling because it's dude who is kind
of a square, a bit of one, you know, who's
not familiar with this stuff, sort of in real time
being like huh, well that's weird. Yeah, Just so.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
I love that description, you know, And we're experiencing great
radio because we're learning with Russ Gibb in real time.
The phone lines at wk NR go absolutely off the hook.
We're talking pandemodium. GiB later speaks with Billboard in twenty
(36:47):
nineteen and he says, the whole thing just exploded. The
phones were ringing off the hook. People were calling with
their own clues. It was non stop. So now we
see a feedback loop. The conspiracy is feeding it's self.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
M m yeah, the calls coming from inside the house.
As you like to say, Ben, it's true. Is an
absolute self fulfilling prophecy burrows of sorts, the snake eating
its own tail. And this really was kind of the
moment where, uh, these theories and this kind of concept
of Paul is dead began to go wide. And I
(37:23):
think this is, with that in mind, a good place
to pause for this episode, and we're gonna pick it
back up with the last part in this three part series,
Paul is Dead. The rumors surrounding the untimely demise and
cover up of Beatle Paul McCartney.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
That's right, folks, we are doing an on purpose three barter. Yeah,
look at us somewhat. Call our families, tell them we
have real jobs.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
Okay, tell them okay.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
First and before we go, you know, uh her own
super producer, mister Max Williams, who we shout out at
the beginning and end of the show, has something close
to his heart to share, apparently related to the Beatles.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
Maxos to his lonely heart.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Yeah, Max, are you Paul McCartney?
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Actually funny enough?
Speaker 3 (38:18):
I am to a Southpaw and I played bass, so
the like second base I ever got?
Speaker 2 (38:24):
All right, I used to play bass.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
I don't play much anymore, but second base I ever
got back in middle school was a violin bass style.
It was modeled off of the bass that Paul McCartney
very much liked.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
So all right, that's enough proof for us many.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Yeah, no, so yeah, that was actually very much a thing.
And you know, especially back then when access to musical
equipment was sometimes pretty hard, you really got like two
choices of left handed basses that like, you know, you
would open in the magazine and you'd flip through and
stuff like that. Now you can get great instruments from
you know, places like Sweetwater, which I'm they're not paying
(38:58):
us to do this.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
I am just dropping that name.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
And they do give us candy.
Speaker 4 (39:07):
It's their thing. They're a bunch of sweeties. We're talking
about the Huffner style based Is that what you're talking about, Matt.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just one last sweet Water loving
thing that all of our equipment is provided by Sweetwater
and they're not paying us to.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Say they are, but they do give us candy. You've
got a story from the Williams Dynasty.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
We also while we're doing this, we want to shout
out your biological brother Alex Williams, who is the composer
for this show. But Max, what's on your mind? What's
been sitting with you?
Speaker 3 (39:38):
So in the Williams Dynasty, I've taken this color like
that one of you know, we we all like our hobbies,
and we our hobbies changing changing stuff. In the last
like two or three years, my mother has gotten really
into a lot of Beatles stuff. She's been a Beatles
fan for a very long time. And you know, now
one of the things she does is she's trying to
(39:59):
get a lot of better words as much Beatles stuff.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
Well there's still.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
Time, you know, there's two of them alive, still in
their in their eighties. But so like one thing she
did last year, maybe two years ago now, she saw
Ringo and his band when it came to Atlanta. And
what I love, though, is, uh, I've gone to the
age where I can kind of hit my dad with
some good logic. Papa Williams is definitely a He's a
(40:24):
very pragmatic person, especially when he's the fiscal ideas. And
I don't want to say how expensive going to see
Ringo Stars touring band at the Fox Theater in downtown
Atlanta was, but it was a lot. And I kind
of just looked at him and said, yeah, but when's
the next time you can see this, right, And He's like,
that's good, that's good logic. And you know, I've told
(40:45):
you guys, I like to travel and see shows and
stuff like that. I think it's a very rewarding thing
to do. I just truly do love it. But that's
the transition was my mother discovered they had a Beatles
themed in Las Vegas, of course, but not only did
they have it, but that it was ending very soon,
(41:08):
like a month before she noticed it, and she was
trying to convince my dad, her husband, to let's take
some time off and go. And obviously the tickets to
go see Ringo start very expensive. Fly to Las Vegas
and see Circle with like a month's notice, incredibly expensive.
(41:30):
And I kind of him and I were just talking
about it, and I can't say it to him. It's
just like, I mean, the Beats aren't getting any younger,
neither of y'all. It's just like, this seems like a
thing where if you want to see this thing, this
is gonna be the only time. I'm like, I'm not
trying to say you have to do it, but if
this is what you guys want to do, they're not
gonna get another chance.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
And so you know, I'm a big.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Believer that the reason why we don't have money is
we use money to pursue the things that we love
and we find it interesting. And long story short, they went,
oh good bold.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
I didn't make it. I didn't make it. I was there.
I even stayed at the hotel where the thing was happening,
and I just didn't end up getting to go for
a couple of various reasons. And now I think it's done.
But I remember when that first hit. I'm a huge
circ fan. The soundtrack is a really neat artifact for
Beatles fans in and of itself because it was actually
remixed and remastered from original Beatles recordings by George Martin,
(42:26):
their producer's son, whose name is escaping me. But it's
like kind of a mash up of a lot of
different Beatles music, but it's like from the original tapes
and by you know, and with oversight from George Martin
himself and his son Niles. I want to say Giles
perhaps anyway doesn't but it's a really cool record. You
can still buy that, and it's a fun listen on
its own.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
The Love soundtrack, and yeah, and just to wrap this up,
one of my favorite parts of this story is, you know,
obviously my mom had an amazing time, but who also
had an amazing time, my dad, So I don't know.
It's one of these things is that, like, you know,
I know how much my mom loves the Bills, So
I wanted to just think this sendto one of these
episodes I'm having.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
I hope everyone enjoyed this whole story time.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
I think we all did. And thank you for Sharon Max.
I'm getting some pretty intense deja vu.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
You know.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Look, as we have alluded to in the past, my
name has not always been depending on where we're at,
Greg is the Vegas persona and like Noel, did not
get the opportunity to to see to see this performance.
So it's awesome that the Williams dynasty made it over.
(43:37):
We want to thank you super producer, mister Max Williams,
your brother Alex Williams, who composed this slap and bop.
We also want to thank Ringo and Sir Paul McCartney
for tuning into the show. And you know what, we
don't reference it often because we've made our piece, but
(43:58):
Sir McCartney, thanks for sorting out that Sheryl Crow stuff
for us.
Speaker 4 (44:02):
We owe you one man. Mmmm yeah, yeah, he's a
good guy. That Paul or whatever Paul Paul for Paul
oh right right, right, depending you know whatever, whatever, Faul
Prime Fall.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Whomever you may be, thank you for supporting our show.
Thanks also to aj Bahama's Jacobs. I can't believe that
guy is so cool. Yep, he's a good dude for sure.
Speaker 4 (44:24):
And also to Jonathan Strickland, the quisitor, who is less
of a good due when he's in that persona, but
a real good due when he's just regular old Jonathan's track.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
He's fine. Eight out of ten.
Speaker 4 (44:33):
Thanks to you, Ben, This has been great. Really excited
to come back and talk a bit more in our
final installment of the series about the Beatles themselves. We
hinted at that all along the way and they did
not hold back.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
And you have to ask yourself at this point, ridiculous historians,
will it actually be us?
Speaker 4 (44:51):
Or will we be replaced? Dunk dun, dun. Let's see
you next time.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Books.
Speaker 4 (45:02):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for tuning in. Let's hear it for the Man,
the Myth, the Legend, our super producer, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Z azaltop.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
As we were talking beforehand trying to figure out when
it is, and I had forgotten this. On April twentieth,
twenty twenty five will be four years I've been on
Ridiculous History.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Of the first episode I edited in Doctor T. W.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Stallings, the One Man's corvid hating quest make Oklahoma literally
eat Crow.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
It didn't cut off. I had to click it into it.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
But yeah, we love core here. Well, we should have
brought you some flowers or a cupcake or something.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Pupcakes or like a basket of crows.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
It could be we could. I'm sure we could find
a way to serve you a cupcake. Man. Surely there's
a condition approved cupcake.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
There's actually muffins and stuff cupcakes.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
There are what is a muffin if not a cup
a healthy cupcake?
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Or what is a cupcake if it's not an unhealthy
muffin or actually healthy?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
For the soul muffin right right, and again you'll get
your basket of crows once accounting approves. Folks, we couldn't
be more excited to join with you for our continuing
exploration of Paul is Dead courtesy of our research associate,
(01:52):
Jordan's Noel.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
How you feeling good, great jubilants. All you need is love,
baby piece and love, peace and love always. That's what
Ringo says. Nowadays he's all about peace and love. But
back in the day he knew how to throw some punches,
and potentially he was responsible for Sir Paul McCartney running
out of Abbey Road Studios and driving like a bat
(02:15):
out of Hell and his Aston Martin, which led to
his untimely demise, at which point a plot was cracked
or hatched by mi I five, the British Secret Service
and the Beatles themselves being complicted and covering up Paul's
death and replacing him with the Canadian doppelganger by the
name of Billy Shears. And then later they regretted it
(02:36):
and decided it was only fair since they couldn't come
out and speak about it openly, to just sprinkle in
some little tidbits that fans could decode to let them
know that Paul was dead. I don't understand to what end,
but you know, it's a fun story, that's for sure,
and we're entering part two of it in terms of
the albums, and said clues sprinkled therein that's.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
An excellent recap by none other than mister Old Brown.
They call me Ben Bilin. This is part two of
Paul Is Dead, which, folks spoiler, may well be a
three part series because we've got so much stuff to
get to off air. We were hobnobbing a bit and
(03:21):
Nola you brought up a great point that maybe we
should go album by album. At this juncture, Paul Prime,
according to the tail Dies, is decapitated in a car
accident in nineteen sixty six. Let's go to the white album.
(03:46):
When was that nineteen sixty eight? Right, So now Billy
Shears is already Paul Prime's body double.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
But before we do that, Ben, there was one really
cool tidbit that we referenced, and I think is worth
mentioning for the song Strawberry Fields Forever, one of the Beatles'
most famous jams, lovely little mellotron flutes. There at the beginning,
we talked about the idea that John Lennon, in his grief,
was somehow responsible for burying Paul McCartney Paul Prime's mangled
(04:16):
corpse in a shallow, unmarked grave in Strawberry Fields Salvation
Army Park there in Liverpool. And supposedly there are tons
of little hints to this occurrence buried, unintended, intended whatever.
In the song Strawberry Fields Forever, there's a giant sun
(04:37):
of music concrete sound collage fade out at the end
where you can hear John saying what sounds like I
buried Paul, though it has been determined that he was
actually saying Cranberry sauce. You know, let me hear what
you want to hear, like you said, And it's a
little bit more apparent on an out take version of
(04:58):
the song that you can find on the Beatles endthology,
which is pretty cool. Paul later explained that's John's humor.
John would say something totally out of sync like Cranberry's sauce.
If you've seen the Let It Be Recording documentary multi
part series that came out on Disney Plus that Peter
Jackson put together, you can really see John Lennon's rye
(05:18):
wit on full display, where he's always changing the lyrics
to songs and making little goofs. So Paul characterized it
as saying, if you don't realize that John's apt to
say something like Cranberry's sauce when he feels like it,
then you start to hear a little funny word there
and you think, aha. As another example, during a day
in the life, you can hear him saying sugar plump fairy,
(05:38):
sugar plumb fairy. But Ben, you teed up the White Album,
which is it's hard to pick a favorite. It's like
Stars in the Sky. But the White Album is when
you start hearing the Beatles kind of beginning to go
their separate ways, and they have kind of each of
their own personalities represented much more fully on this album,
where you really start to hear each of them kind
of have their own songs. Glass Onion is an incredible song.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Oh wait, we can we spend a second here on
that pronunciation, because I think it's important what you're saying,
cranberry sauce, iburry, Paul. It's like house of Lord's House
of Paul.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
I also have to point out with respect to our
research associate Jordan run talk that if this theory is true,
it is not Paul Prime, later.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Explaining this, it is what's true. Billy Shears, that's true.
Billy Shears, Yeah, aka Paul fall right for Paul. Yeah,
so let's jump right into the white album with the
song glass on You.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, it's all about this pivotal line. Here's another clue
for you. All. The Walrus was Paul, And for proponents
of the Paul is Dead theory, the guy who replaces
Paul Prime is seen wearing a Walbrius costume on the
cover of Magical Mystery Tour a year earlier, in nineteen
(07:08):
sixty seven. So if you ask armchair folkloors and speculators,
they will tell you that the Walbrius is a mythical
symbol of death in certain cultures. Issue is nobody really
(07:28):
seems to be able to agree on which cultures fine
walers as a symbol of death.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
I've never really heard that one. He's certainly not on
tarot cart or anything. I've never thought of the walrus
as being a harbinger of death. I think it's also
important to mention we're going to get more into this.
I think in part three. But at this point, the
discourse around Paula's dead is heavy in the press, and
they're getting asked about it a lot, and they are
(07:55):
absolutely fed up with it. So they're honestly at a
certain points starting to play into it for their own
amusement and also as a little middle finger to all
the folks that they perceive as being dumb dums asking
about this stuff and the press bugging them about it.
So him saying, and here's another clue for you all.
He says it with some stank on it in the song,
(08:17):
very kind of almost sneeringly. The walrus was paul So
you know, it's definitely John Lennon's very punk kind of
snotty sensibility coming out in his delivery of that line.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, and we can dissect this a little bit. If
you go to the Michigan Daily shout Out to Michigan
by Fred Labor, you'll see a claim that walrus is
the Greek word for corpse. Sorry, Fred, that is not true.
Diplomatically put, you could see the Chicago Sun Times noting
(08:53):
that the walrus is the Viking symbol of death. You
can see the Washington Post speculation that it's a symbol
of death for modern indigenous communities. They used a word
we're not going to use.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
We we see a lot of people sort of passing
around this idea of walrus as a symbol of mortality,
and the as you dive into it, what you'll find
is there's really no supporting evidence. People were looking for
connections that may not actually exist. But I love that
(09:33):
you're bringing up glass onion because you know, uh, it's
up to interpretation. Perhaps a glass onion refers to the
glass topped coffins of yesteryear that allow mourners to look inside. Uh,
it's it's a whole bag of badgers. It's a it's
(09:54):
a pickle. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
And the song I mean as a whole is is
John Lennon just strike out against the whole Paul is
dead thing. You know. So if you want to read
it as more clues and you're kind of missing the
point of what the song is about in the first place,
there's references to tons. It's very self referential. I told
you about strawberry Fields, you know, the place where nothing
is real. Well, here's another place you can go, like
(10:20):
straight to hell, where everything flows like lava. You know
he's talking to the press looking through the bent back
tulips to see how the other half lives, looking through
a glass onion. It's just about seeing what you want
to see. Let's say he says, I told you about
the fool on the hill. I tell you, man, he's
living there. Still. Well, here's another place you can be
(10:42):
Listen to me. I mean, it's the whole point of
the song Glass Onion is John Lennon saying, you guys
are barking up the wrong onion here.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
M yeah, yeah, you're crossing the wrong Gabby road. And
if we were to summarize perhaps the metacognitive state of
John Lennon at this point, we would have to go
to I'm So Tired. At the very end of I'm
So Tired, you can hear Lenin doing some proper backmasking,
(11:16):
which we are huge fans of. If you play if
you play this apparently ostensibly incoherent mumbling at the end
of the song from Lenin, then you will hear the
line Paul is a dead man. Miss him, miss him supposedly.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Yeah, And we referenced this in our live show with
stuff that I want you to know that we did
in Brooklyn is part of on AirFest recently, which is
actually going to come out as an episode in the
Stuff that I Want You to Know Feeds. And we
had the lovely Justin Richmond from Broken Record on the
Live show as a guest, and we talked about these
different messages and had a little game where we played
(11:55):
things backwards and tried to figure out what they were
supposed to be saying, and then sort of like you know,
played them forwards and talked a little bit about the
history behind each of those examples. And the Paul is
Dead man miss Him Miss Him is one of the
ones that we reference, and that's really where in many ways,
the whole kind of Paul Is Dead as a concept
that is what is being referenced is that very very
(12:18):
clip so much like Cranberry Sauce in Strawberry Fields. It's
just an example of him just kind of riffing and
speaking kind of random gibberish. She was a huge fan
of the incredible character actor and artist Peter Sellers and
a show that I'm not familiar with. He apparently had
a radio career in kind of satire and had a
(12:39):
show called The Goon Show, which is a surrealist radio
play series that would do things like that, like a
make up kind of you know, nonsense language, which I'm
a fan of it. I got to check out the
Goon Show.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
I don't know what goon meant. A very different thing
back then to Goon.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Yeah, yeah, the Goon Squad is something very very differ today. Yeah,
for sure.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Shout out to Leonard Peltier in that regard. Let's talk
about Revolution number nine. Would you describe that as a
sound collage?
Speaker 4 (13:13):
Yeah, it's again like I've used the term music concrete,
which refers to a style of tape magnetic tape manipulation
that was sort of spearheaded and developed in France around
the same I think eras like Dadaism was starting to
become very popular in art in the art world, and
(13:34):
it is a way of taking a medium and using
it incorrectly more or less. I mean that term is
sort of relative, I guess, but you know, you're taking
pieces of tape, splicing them together, recording bits and stuff
off the radio like John did and I am the
Walrus with that King lear bit, and Revolution number nine
is them taking this to kind of a further extreme.
(13:56):
It is a sound collage with lots of backwards voices
and different clips. It sounds like something you might hear
on a Pink Floyd record as well, very very psychedelic
bits of chatter, things like the voice saying his voice
was low and his eyes were high, and his eyes
were closed. Paul died. My fingers are broken and so
is my hair. But a thing like that, like my
(14:17):
fingers are broken and so is my hair, is a
perfect example of kind of data nonsense. You know, there's
a wonderful band out of Athens, Storgia called the Olivia
Trimmer Control, which is an absolute nonsense phrase, and this
is very similar to that.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
I think the thing that stands out the most to
proponents of the Paul is Dead theory is the number nine,
number nine refrain. It repeats, you know, at the beginning,
and depending upon your ears, you may hear turn me
(14:54):
on Dead Man, turn me on Dead Man. When it's
played in reverse. Again, your interpretive mileage may vary.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
Yeah, But a big part of music concrete and this
type of sampling plunder phonic type of you know, music creation.
A lot of it's just about taking a sound object
and manipulating it and the intent it usually isn't about intent.
It's about like taking something that already exists and twisting
it around. So number literature a million percent ben exactly right,
(15:27):
But like number nine, number nine, that's what the guy's saying.
It's very clear. So yeah, okay, when you flip it backwards,
it maybe sounds a little bit like, you know, turn
me on dead Man, turn me on dead Man. But
clearly the source material was number nine. And I don't
know who is saying that. I don't know the history
of that part, or if that's something they grabbed off
(15:47):
of radio broadcasts or what, but I think they were
just fascinated by the cadence of it and the sound
of it, to the point where they made that the
name of the song, and Revolution, of course, is a
song in and of itself you say you want to
rev So this is like almost like a weird artsy
remix of that in concept. But I don't know that
there are any bits of actual the actual song revolution
(16:09):
in Revolution number nine. It's just them being pretty data,
which I think is awesome.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
And again we're we're seeing that at this point when
Revolution number nine hits the airwaves, people are already primed
to think that Paul is dead, so they're actively looking
for stuff that confirms that pattern. So now we're returning
(16:39):
to something we talked about in our first episode in
this series, Abby Road.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
It is a road, the studios.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
The record, Yeah, the rides, yes, yes, yes, the experience
Abby Road the album not to be confused with the studio,
nor with the crosswalk, nor with the street, nor with
the ride. It comes out in nineteen sixty nine, and
this delivers arguably the most well known clue in the
(17:17):
conspiracy or folklore that Paul McCartney died in nineteen sixty six.
Is it depicting a funeral?
Speaker 4 (17:25):
It's a good question, I mean, and there's a whole
thing about him having shoes off. We'll get to. Let's
just go through some of the other things. This idea
of a funeral procession, John leading the procession as he
is wearing white, all white like a priest, while Ringo
follows behind as a pallbearer or an undertaker, and all
black Paul bearer. Paul is the third in the procession,
(17:50):
would be the corpse in the order of operations, that
is a funeral procession with his eyes closed and barefoot. Allegedly,
how they bury in Italy or in India or England
or I don't know about that, guys. I think your
resultsate Harry there too, and literally out of step with
the others. He is once again turning his back on life.
(18:14):
He is not of this mortal plane, you know, he's
he's two step in in the afterlife.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, and then of course we're all asking where is George.
George Harrison is right in drogue. He's taking up the
rear as the grave digger if you but if you
look at outtakes of the photo session, because it was
a photo session, there were multiple photos taken for the album,
(18:44):
you'll see that in several our buddy Paul Prime is
wearing sandals, or excuse me, Billy Shears is wearing sandals.
And word on the street is he ultimately got rid
of the sandals because it was too hot outside. And
whether you think this is Paul or fall, someone say
(19:07):
they are. Paul McCartney spoke in a interview with Life
magazine in nineteen sixty nine and said, it is all
bloody stupid. We were wearing our ordinary clothes. I was
walking barefoot because it was a hot day. And what
I love about this norm is that you can we
(19:28):
can tell with direct quotes from Paul McCartney Postscar Crash, allegedly,
we could tell that he is aware of this theory,
and at first he's being kind of like a good sport,
but he seems increasingly irritated with it, and you have
to wonder, like, how would you feel if people kept
(19:51):
coming up to you and telling you that you were
a body double of yourself?
Speaker 4 (19:56):
Yeah, it could probably get all It'd probably be amusing
for a hot second and then get real tiresome, real quick.
The photo series, by the way, was taken the day
Charles Manson he might have heard him order the deaths
of Sharon Tate and her pals there at the was
it Clo Drive mansion. And this is directly as a
(20:18):
result of reading too much into Beatles lyrics. Specifically, the
one that gets referenced a lot is the song Helter
Skelter off the White album, So that's much has been
made of that outside of the Paula's Dead stuff. So
at this point there is a lot being made of
the idea that this is early example of outrage surrounding
(20:41):
the idea of supposed backmasking or satanic messages hidden in
popular music. So at this point the Beatles are damn
aware of this outside of just the Paul is Dead thing,
and are probably pretty pretty on edge about potentially being
associated with stuff like that. If there was any clever,
(21:01):
you know, trickery going on, they probably abandoned it for
Abbey Road.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Let's just put that out there right now. Yeah, they
probably stepped it back.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
You know.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
You can also see Paul McCartney smoking a cigarette. That
got a lot of attention, partially because cigarettes are associated
with mortality, but also because he's smoking with his right hand.
So for people who thought Paul Prime had been replaced,
(21:32):
this was an indication that the purported Paul was a fake.
And this doesn't even get us to you know, the
Volkswagen Beetle. It's in the background of that Abbey Road
crosswalk that has disappointed so many tourists when they find
out it's just a crosswalk on a road. This Beatle
(21:55):
b E t L E has a license plate. Since
plate reads twenty eight if so, people are going to
tell you that twenty eight if means Paul McCartney would
have been twenty eight years old at the time if
he lived. That's factually inaccurate. He would have been twenty seven.
(22:22):
It just goes on. People will see the letters LMW
and say that means Linda McCartney weeps. But honestly, Noel,
this is that's a little far for me, you know
what I mean?
Speaker 4 (22:36):
Yeah, for sure, farther even than some of the other
more slightly plausible ones. And again, you know, with the
Manson stuff and all of the hullabaloo and the press
feeding frenzy surrounding that, pretty sure they were not going
out of their way to hide anything. And whether it
be the album cover or beyond. And you know, to
Paul's point about the cover of Abbey Road, and they
(22:58):
were all wearing their their clothes was despite it looking
like you know, maybe there was wardrobe for this, I
can confirm. And anyone that maybe has seen the get
back not let it be get back. That's what the
documentaries called. This is kind of how they dressed. Yeah,
John Lennon around this dime, he wore these very lavish,
flashy white suits with you know, platform he type shoes
(23:21):
all the time. He's a super fashionable guy. And George
warlike bell bottoms and like Denham and stuff. I mean this.
It absolutely tracks that they just turned up in their
street clothes and this is the photo they got.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
And speaking of turning things up, let's turn up the
rumors a little bit. Let's travel in time back to
nineteen sixty seven. In January of nineteen sixty seven, we
see that reports of Paul McCartney's death date back years
(23:55):
before the idea that Paul is dead became a phenomenon.
There was this rumor he had been killed in a
car crash on January seventh, nineteen sixty seven, this time
not an Aston Martin, a Mini Cooper involved in a
car accident on the M one motorway or highway.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Yeah, he was just leaving the Italian job and he
was driving a little too fast to making his getaway.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Yeah. The thing is, Paul Prime was not actually in
the car. It was instead being driven by a guy
named Mohammed a Hadigit, a Moroccan student, an employee of
a guy named Robert Fraser who's an art dealer in
London at the time. Robert Fraser is a close friend
(24:43):
of Paul McCartney's. You know, no, we've talked about it
in the past off air. Paul McCartney has always been
a champion of the arts.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Right, and we talked about it recently on the Apple
Versus Apple Computers Versus Apple Records episode about how Paul
came up with the whole idea of the Apple imagery
surrounding that record label and that brand from a rename
of great painting as we know, the famous one with
the Apple kind of floating in space.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
And to bust the again, to bust the boorish tendency
of only picking between the Rolling Stones and the Beatles.
That's still that's still something that grinds my gears. Check
this out, ridiculous historians. Mohammed and Paul and co. Are
(25:31):
all heading to a party at Mick Jagger's house, so
they do hang out, yes, so they're not really enemies.
What we can assume here is that somebody in the aggressive,
pretty brutal British tabloid press did a license plate check
(25:52):
and the story spread around the world that Paul McCartney
was either injured or dead. The rumors were so pervasive,
and let's keep in mind this is pre Internet. They're
so ubiquitous that the band itself, the Beatles, go to
their official fan magazine because of course, they have Beatles
(26:16):
monthly and they print a denial. We do know that
Paul did have some car problems at some point.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
Right, But the closest Paul ever came to a full scale,
you know, motor crash wipeout was in December of nineteen
sixty five when he was riding his moped late one
night while visiting Liverpool, their hometown, for Christmas. And he's
described as refreshed as he's had some adult beverages, some refreshments.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
As they say he got nogged on some eggs.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
I think it's probably true. And he flipped himself straight
over the handlebars and landed right on his face and
shipped a tooth in the process, and he was seen
by a doctor who sewed him up. And this incident
actually inspired a line about a drunken doctor in the
song Rocky Raccoon, which is another personal favorite, really fun song.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
H Yeah, I always thought I always thought that the
interesting thing about the Lennon McCartney partnership is that Lenin
is a beast at lyrics and Paul is a beast
at instrumentation and composition.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know's I'm a big fan
of both of their lyrics. But you're right. John is
definitely more of a rocker and a little bit more
known for his sardonic wordplay, and Paul has definitely thought
of as being more of the studio wizards and the
kind of you know, arranger of the two of them.
I agree with you completely.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
So, Noel, could you take us to the first known
printed reference to this theory that Paul McCartney is dead?
Speaker 4 (27:57):
Sure thing? It appeared in the septem number seventeenth, nineteen
sixty nine issue of The Times Delphic, which was a
student newspaper at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, of
all places. Okay, so not the UK. No. No. A
nineteen year old egelid eared fan Tim Harper wrote an
article with the headline is Beatle Paul McCartney Dead, wherein
(28:19):
he details the quote distinct possibility that McCartney may indeed
be insane, freaked out, or even dead. Examining a lot
of the clues and album arts lyrics that we have mentioned.
He though, he I mean, I'm sorry I took him
as a fan, but he says here he didn't own
a Beatles record, and he talked with others about the
(28:41):
known rumor which has already already been making I guess
its rounds in certain beatnik kind of hipster circles. Very interesting.
But he decided to kind of make a little bit
of an oral account of a lot of these things
that were already kind of known in the scene. Yeah,
he is.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Clearly a student right into a deadline. And he gets
word of this from his editor and I love this name,
d'Artagnan Brown. Are you guys related.
Speaker 4 (29:12):
I wish I want to change my name in this
sick name.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
So d'Artagnan Brown, the editor of the Times Delphic, says,
all right, I've heard these rumors. He's talking to Tim Harper.
He says, Tim, Buddy, I've heard these rumors throughout the underground,
the counterculture, you know, crying of Lot forty nine, kind
(29:36):
of underground. I went to California and people are saying
that Paul McCartney is dead and has been replaced by
you know, some kind of Canadian, some kind of Canadian
that's a good name for something, of course. So all right,
the story goes pre internet viral, and Tim Harper comes
(29:58):
out very quickly after the story takes off, and he says, look,
I'm satirical. I'm a student writing for fun. This so
called Expose eight is for you know, shuffles and giggles.
He specifically says it was just a joke. I was
the first one to put it all together. And he's
(30:21):
talking to the Chicago Sun Times when he says this
in October of nineteen sixty nine. He says, I knew
when I wrote the story that it wasn't true, but
I think the horse left the barn at that point,
well for sure.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
And like I mean, like I was saying, it really
is just sort of an oral account, you know, of
all of these different sort of pieces of hippie folklore
that had been making the rounds during a time when
because of the debacle of the Vietnam War and just
wide rife, discontentments and distrust of the government that folks,
(31:00):
we're a lot more willing to believe in these types
of conspiracy theories than maybe in generation's past.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Yeah, and imagine you are this kid, you are Tim Harper.
You write something that is essentially an onion article, you know,
and now on article there we go, and now the
press is picking this up, broadcast radio is picking this up.
(31:31):
He goes from LA to Chicago, speaking on a Baker's
dozen of radio stations for ten bucks. By the end
of September, there are tabloids in the UK that pick
(31:54):
up the story. Ultimately Tim Harper, who has always been
on it about you know, the satirical nature of his
original article. Ultimately, Tim Harper says, there were there was,
to your point, Noll, a convergence, a nexus of factors
(32:16):
in the culture that helped this rumor spread and empowered
it because of Vietnam, because the common American member of
the public was recognizing the threat of people in power,
the establishment. People were cynical, they were disillusioned, They were
(32:36):
ready willing and able to believe in quote unquote alternative facts.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
Correct the Warren Commission, of course, creating what has historically
been referred to as a credibility.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Gap, because we see right now in this milieu, we
see that there are genuine conspiracies being on covered by
the public. We know co Intel pro is real. We
know that the US government is conspiring to do all
sorts of shenanigans. We know that the British government and
(33:11):
other European governments are doing the same. So if you're
the average person hearing the radio. Is it too crazy?
Is it too crazy to think that just maybe Paul
McCartney might be dead.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
No, no, it's not, although, you know, in retrospect, pretty ridiculous.
That's why we're here, folks. But no, at the time,
there was out of that. Okay, let me walk that back.
That's why I'm confused, because the Beatles represent everything that
is in opposition to the establishment, though they have gotten
(33:50):
so so popular and successful that maybe there was a
certain souring to them that maybe would yield a little
distrust or treat them as a corporate entity. I don't know.
I wasn't there, but I am curious as to how
that same conspiracy, conspiratorial thinking would apply to your favorite
(34:10):
counterculture band, because the assumption there would be the Beatles
were in on this, and I just find that interesting
and a little bit antithetical to the idea of them
being you know, these you know, kind of rebel rousers.
That to the point we made earlier, I think the
last episode were often targeted by the governments, you know.
John Lennon of course himself was assassinated and was treated
(34:34):
as a political personality because of his ability to speak
truth to power. So that part of it confuses me
a little bit.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
M hmm, yeah. Same. And going to the radio aspect
of the mass communication, we know that the I wouldn't
quite call it hysteria, but the purported credibility of the
poll is dead. Theory awesomes. On twelve October nineteen sixty nine,
(35:04):
an anonymous individual calls into the radio show on Detroit's WKNR.
It's a radio show hosted by the legendary Russ Gibb,
and this anonymous individual is over the moon to tell
Russ that he is very upset over rumors that Paul
(35:27):
McCartney has died and has been further replaced by an impostor.
Our buddy, Russ Gibb, Let's.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
Just be honest.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
He has no clue who this guy is. He has
no clue what the guy is talking about, and so
he keeps him on the line because it's great radio,
and he's saying, all right, will tell me more of
these clues, and this person, whomever they may be, introduces
the American public to some of the clues that we
(35:59):
explore in part one of this series as well as
the beginning of this show.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
All Right, he has n't spin the records backwards live
on air. Yes, compelling because it's dude who is kind
of a square, a bit of one, you know, who's
not familiar with this stuff, sort of in real time
being like huh, well that's weird. Yeah, Just so.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
I love that description, you know, And we're experiencing great
radio because we're learning with Russ Gibb in real time.
The phone lines at wk NR go absolutely off the hook.
We're talking pandemodium. GiB later speaks with Billboard in twenty
(36:47):
nineteen and he says, the whole thing just exploded. The
phones were ringing off the hook. People were calling with
their own clues. It was non stop. So now we
see a feedback loop. The conspiracy is feeding it's self.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
M m yeah, the calls coming from inside the house.
As you like to say, Ben, it's true. Is an
absolute self fulfilling prophecy burrows of sorts, the snake eating
its own tail. And this really was kind of the
moment where, uh, these theories and this kind of concept
of Paul is dead began to go wide. And I
(37:23):
think this is, with that in mind, a good place
to pause for this episode, and we're gonna pick it
back up with the last part in this three part series,
Paul is Dead. The rumors surrounding the untimely demise and
cover up of Beatle Paul McCartney.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
That's right, folks, we are doing an on purpose three barter. Yeah,
look at us somewhat. Call our families, tell them we
have real jobs.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
Okay, tell them okay.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
First and before we go, you know, uh her own
super producer, mister Max Williams, who we shout out at
the beginning and end of the show, has something close
to his heart to share, apparently related to the Beatles.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
Maxos to his lonely heart.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Yeah, Max, are you Paul McCartney?
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Actually funny enough?
Speaker 3 (38:18):
I am to a Southpaw and I played bass, so
the like second base I ever got?
Speaker 2 (38:24):
All right, I used to play bass.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
I don't play much anymore, but second base I ever
got back in middle school was a violin bass style.
It was modeled off of the bass that Paul McCartney
very much liked.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
So all right, that's enough proof for us many.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Yeah, no, so yeah, that was actually very much a thing.
And you know, especially back then when access to musical
equipment was sometimes pretty hard, you really got like two
choices of left handed basses that like, you know, you
would open in the magazine and you'd flip through and
stuff like that. Now you can get great instruments from
you know, places like Sweetwater, which I'm they're not paying
(38:58):
us to do this.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
I am just dropping that name.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
And they do give us candy.
Speaker 4 (39:07):
It's their thing. They're a bunch of sweeties. We're talking
about the Huffner style based Is that what you're talking about, Matt.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just one last sweet Water loving
thing that all of our equipment is provided by Sweetwater
and they're not paying us to.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Say they are, but they do give us candy. You've
got a story from the Williams Dynasty.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
We also while we're doing this, we want to shout
out your biological brother Alex Williams, who is the composer
for this show. But Max, what's on your mind? What's
been sitting with you?
Speaker 3 (39:38):
So in the Williams Dynasty, I've taken this color like
that one of you know, we we all like our hobbies,
and we our hobbies changing changing stuff. In the last
like two or three years, my mother has gotten really
into a lot of Beatles stuff. She's been a Beatles
fan for a very long time. And you know, now
one of the things she does is she's trying to
(39:59):
get a lot of better words as much Beatles stuff.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
Well there's still.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
Time, you know, there's two of them alive, still in
their in their eighties. But so like one thing she
did last year, maybe two years ago now, she saw
Ringo and his band when it came to Atlanta. And
what I love, though, is, uh, I've gone to the
age where I can kind of hit my dad with
some good logic. Papa Williams is definitely a He's a
(40:24):
very pragmatic person, especially when he's the fiscal ideas. And
I don't want to say how expensive going to see
Ringo Stars touring band at the Fox Theater in downtown
Atlanta was, but it was a lot. And I kind
of just looked at him and said, yeah, but when's
the next time you can see this, right, And He's like,
that's good, that's good logic. And you know, I've told
(40:45):
you guys, I like to travel and see shows and
stuff like that. I think it's a very rewarding thing
to do. I just truly do love it. But that's
the transition was my mother discovered they had a Beatles
themed in Las Vegas, of course, but not only did
they have it, but that it was ending very soon,
(41:08):
like a month before she noticed it, and she was
trying to convince my dad, her husband, to let's take
some time off and go. And obviously the tickets to
go see Ringo start very expensive. Fly to Las Vegas
and see Circle with like a month's notice, incredibly expensive.
(41:30):
And I kind of him and I were just talking
about it, and I can't say it to him. It's
just like, I mean, the Beats aren't getting any younger,
neither of y'all. It's just like, this seems like a
thing where if you want to see this thing, this
is gonna be the only time. I'm like, I'm not
trying to say you have to do it, but if
this is what you guys want to do, they're not
gonna get another chance.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
And so you know, I'm a big.
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Believer that the reason why we don't have money is
we use money to pursue the things that we love
and we find it interesting. And long story short, they went,
oh good bold.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
I didn't make it. I didn't make it. I was there.
I even stayed at the hotel where the thing was happening,
and I just didn't end up getting to go for
a couple of various reasons. And now I think it's done.
But I remember when that first hit. I'm a huge
circ fan. The soundtrack is a really neat artifact for
Beatles fans in and of itself because it was actually
remixed and remastered from original Beatles recordings by George Martin,
(42:26):
their producer's son, whose name is escaping me. But it's
like kind of a mash up of a lot of
different Beatles music, but it's like from the original tapes
and by you know, and with oversight from George Martin
himself and his son Niles. I want to say Giles
perhaps anyway doesn't but it's a really cool record. You
can still buy that, and it's a fun listen on
its own.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
The Love soundtrack, and yeah, and just to wrap this up,
one of my favorite parts of this story is, you know,
obviously my mom had an amazing time, but who also
had an amazing time, my dad, So I don't know.
It's one of these things is that, like, you know,
I know how much my mom loves the Bills, So
I wanted to just think this sendto one of these
episodes I'm having.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
I hope everyone enjoyed this whole story time.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
I think we all did. And thank you for Sharon Max.
I'm getting some pretty intense deja vu.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
You know.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Look, as we have alluded to in the past, my
name has not always been depending on where we're at,
Greg is the Vegas persona and like Noel, did not
get the opportunity to to see to see this performance.
So it's awesome that the Williams dynasty made it over.
(43:37):
We want to thank you super producer, mister Max Williams,
your brother Alex Williams, who composed this slap and bop.
We also want to thank Ringo and Sir Paul McCartney
for tuning into the show. And you know what, we
don't reference it often because we've made our piece, but
(43:58):
Sir McCartney, thanks for sorting out that Sheryl Crow stuff
for us.
Speaker 4 (44:02):
We owe you one man. Mmmm yeah, yeah, he's a
good guy. That Paul or whatever Paul Paul for Paul
oh right right, right, depending you know whatever, whatever, Faul
Prime Fall.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Whomever you may be, thank you for supporting our show.
Thanks also to aj Bahama's Jacobs. I can't believe that
guy is so cool. Yep, he's a good dude for sure.
Speaker 4 (44:24):
And also to Jonathan Strickland, the quisitor, who is less
of a good due when he's in that persona, but
a real good due when he's just regular old Jonathan's track.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
He's fine. Eight out of ten.
Speaker 4 (44:33):
Thanks to you, Ben, This has been great. Really excited
to come back and talk a bit more in our
final installment of the series about the Beatles themselves. We
hinted at that all along the way and they did
not hold back.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
And you have to ask yourself at this point, ridiculous historians,
will it actually be us?
Speaker 4 (44:51):
Or will we be replaced? Dunk dun, dun. Let's see
you next time.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Books.
Speaker 4 (45:02):
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