Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to 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.
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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.
Of the first episode I edited in Doctor T. W.
Stallings, the One Man's corvid hating quest make Oklahoma literally eat Crow.
It didn't cut off. I had to click it into it.
But yeah, we love core here. Well, we should have brought you some flowers or a cupcake or something.
Pupcakes or like a basket of crows.
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.
There's actually muffins and stuff cupcakes.
There are what is a muffin if not a cup a healthy cupcake?
Or what is a cupcake if it's not an unhealthy muffin or actually healthy?
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, Jordan's Noel.
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 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 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.
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 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.
When was that nineteen sixty eight? Right, So now Billy Shears is already Paul Prime's body double.
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 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 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 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 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, 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.
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.
You know.
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.
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.
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 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 seems to be able to agree on which cultures fine walers as a symbol of death.
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
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,
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.
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 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.
Uh.
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 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
a pickle. Yeah.
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
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
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.
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, 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.
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 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 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 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.
I don't know what goon meant. A very different thing back then to Goon.
Yeah, yeah, the Goon Squad is something very very differ today. Yeah, for sure.
Shout out to Leonard Peltier in that regard. Let's talk about Revolution number nine. Would you describe that as a sound collage?
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 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. 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 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.
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 on Dead Man, turn me on Dead Man. When it's played in reverse. Again, your interpretive mileage may vary.
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, 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 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
in Revolution number nine. It's just them being pretty data, which I think is awesome.
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 to something we talked about in our first episode in this series, Abby Road.
It is a road, the studios.
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 conspiracy or folklore that Paul McCartney died in nineteen sixty six. Is it depicting a funeral?
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, 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. He is not of this mortal plane, you know, he's he's two step in in the afterlife.
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, 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 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 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 coming up to you and telling you that you were a body double of yourself?
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 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 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, you know, trickery going on, they probably abandoned it for Abbey Road.
Let's just put that out there right now. Yeah, they probably stepped it back.
You know.
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, 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 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. 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?
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 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 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.
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 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.
Yeah, he was just leaving the Italian job and he was driving a little too fast to making his getaway.
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 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.
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.
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 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 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
monthly and they print a denial. We do know that Paul did have some car problems at some point.
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.
As they say he got nogged on some eggs.
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.
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.
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.
So, Noel, could you take us to the first known printed reference to this theory that Paul McCartney is dead?
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 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 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.
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.
I wish I want to change my name in this sick name.
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 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 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 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.
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, we're a lot more willing to believe in these types of conspiracy theories than maybe in generation's past.
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. 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 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 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 ready willing and able to believe in quote unquote alternative facts.
Correct the Warren Commission, of course, creating what has historically been referred to as a credibility.
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 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.
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 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 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 as a political personality because of his ability to speak truth to power. So that part of it confuses me a little bit.
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, 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 McCartney has died and has been further replaced by an impostor. Our buddy, Russ Gibb, Let's.
Just be honest.
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 explore in part one of this series as well as the beginning of this show.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
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.
Okay, tell them okay.
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.
Maxos to his lonely heart.
Yeah, Max, are you Paul McCartney?
Actually funny enough?
I am to a Southpaw and I played bass, so the like second base I ever got?
All right, I used to play bass.
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.
So all right, that's enough proof for us many.
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 us to do this.
I am just dropping that name.
And they do give us candy.
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.
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.
Say they are, but they do give us candy. You've got a story from the Williams Dynasty.
Uh.
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?
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 get a lot of better words as much Beatles stuff.
Well there's still.
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
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 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, 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.
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.
And so you know, I'm a big.
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.
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,
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.
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.
I hope everyone enjoyed this whole story time.
I think we all did. And thank you for Sharon Max. I'm getting some pretty intense deja vu.
You know.
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. 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 Sir McCartney, thanks for sorting out that Sheryl Crow stuff for us.
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.
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.
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.
He's fine. Eight out of ten.
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.
And you have to ask yourself at this point, ridiculous historians, will it actually be us?
Or will we be replaced? Dunk dun, dun. Let's see you next time.
Books.
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