The Beatles (band)/WMG

Yoko did not break up The Beatles.
Paul McCartney broke up the Beatles and has been funding a massive media smear campaign against her to divert attention away from him ever since.
 * Partially confirmed. Ever hear the Let It Be recording secessions?
 * To cover up that all the others died in a plane crash!
 * But he doesn't know he's funding it. His corporation is acting on its own.
 * Heather Mills's demonisation by the media seems to support this theory. Unless she is that evil and retroactively broke up the Beatles!
 * Heather Mills is an evil Time Lord?!
 * This explains everything!
 * Considering how the other bandmembers felt about McCartney forcing them to record "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" for weeks on end, this might have a bit of truth to it.
 * It was enough of a Berserk Button for George Harrison that he was STILL talking about how much he hated that song on the Anthology, which was filmed in the mid '90s.
 * The Anthology book confirms in Broad Strokes that Yoko was not the cause of the breakup. It firmly denies the details of the theory, but Paul did have to approve the contents of the work. So did Yoko, and so the smear campaign didn't make it in.

The existence of Heather Mills broke up The Beatles.
Heather Mills was born in 1968. Things started going sour among The Beatles during the White Album recording sessions in 1968. Clearly, Paul McCartney's match made in purgatory has been disrupting his life since birth.

Cirno broke up The Beatles.
And she did it just to spite John for writing Revolution #9. Then she went on to kill him later (see below).

=== As stated on thebeatleseverbrokeup.com, there is an alternate universe where The Beatles never broke up—but what the author of the website brought back with him was a sequel to that universe's equivalent of LOVE ===. In that universe, The Beatles never broke up, but they still wrote many of the songs we know from solo albums, which were released as Beatles songs instead. They also had put out a remix album similar to LOVE, but with much more radical changes to the music. Then they put out a sequel focusing on the later material.

This explains why the posted album, Everyday Chemistry, sounds remarkably like a bunch of mashups of John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr solo songs.

"Revolution 9" is the mad ramblings of a Psyker from Warhammer 40,000.
In Warhammer 40,000, psykers are usually insane and have almost no control over their minds. "Revolution 9" is nothing but insane ramblings and talk of Satan and death.

"How Do You Sleep?" Is actually an angry dialogue between John Lennon and Paul McCartney, as imagined by John Lennon
The song begins with the line, "So Sgt. Pepper took you by surprise? You better see right through that mother's eye." The line is from "Paul's" perspective—he is telling "John" that he knew exactly what was happening when Pepper was a massive success, and McCartney wrested the leadership of the group from him, and that to claim otherwise is disingenuous.

The next line is a response from Lennon, referencing the classic Paul is Dead rumor, and accusing "McCartney" of arrogance.

"McCartney" responds by attacking "Lennon's" dependence on Yoko Ono: "Jump when your momma tell you anything."

This comment leads "Lennon" into a full frontal assault. "The Only Thing You've Done Was Yesterday" "A Pretty Face May last a Year Or Two, but Pretty soon they'll see what you can do" "The Sound You make is muzak to my ears"

In case it's unclear, the quote marks around the names is simply a way of distinguishing the Lennon and the McCartney voice in the song, from the actual John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

This theory may seem far fetched, but John Lennon did admit that parts of the song were about him rather than Paul McCartney...

"Come Together" is about the various members of the Beatles.
Each verse refers to a different member.

The opening is a depiction of George Harrison, a "holy roller" with "Hair down to his knees." In January, he had walked out on the group, and so he's "a joker-he just do what he please."

The second verse refers to Richard Starkey. "He wear no shoeshine"—Ringo came from a lower class than the other members of the Beatles. "I know you you know me" sounds like a Ringoism, like "A Hard Day's Night." or "Tomorrow Never Knows."

The third verse is about John Lennon. He ''bag production" because that's the name of his production company, Bag Productions. "He got walrus gumboot"—John was the walrus. "Ono sideboard"—John was dating Yoko Ono at the time the song was written.

The final verse is about Paul. "One and One and One is three"—by 1969, Paul was something of the odd man out in the group. He refused to accept the management of Allen Klein and was generally resented by the other three. "Got to be good looking cause he's so hard to see" is a reference both to Paul being considered "the cute one" and to his generally diplomatic nature—essentially, McCartney is hard to see because his personality makes to difficult to know just what he's actually thinking.
 * Given that The Beatles were about to break up when John wrote this song, this theory seems pretty believable (even look at the title- irony, perhaps?), even verging on Fridge Brilliance.

What the group as a whole were saying in "Come Together"
They were saying, "We know you guys think we're the biggest thing ever, and we might be. But when it comes down to it, we're just normal guys who get sick of each other and the world around us."

"Molly Jones" in The Beatles' "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da" is Molly Malone, and the song is her fevered, dying dream.
Molly of "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da" is the famous Dublin fishmonger, overworking herself (eventually contracting a fatal fever in doing so) trying to put food on the table for her lazy, shiftless husband Desmond (whose only occupation is singing in a band, though he rarely makes any money from it) and their children. The song is her dying dream, brought about by the fever, in which their roles are reversed, Desmond is a successful fishmonger, and the family lives in relative comfort. (The reversal of "Desmond" and "Molly" in the final verse is a clue to the true situation.) "Life goes on" in the chorus is a particularly cruel irony, since life will not go on for Molly.

John Lennon was telling the truth about Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.
Sorta. His son did draw such a picture and did name it that; there's hard evidence for it. But it wasn't until John realized the initials of it that he was inspired to write the song. So, it's about a picture of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, and it's also about what everyone who's ever heard it knows it's really about.
 * Alternatively - this song did have input from Paul McCartney. John wrote with innocent motives; Paul sneaked in the drug references, or else just spread rumors that the song contained drug references. (He's still spreading the rumors.)
 * The psychedelic style of song doesn't have to be about psychedelic drugs any more than a blues song has to be blue or a ghost dance about ghosts. It's just a trippy style. Nevertheless, McCartney confessed that there was one intentional drug-based double entendre, ironically not in the title as everyone thinks but in the lyrics—the cellophane flowers growing "so incredibly high". They snuck in drug references like that in the middle of the lyrics of many songs about all sorts of stuff, just For the Lulz.

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is about Money, Dear Boy
Pounds, shiilngs and pence, in pre-1970 British currency, were abbreviated L, s, d.
 * And the imagery of the song is saying how great it is to be rich, like Lucy.

Paul McCartney's "The World Tonight," written in 1995, foretold Princess Diana's death.
The first few verses describe a famous person with a troubled personal life; in the last, the person is described as "hiding from a flock of paparazzi"—and the story ends abruptly there, obviously indicating death. The chorus explicitly portrays this narrative as a vision of the future ("Look into the future"), anticipates that it will be reinterpreted after the event ("See it in a different light"), and implies knowledge of a conspiracy ("It doesn't matter what they say / They're giving the game away"). In the Flaming Pie liner notes, McCartney admits that he doesn't know where the lyrics came from; obviously he wrote them in a prophetic trance.

Paul frequently writes songs and song lyrics when in prophetic trances.
He dislikes analyzing them, partly because he is aware of Prophecy Twists, and partly because many of the ones that can be proven prophecies in hindsight are depressing in the execution... For instance, "Yesterday" was a prophetic song. It wouldn't seem to apply to someone who is 23 and at the toppermost of the poppermost; it almost certainly did apply approx. 33 years later.

Father McKenzie killed Eleanor Rigby to hide their affair
She was at the church frequently, gathering the rice or cleaning. "When there's nobody there" implies there was some reason she would not go when there were others, and she would look out her window with the face in the jar (make-up) waiting for her chance to go meet her beau. She died in the church and was buried alone by Father McKenzie because, for some reason, he killed her there and had to quickly hide the body. "Wiping the dirt from his hands" was his first step to start hiding the evidence.
 * Thanks a bundle. The song was creepy enough to begin with....
 * Alternatively, he didn't kill her; she simply died of old age. (This troper always got the impression they were old for some reason. But they were having an affair. Hence the line "no-one was saved". Not even Father McKenzie.

The walrus is the eggman. And a metaphor. As narrated by a delusional schizophrenic.
""I am the eggman. I am the eggman, I am the walrus. (Goo goo g'joob.)""

It seems to list multiple things that a person is ("I am god! I AM GOD! I Am The Ruler Of All Things!), rather than multiple beings. The walrus ate the penguin that laid the egg that is humanity ("I am the eggman, they are the eggman")- an egg created in god's image but immeasureably less complex. Then the "egg-man" rises as a walrus to overthrow the penguin. ("I am human. I am human- yet I am greater than god!" A stealth Bigger Than Jesus.) Humans are now as the yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye- meaningless filth in comparison to the narrator's godhood. The elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna and pornographic priestess bits are saying, "Worship me! And if you're a hot female, worship me naked! You, god, are lower than me, so sing my praises!" The Joker is a reference to both a deck of cards, and how the most worthless card in the deck, a pitiful mortal, is now one of the greatest beings in existence, unfathomable to those who play, let alone the other cards- the Jokers from The Dark Side of the Sun. The first line is about Instrumentality, and the second (see how they run, et al.) is the other mortals refusing to join him in ascendance. The first verse (sitting on a cornflake/corporation t-shirts to See how they run/I'm cryin') is the narrator's interpretation of a protest as being a service held in his honor, then trying to fight off the puny mortal police and his delusion of "scaring them off". The last verse until the end of the song is fading into deeper and deeper disconnection from reality, why it seems to get so much creepier and mixed up with radio broadcasts at the end.
 * Joke's on you, bub. Lennon said he wrote that song as a sort of prank for the express purpose of creating Wild Mass Guessing. An early case of The Walrus Was Paul before they did it again in the Trope Namer, "Glass Onion".
 * That's what he wanted the squares to think. John was prone to flip-flops of God.
 * You're thinking of DID, not schizophrenia.

"I Am the Walrus" has a deep and profound meaning -- which John would not or could not admit to by the time the song was released.
The song has a strong What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs? vibe. Maybe John did have Artistic Stimulation when he wrote the song—but he was definitely sober when MMT was released. And when John was off drugs, he was careful to deny getting any positive creative influence from drugs at all. So if this was to LSD what "Got to Get You Into My Life" was to marijuana (according to latter-day Paul), John couldn't admit to the song having a meaning at all.

Or maybe the song was advocating revolution—it has a dystopic feel and seems to be attacking authority at every turn—but John dared not say that because it would've gotten the song banned by the BBC and made the single a lot harder to find. Or worse, telling the true meaning could've led EMI or Capitol or both to find another B-side to that single (the other A-side was "Hello Goodbye." John only had one all-new song for the MMT project, so losing it on the single would seriously weaken his position in the group.

Abbey Road was specifically written with 'In My Pants' jokes in mind.
Think about it; "Come Together," "Something," "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," "Octopus's Garden," "Carry that Weight," "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window"...
 * ""Oh! Darling"? "Here Comes the Sun"? Sun King"? "The End"? "Her Majesty"?
 * Still works.
 * Get your mind out of the gutter.

John Lennon was writing songs about Yoko Ono before he met Yoko Ono
His marriage with Cynthia went bad almost as soon as it happened, and so any tender love songs that he is responsible for have to be for someone else. And John thought they were for Yoko once he met her.
 * John Lennon subscribed to this theory.
 * Lennon pretty much said this himself, talking about "Girl." What he really said (if memory serves) was that he was writing about the kind of woman he wanted to fall in love with, but he didn't know her yet, and then he met Yoko.

All of Abbey Road is about the same four people.
Mr. Octopus Mustard is a mean old man, but if you give him your money (he's saving up to buy some clothes), he'll let you into his garden. His sister Polythene Pam, who came in through the bathroom window, takes him out to see Her Majesty, and he always shouts out something obscene, usually related to how she's so heavy and yet he wants her, with the net result that, if things go well, he'll have to carry her weight a long time. Mr. Mustard's friend is Maxwell Edison, the Sun King (people tend to say "here comes the Sun" when he arrives), who says "I know you, you know me, one thing I can tell you is you got to be free." Max nearly broke down and died when Pam told him she didn't need him anymore—there's just something in the way she moves, and oh yeah, she's gonna be in his golden slumbers tonight.
 * Well, it's more cohesive, well-thought-out, and sensible way to connect their songs than the screenwriters of the film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band could come up with, so you're ahead of Hollywood's best efforts on the matter.
 * "Here Comes the Sun" is obviously part of a musical motif with "Sun King", yes; but if any two specific characters recur between songs, then it would be "Come Together" being about Mean Mr. Mustard.
 * What's personally odd to me about this theory is that, upon reading it, I was reminded of a dream I had which was basically an explanation of what this theory states.
 * Who was the fourth person? Or were you counting Her Majesty?
 * Yeah, probably. She's just a minor character, though.
 * If she counts, then all of Maxwell's victims should as well, Joan, the teacher, the judge, Rose and Valerie.

Rocky, Lil and Dan are bandits on the run from the law.
They're living under pseudonyms. "Her name was McGill, and she called herself Lil", "who called himself Dan"...and come on, "Rocky Raccoon"? That's not subtle.

"Rocky Raccoon" is about Ronald Reagan.
Same initials. 'To shoot off the legs of his rival' Remember RR in "King's Row" ("Where's the rest of me!?")? 'But everyone knew her as Nancy' Mrs. Reagan, of course. 'Rocky burst in and grinning a grin, he said Danny boy this is a showdown' Danny Boy is an Irish song, RR is from an Irish family, and can't you just picture movie-era RR in that very scene? The part about getting shot, but it being 'only a scratch' and RR saying 'I'll be better' clearly refer to the assassination attempt. 'Now the doctor came in stinking of gin, and proceeded to lie on the table' this is a veiled reference to RR's alcoholic father. 'Only to find Gideon's bible. Gideon checked out and he left it no doubt to help with good Rocky's revival' A bible did help with RR's "revival" as far as his public image, first he was an actor, then became (by swearing on a bible) President of the USA.

"Getting Better" is about Maxwell Edison
Think about it. He certainly did get mad at his school, and his teacher really wasn't cool to be making a Medicine Major write on the board 50 times like some kid. And he was pretty cruel to his woman, beating her and keeping her apart from the things that she loved (by killing her). Man, he was mean, but he's changing his scene, and doing the best that he can. You must admit, it's getting better for him, a little better all the time. And after he killed the judge at his trial, it really can't get no worse.
 * Except "Getting Better" was written a couple years before "Maxwell's Silver Hammer."
 * Prequel Song.

By extension, "Long Long Long" is about Maxwell's murder of Joan in "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"
As a Stalker with a Crush, he's had delusions and fantasies about her for as long as he's known her, to the point that he's deluded himself into thinking that they've always been together ("How could I ever have lost you / When I loved you"). "It took a long, long, long time" for him to come up with the perfect excuse to ensure that he'll never "misplace" her again. He kills her, takes the body back to his place, keeps her in his closet so he'll always have her close ("Now I can see you..."), and as he slides further into dementia, begins dressing himself in her clothing and impersonating her a la Psycho ("...Be you"). The last bit after that shows how his mind is only barely holding up under the strain, his sense of guilt over killing her threatening to overwhelm the elaborate fantasy he's put together and desperately clings to.

Any song that John wrote which is about himself but addressed to "you" is also about Paul.
He claimed that "How Can You Sleep?" was really about himself once the McCartney/Wings fans of the era noticed what exactly he had tried to pull with that song. And many of the other songs John wrote about himself that aren't in first person are very rough on himself. Since the Beatles were still getting along when the earlier songs of this nature were written, and since Paul helped write many of them—either from obliviousness or because he wasn't going to let his ego get in the way of good music (at least not that way) -- the second target was never noticed.

This would explain how John could be the Nowhere Man and also be there as a first-person narrator...

I Am The Walrus is a dramatic retelling of Humpty Dumpty
Paul is supposedly "Dead", and the Walrus was Paul, so the "Walrus" represents death, and Humpty Dumpty is obviously the "Eggman". And Humpty Dumpty could have been taking LSD while sitting on the wall, explaning both his canonical loss of balance, and the "Yellow custard, dripping from a large black pot" nonsense most of the song blabbers on about. The refrain explains what was going on in his head at the time, as he referd to himself as "the eggman" for some reason right before he fell off, thus becoming "The Walrus", AKA death.

And Humpty Dumpty's final words were "Goo goo ga joob", by the way.

Rocky Raccoon dies
Despite his insistence that his gunshot wound is "only a scratch", and that he'll be "better as soon as he is able", Rocky eventually dies in the comfort of his hotel room, taking comfort in the words provided to him in the Gideon's Bible, thus allowing him a Religious Revival before he passes on.
 * Supported by the contents and tone of the scatting Paul does after the last verse.

Jojo and Loretta are the same person
According to "Get Back," "Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman, but she was another man." Perhaps Loretta is Jojo in drag.

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is about an alien abduction.
The song describes the mind-boggling experience of a modern human attempting to comprehend and describe a Starfish Alien world in terms of his experiences on Earth.

The "cellophane flowers of yellow and green towering over your head" are the searchlights of the alien ship picking him up. "Lucy" is the alien being assigned to monitor him, whom he perceives as a "girl with kaleidoscope eyes".

The "rocking horse people" who eat "marshmallow pies" are an alien race resembling horses eating their race's traditional cuisine. The "newspaper taxis" that take him away "with your head in the clouds" are shuttles taking him to a space station ("picture yourself on a train in a station").

Finally, the "plasticine porters with looking glass ties" are robots who operate the transport that he is on.

"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is about events John Lennon experienced directly.
And those events are why he was spaced out for a year or two afterward.

"Revolution 9" is John's garbled premonition of the twenty-first century.
Number 9, number 9, number 9...interspersed with random snippets of radio. The Revolution was to begin in and dominate the year 9, 2009, number 9, number 9, number 9; the radio snippets certainly contain further clues of what's to come, but for now, as it begins, all we hear is radio bloo-bloo, radio blah-blah...Radio Gaga.
 * People are saying ponderous things such as, "Take this, brother; may it serve you well." Like the early Christians talking about the Eucharist. It's necessary to be vague; if discovered, they might wind up Dying Like Animals.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is about being committed to an insane asylum.
The "newspaper taxis" aren't black-and-white cabs in the old/British sense; they're black-and-white cabs in the "like a cab, but black and white" sense. The train station is the admittance block, and Lucy is a fellow inmate or a member of the collection crew.

The descriptions from earlier may be indecipherable delusion, but there's a distinct chance that the narrator's hypothetical "yourself" has a psychotic break near a park (one with the little bouncy animals on springs or (if the river was metaphorical or paint on the floor, but the cellophane flowers weren't) a big fancy toy store.

Octopus's Garden is about a Starfish Alien.
There is a bit that sounds like a radio transmission from an astronautical documentary. The sea is an empty mar; the storm is some sort of cascade or other aurora. The main point of the song is that the shade in which the octopus's garden rests is on The Dark Side of the Sun—that is, on the animal side of sentience, without intellectually-imbued conscience or authority. The speaker is saying that he would like to frolic the way the animals do.

Octopus's Garden is referencing The Call of Cthulhu
Listen to the lyrics. R'lyeh is under the sea, where Cthulhu dreams ("Resting our head on the sea bed"), Cthulhu and his kind know all that is occurring in the universe ("Knows where we've been"), the song takes place during a storm, just like when R'Lyeh rose, both the Cthulhu Cult and Octopus's Garden are hidden. Finally compare these two passages:
 * "We would shout and swim about/ The coral that lies beneath the waves./ Oh what joy for every girl and boy/ Knowing they're happy and they're safe./ We would be so happy, you and me. No one there to tell us what to do."
 * "The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones, Free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy."

Eleanor Rigby was a homeless person who frequented the church before she was found dead there of age, malnourishment, or illness.
She kept her face in a jar by the door (makeup, just a big, cheap jar of concealer or something that could have been caught on a dumpster diving trip or something that was bought using a bit of spare change that was occasionally left after the minimum requirement for food in Eleanor's opinion) instead of in the washroom because the abandoned building had no washroom mirrors or runnign water and/or had a mirror by the door. She picked up the rice to cook for supper, possibly also because she was a Homeless Pigeon Person and didn't want to risk her pigeon friends eating it out of the garbage or off the sidewalk when someone else swept it out of the church. Father Mackenzie found her late at night in the church (possibly when preparing for midnight mass, if the "sermon no-one would hear" was more than emphasizing the lonely tone of their lives) and buried her in a nameless grave out of respect, but could not invite her friends and family (even if she had them, he wouldn't know who they were to invite them). "No-one was saved" is because she never recieved last rights. "Wiping the dirt from his hands" was just to emphasize that Father Mackenzie had bothered to dig the grave himself, and not a metaphor.
 * I thought that was canon...

Penny Lane is about The Slender Man
The first verse describes the barber, who ends up calling the Slender Man by drawing him (the picture of every head he's had the pleasure to know includes Slendy's face). The banker is the Slendy himself, a strange man in a suit, who the narrator immediately connects to children and notes acts odd (never wears a mac in the pouring rain. Very strange). The fireman is someone who already knows of Slendy, and tries to help people exposed to him ('it's a clean machine' symbolising this). The pretty nurse is Slendy's first victim, which alerts the fireman. Then Slendy appears in the barbershop, the fireman rushes in to save him, ending the song on a Cliff Hanger. The narrator is completely unaware of all this, and goes on living his life comfortably. (Inspired by listening carefully to the bass of the song, and noticing that at certain points it sounds really creepy).
 * The fireman might be the song's totheark. The hourglass and constant cleaning of his engine represent his obsession; the way that the line "it's a clean machine" is said makes it seem like some kind of empty attempt to explain and justify his obsession.
 * This is probably happening somewhere in Canada. The Fireman's "portrait of the queen" that he keeps in his pocket is on a Canadian $20 bill that he's planning to give to Slendy in case that works. The nurse selling poppies was selling them for Rememberance Day, which falls on 11/11 (sequences of the same number show up a lot in the Slender Man Mythos, plus the dead of winter seems the best time for Slendy to strike). The references to her "thinking she was in a play" imply that she had a similar experience to the Everyman HYBRID crew; she thought she was just in a play about Slendy but he turned out to be after her in real life.
 * ...I hate you.
 * Okay, this idea sounded really bloody ridiculous to me until I went and listened to the song off Itunes on headphones so I could hear all of the background noise and bass and hear how creepy a lot of it is. Now it makes a lot of sense, at least the idea of The Banker being a sinister figure (there's a really creepy Hell Is That Noise effect when he arrives at the barber's at the end) and the Fireman rushing in to save the barber at the end (his Leitmotif is trumpets and a clanging bell that seems like perfect music for The Cavalry). Also note the Banker "waiting for a trim"...didn't one branch of the Mythos-maybe even Tribe Twelve-connect Slendy to a German folktale about a sinister creature that wielded a giant pair of scissors with which he pursued naughty children?
 * OP Here: This theory, by-the-by, dovetails perfectly with the 'Paul can predict the future' theory.

Maxwell Edison never killed anyone.
The song continually mentions Maxwell's silver hammer coming down on people's heads. It never says who was wielding it, only that it belonged to him.

After the murder of Joan, Maxwell, her boyfriend, was one of the prime suspects. The teacher was keeping him in captivity, intent on asking him a few questions about it. After she was killed, the hammer was found at the crime scene, and Maxwell was arrested.

The trial is where it all comes together. If Maxwell was truly a sociopath, and Rose and Valerie knew about it, then why would they defend him? And how could he sneak up behind the judge and kill him when he was still at the defendant stand?

We are truly dealing with is a hammer-stealing psycho.

Why did he target the two people who suspected Maxwell the most when letting them live would take the heat off of himself? Does he want Maxwell alive? And why did he attack Joan in the first place? Was it because Maxwell had left the hammer at her house the last time he was there, and he didn't want her calling the cops when he broke in to steal it?

"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is the desire for a drug fix.
No one is killing anyone - they're all drug addicts. They're just going on about their lives when *Bang-bang* "God, I'm wiped out - I really need a hit to keep going."

Joan realizes she needs a hit to go out to the movies - by herself. The teacher is trying to keep his/her addiction down during the school day - it hits them after school. Rose and Valerie were demonstrating for drug legalization when they get arrested - the Twist Ending is the judge who is trying them is a user himself.
 * And Maxwell is their dealer, hence why he gets arrested and why it's specifically Maxwell's silver hammer.

Billy Shears is Sergeant Pepper.
To quote Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, "So may I introduce to you, the one and only Billy Shears, and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band! Billy Shears! "


 * Why else would he be so notable? Early names for the Beatles themselves were "Johnny (Lennon) and the Moondogs" and "Long John and The Beetles". Therefore William "Shears" is Sgt. Pepper himself.

The girl in "She's Leaving Home" had a paper route.
But when she ran away, she quit her job.

One of the people on her route was Lady Madonna. That's why "Wednesday morning papers didn't come": the girl left home at "Wednesday morning at five o'clock."

"Lovely Rita" is the story of a man's denialistic failure to exert traditional dominance in an era of changing gender roles.
The song's protagonist's relationship with Rita seems to defy traditional gender roles at every turn - the two meet when Rita gives a parking ticket to the protagonist (who doesn't miss out on the irony, noticing Rita's juxtaposition of authority with femininity by claiming that her uniform "[makes] her look a little like a military man"), and Rita even takes the traditionally male responsibility of paying for their first date. Given how often the protagonist feminizes his girlfriend and her authoritative position as a "lovely meter maid," he seems to be discontent with The Sixties and the rise of feminism.

The songs in Beatles for Sale tell a composite story
The story begins with "No Reply," in which the protagonist is shunned by his love interest. In "I'm a Loser," he reflects on his misfortune in romance, and in "Baby's in Black" he realizes that this new girl is only avoiding him because she is still mourning her late boyfriend and is not yet ready for another relationship. "Rock & Roll Music" has him clearing his head with a night of dancing, and the next morning, he decides to just "Follow the Sun" and take life as it comes.

A few nights later, he spots the girl at a party ("Mr. Moonlight") and learns she is leaving for Kansas Missouri. He wishes to follow her, and she accepts ("Kansas City"). The relationship is a happy and carefree one ("Eight Days a Week," "Words of Love"), but soon the protagonist begins to doubt his love's sincerity ("Honey Don't"). He tries to convince himself he is still happy with her ("Every Little Thing"), but when she abandons him at a party (I Don't Want to Spoil the Party"), he realizes it's over and calls her out for hurting him in "What You're Doing." He returns to his hometown, finding himself with plenty of female admirers and a happy ending, in "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby."


 * I love you.

The Walrus and the Sun King are one and the same, an evil mastermind attempting an Assimilation Plot.
No, this theory isn't a joke. No more than any of the other theories on this page, anyway. So, let's pretend these two songs have a plot. It starts out with a normal man obtaining mind control powers by an unknown means -- let's just say it involved copious amounts of LSD. Realizing the influence he could obtain with these powers, he sets out to assimilate the entire population of the world into his mind and, having always been a fan of Alice in Wonderland, renames himself "The Walrus" after another famous evil manipulator. The events of "I Am the Walrus" tell the story of one of the Walrus's early victims, an unidentified man who finds himself unable to fight the Walrus's hypnotic power. He exclaims "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together" as he feels his mind being pooled into the Walrus's alongside several others, finally giving in and admitting "I am the Walrus!". The rest of the song consists mostly of disjointed nonsense as the protagonist's mind melds with that of other victims around him and is finally subdued at the hands of the Walrus. However, it should be noted that there are a few cryptic references to apparent survivors of this attack ("See how they run like pigs from a gun," "Naughty girl," "Naughty boy"), indicating that the Walrus still has a long way to go before his goals are achieved.

By the time we see him again in "Sun King," though, the Walrus has come a lot closer. Having finally subjugated most of the world into his Hive Mind, he has renamed himself "The Sun King" after another famous absolute ruler. (Let's say this guy was also a pretty big history buff.) The song tells the story of yet another victim as he is ambushed by the Sun King and his legions of mindless slaves—He states "Here come the Sun King" (specifically using the plural form of "comes"—come on, listen to the song and tell me if you hear an 's') in reference to his attackers all sharing the same Hive Mind. Unable and even unwilling to resist the now absurdly powerful Sun King, the protagonist slips into a state of euphoria as his mind is assimilated, explaining the song's completely happy (if surreal) tone and lines such as "Everybody's laughing / Everybody's happy" (refering to the mindless docility of the Sun King's followers) -- None of the vague desperation of "I Am the Walrus" remains. As the protagonist loses his coherence and feels his mind being pooled into those of the world-spanning army around him, he slips into the native languages of his fellow victims, spouting several multilingual nonsense words.

And one of these phrases is "chicka ferdy," a contribution from the protagonist himself that he recalled from his childhood in Liverpool as his dying thought. Yes, with this final breath, Paul McCartney slipped from the conscious world and died, his mind completely and utterly inhabited by that of the Sun King/the Walrus, John Lennon. And The Walrus Was Paul.

Here Comes The Sun is a father comforting his daughter Just Before the End
The Earth is slowly moving towards the sun, and the father knows it won't be long before they die. It's like Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life Played for Drama, and affecting everyone.

"And Your Bird Can Sing" is about Paul.
Conventional wisdom has it that this song is a diatribe directed at Mick Jagger, who as the story goes liked to brag about his "bird," Marianne Faithfull. Provided that was true, it seems doubtful that John would even care enough to be piqued into taking the passive-aggressive route of writing a song about it, especially one so uppity and personally affected. "You don't get me! You can't see me! You can't hear me!"

Meanwhile, in late 1965 and '66 there was some strain on John and Paul's relationship, for various reasons. One, Paul had decided to stay in London instead of moving out to Weybridge with John and the others. Even though they kept in constant touch (according to Cynthia Lennon, they would even sing and play to each other over the phone) and Paul regularly drove out for visits and/or songwriting sessions, this was a blow to John, since they had been virtually inseparable for almost ten years, and the Beatles were customarily a like-minded unit. Two, while John felt stuck in Surrey, Paul was swanning about the London art scene, befriending its inhabitants, attending plays and happenings, and living an enviable swinging bachelor life. Three, and perhaps most crucially, Paul kept balking at taking LSD with John in spite of increasing peer pressure and his willingness to take cocaine with Robert Fraser. (Not that it's a total no-brainer that Paul would opt for coke over acid or anything.) So John vented his jealousy and frustration with Paul ca. 1966 through song, as he was wont to do—but couched it in metaphor, because he wouldn't have wanted to really hurt Paul then. His care for his target comes through in spite of his put-downs: "When your prize possessions start to weigh you down, look in my direction. I'll be 'round."

On a minor note, the line "You say you've seen seven wonders," which would be in response to Paul enthusing over the things he was seeing and doing in Swinging London, also reminds of his (hilariously amazing) pot-inspired epiphany the night Bob Dylan turned the Beatles on to cannabis that "THERE ARE SEVEN LEVELS."

The lyrics are cryptic enough that Paul might not have noticed they were about him; if he suspected, it would be like him to just ignore it if it meant hedging a confrontation over such a difficult subject.

Batman villians are mentioned in "I Am the Walrus"
Consider the lyrics, "Don't you think The Joker laughs at you?" and "Elementary Penguin.

"Rubber Soul" is telling one story
Almost every song in it is about a girl who recently broke the singer's heart, and many of them are about how he still loves her. In Drive my Car, she is asking him to do all the work to get her famous for her, therefore driving her car. In You Won't See Me, the girl is cheating on him, and he is trying to get in touch with her. In Michelle, speaking French is a metaphor for the man not being able to get the girl to understand how much he loves her. In What Goes On, the man is asking the girl why she keeps taking advantage of him. In Girl, the man is talking about what the girl did. In I'm looking through you, he finally realized that it is hopeless to try to love her, and in Run for Your Life, he is telling her to leave before he decides to get revenge.

"I Am the Walrus" is about Alice in Wonderland
Take a look at the lyrics:
 * "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together" – The Dodo and the White Knight are both thought to be the alternate forms of Lewis Carroll
 * "See how they run like pigs from a gun" – The White Rabbit
 * "See how they fly" – Alice encounters the "Dodo" and the "Duck"
 * "I'm crying" – obviously the "Pool of Tears"


 * "Sitting on a cornflake waiting for the van to come" – Alice, when she is one inch tall, expects to catch a train ("the van")
 * "Corporation t-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday" – The Jabberwock and its slaying?
 * "Man you've been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long" – The Pool of Tears again


 * "I am the eggman" – Humpty Dumpty or the Carpenter (the former is more likely)
 * "They are the eggmen" – Tweedledum and Tweedledee
 * "I am the walrus, goo goo g'joob" – Do I really need to explain this?


 * "Mister City Policeman sitting pretty little policemen in a row" – maybe Alice lives just outside London or another large British town like Liverpool or Glasgow
 * "See how they fly like Lucy in the sky" – the Dodo and the Duck again
 * "See how they run" – The White Rabbit again
 * "I'm crying, I'm crying, I'm crying, I'm crying" – You get it


 * "Yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye" – Jabberwocky
 * "Crabalocker fishwife, pornographic priestess, Boy you've been a naughty girl, you let your knickers down" – Lewis Carroll was known for photographing naked girls
 * "I am the eggman" – As above
 * "They are the eggmen" – As above
 * "I am the walrus, goo goo g'joob" – As above


 * "Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun" – where Alice In Wonderland both begins and ends
 * "If the sun don't come, you get to tan from standing in the English rain" – More from the Pool of Tears
 * "I am the eggman" – As above
 * "They are the eggmen" – As above
 * "I am the walrus, goo goo g'joob, goo goo goo g'joob" – As above


 * "Expert texpert" – Lewis Carroll, who had gone through nearly 90,000 revisions of Alice In Wonderland and more than 60,000 of Through the Looking-Glass when he died in 1898.
 * "Choking smokers" – The Caterpillar
 * "Don't you think the joker laughs at you?" – The Cheshire Cat or the Mad Hatter
 * "See how they smile like pigs in a sty"– The Cheshire Cat again
 * "See how they snied" – To sny means to move or proceed. The Mad Hatter and the March Hare not only appear at the trial but in some chapters of Through the Looking-Glass as well.
 * "I'm crying" – You get it


 * "Semolina pilchard climbing up the Eiffel Tower" – Alice speaks French, hence the Eiffel Tower, in her "pool" of tears (a pilchard is a fish, semolina is an ingredient in pasta)
 * "Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna" – the Dodo and the Duck again
 * "Man you should have seen them kicking Edgar Alan Poe" – Lewis Carroll wrote a riddle for the Mad Hatter in which he says "Why is a raven like a writing-desk?" A common answer to it is that "Poe wrote on both," but it has no answer and was not suggested by him.
 * "I am the eggman" – As above
 * "They are the eggmen" – As above
 * "I am the walrus, goo goo g'joob, goo goo g'joob, goo goo g'joob goo goo g'joob, goo g'jooba jooba jooba jooba jooba jooba, jooba jooba, jooba jooba, jooba jooba" – As above

Paul's Replacement has been Secretly Assassinating the Other Beatles
s
 * To cover up the conspiracy.
 * He framed Mark Chapman for Lennon's murder. A second Beatle being murdered would have attracted too much attention, so he infected George Harrison with cancer and orchestrated 9/11 so that it would not be widely reported on in the media (Harrison died in November 2001).


 * He may also have been responsible for Brian Epstein's death, along with any other notably dead Beatles figures.

Paul Died but Got Better

 * Notice that the cartoon "Beatle" on the cover of A Collection of Beatles Oldies is in the same position as Michael Jackson on the cover of Thriller on which Paul is a guest star.
 * Notice that if you play the gibberish at the end of "A Day In The Life," backwards, it sounds like, "will Paul be back? He's Superman," and Paul is wearing a blue costume on the cover..
 * On "The Girl Is Mine," Paul sings, "sending roses and your silly dreams, really just a waste of time."
 * Of course, in the 2008 remix, Paul is replaced by a William... or should I say, Will.I.Am.
 * The title song contains the lyrics, "I'll save you from the terror on the screen," which could mean a movie screen, but could also mean a windshield. Also, the video for said song shows zombies being risen from the grave and dancing with Michael.
 * A "Just Say No" advert used the song "Beat It," featuring a bunch of teenagers getting in an accident.
 * "Billie Jean," not only lays out the reason for covering up Paul's death, ("don't go around breaking young girls' hearts) but declares that William Eugene Campbell is an impostor if we reverse the gender of the title ho of the song, "Billy Gene is not my lover."

This can only lead to the inevitable conclusion that Michael Jackson raised Paul McCartney from the dead and that Paul then went back in time to prevent his own death while instructing his past self to keep everything the way it was. This accounts for Paul's domineering attitude toward his bandmates in the later years.

Paul McCartney can fly
We see him do it in the videos for "Off the Ground" and "Your Loving Flame." It's uncertain if he can take off without help, but once he's in the air, he can fly skillfully and even hover.
 * Well of course he can, he's dead. Angel wings and all.
 * Or he's just good at missing the ground.
 * Of course he could fly. After all, he's got Wings. But even after he lost his Wings around 1980, he could fly. The Wings were decorative.
 * The above troper wins one internet.

Paul McCartney is dead, and Billy Campbell has orchestrated everything
A mysterious man by the name of William Shears Campbell saw how lucrative The Beatles were and decided that he needed a bit of the action. To do this, he ensured that an "accident" would befall Paqul. Knowing that the Beatles were arguing more and more, he waited for a session where Paul would become angry enough to storm out, and then cut the brakes on his car. He succeeded in killing Paul. Then he waited for the right opportunity to present an idea to the grief-stricken Beatles, manager Brian Epstein, and EMI: he bore an impeccable likeness to Paul and had musical skills, and so he roped them into the charade of his becoming Paul. Billy Campbell was a megalomaniac, and so he couldn't help but gloat about more-or-less taking over the Beatles; thus, he started to plant clues in the albums that indicated Paul was dead. He also figured that if he did this, the Conspiracy Theory would sound so patently stupid, it wouldn't be taken seriously in the long run. His plan worked, but he developed a Xanatos Roulette to seize full control. He made sure things got worse for the Beatles until he could effectively disband them. He couldn't let Brian Epstein stand in his way, so he made sure Epstein had a drug overdose. While Billy waited for his time to come, John Lennon began to feel guilt for covering up Paul's death; for this reason, Billy Campbell arrangqed to have Lennon assassinated. Campbell didn't have the foresight for handling Michael Jackson, though. Campbell never expected Jackson to actually take that advice to buy the publishing rights to the Beatles' catalogue, which deprived Campbell of its money. Incensed, Campbell started a subtle and manipulative campaign to discredit and destroy Michael Jackson's life. Free of the people who stood in his way, knowing that George Harrison's health was slowly declining, and knowing that Ringo wouldn't say anything, he decided to ride the Beatles train for as much as he could, reaping as much money as he could, knowing that one day he will be the only one standing.
 * So what you're proposing is basically a musical real-life Forrest Gump from hell?
 * How, exactly, does the OP know all this?

Paul McCartney died in 1966 or thereabouts--but was not allowed to stay gone.
After that unwanted car crash, EMI and the British government itself was in a panic: after all, the Beatles had been their prime export. The secret formula for getting King Arthur to return was broken out—and then modified when they realized Paul's ancestry can be traced to King Arthur: why not just call Paul himself? (Yes, that ancestry goes through Mordred—it can't be helped.) They were able to pull Paul back out of the afterlife. He still sometimes shows unworldly/otherworldy traits... For some reason, the need for Paul McCartney has been continual—either he hasn't been allowed to go back to the afterlife, or he keeps getting summoned here when he tries.
 * What do you mean the above post wasn't made on drugs??

Paul McCartney is the only surviving member of The Beatles
They never did replace Pete Best; Ringo was just an actor. Plus this theory wins based solely on the irony of it.
 * Doesn't look like Ringo to me in his Wikipedia photo. Come on, you've seen Robert Klein's stand-up, haven't you? We all know that Ringo Starr isn't Pete Best: he's really secretly Yassir Arafat!
 * Alternatively, everyone but Paul and Ringo died; but Ringo's career is dead, so you may as well count him too.
 * Because he drains all future regenerations from the other Beatles, he arranged for a few little assassinations...
 * He killed the others, and then started the "Paul is dead" rumors to throw everyone off his track.

Alternatively, WE'RE all dead, but Paul McCartney is alive.

 * Does this mean Paul McCartney is Shinji and Instrumentality was an instant-upload Matrix?
 * Yes to the second. The Generation Gap happened because Paul altered the programming of reality somewhat, and there was a debate for a while about whether this Matrix was an improvement or not. The end of The Sixties and its idealism was a severe programming error, though not yet so severe as to crash the program... Paul has his own Author Avatar running around in the program, of course - with the musician's equivalent of a Battle Aura.
 * This absolutely has something to do with why the Sixties and only the Sixties are known as the (musical) British Invasion. (There were also Loads And Loads of English bands popular in America in the 80's and 90's -- but because of the McCartney-based Matrix, we're meant to ignore this.)
 * Ubik?
 * "Reversion to earlier, more primitive forms" might explain why the mono mixes were so prized.

Paul is an angel of Death.
Prophetic epiphenies about deaths? Check. Friends around him dying like crazy (Ringo never was his friend)? Check. Purposefully hinted Easter Eggs for his supposed death just for kicks? Check for sure. He's an angel of Death, and he likes his job.

He could be Death and dead; that's touched on in Poison Oak Epileptic Trees.

Paul is a Shinigami and is using a Gigai
He is dead, but he never was alive to start with. The accident caused a few problems to the one who built his aging gigai and everything (Urahara?), but that was fixed pretty quick.

Paul was dead until the Millenium Earl brought him back.

 * Let's hope he doesn't shoot blood bullets...
 * He uses his fame to draw in Paparazzi and then kill the Paparazzi to evolve further. Based on the amount of time he has been dead, a Level 4 Akuma answers to the name Paul McCartney...that is just plain Nightmare Fuel.
 * On further research—judging from the D.Gray-man entry in Kill and Replace—this means that Paul McCartney is the Millenium Earl. Yikes!
 * Or Paul grieved for someone and then the Earl appeared to him. Paul called out the name. Thus, Paul = Akuma. Just to add to the fiendish machinations, in one of the Beatles songs with a mysterious ending, the part at the end sounds eerily like Road Kamelot's song. So Paul is an Akuma and his manager is Road in disguise.

Paul is not dead; he is possessed by Azazel

 * It kinda makes sense. Maybe he changed because he was spending his time making psychic children... Great, now we all need Brain Bleach.
 * It kinda makes sense. Maybe he changed because he was spending his time making psychic children... Great, now we all need Brain Bleach.

Or...Paul is dead, but was brought back to life by a Black Lantern Ring.

 * But—the one we have now seems more emotional than the original, not less...
 * Its a trick by Nekron to get us all hopeful...and then rip out the hearts. You Bastard, Nekron

Julian Lennon was Paul via Freaky Friday
Hey Jude was written for Julian under the name "Hey Jules" which he did "not find out about 20 years later. But in reality, a incident involving copious amounts of LSD and Cannabis a rubber duck, a piece of paper with the words "A born lever puller", and a lock of Linda Eastman's hair which caused them to switch bodies, and Julian Lennon is actually Paul, who wrote the song in secret after experiencing John's divorce from their son's point of view, and had Paul McCartney/Julian Lennon perform the song. Then subsequently switched back in time to record the rest of "the Beatles."

Everything about the classic "Paul Is Dead" theory is true -- except for Paul dying and being replaced
Suppose that Paul was in a car crash like the one in that theory, but lived. Odds are, he'd need to be surgically reconstructed to look like himself. And in the 1960s, even state-of-the-art isn't gonna be absolutely perfect.

So, this explains changes in looks and personality (Paul would've had one heck of a concussion). It also explains how he is able to remember things he shouldn't be able to if he wasn't him, and how he can fail to remember things that any Beatles fan can look up in our Big Book of Independent Beatles Resources of choice. And it explains why no one dared argue that this wasn't Paul; after all, it was!

The classic Paul Is Dead theories are irrelevant
Maybe they were relevant when they started, but they sure aren't now...

If the classic Paul Is Dead theories are true, then the original Paul died no later than 1966. We know the Paul we have now much better than the original, and we have known him for longer. Since no one who survives from the era when the original Paul was alive and who knew the original Paul dares suggest that the Paul we have isn't real, for whatever reason, we might as well treat him as real.

This applies only to classic Paul Is Dead theories. There's no point in worrying whether the person answering to the name "Paul McCartney" is the original Paul McCartney if the alternative is that he's some other person who happens to look like him and sing really well. But if there's a serious chance that the person who answers to "Paul McCartney" is an evil demon incarnate (which two of the above guesses amount to), then it matters a hell of a lot!
 * Addendum: the original was not Paul McCartney, but some other guy. The Beatles then used their music to make the world forget that Paul was not one of the originals. The hints refer to the death of Paul McCartney's predecessor.

Paul's not dead, and the band dropped the hints that started the rumour as a practical joke.
It's a more likely explanation than either Paul's death being successfully hushed up without any of his next-of-kin speaking out at some point in the last four decades, or all those hints being a complete coincidence. It also allows fans to hunt for "Paul Is Dead" clues without guilt. The Beatles wanted us to find them!

Paul was dead, but was retconned back to life
And the retcon made us all forget he was ever dead. Including him.
 * Retconned by whom? God?
 * Sure Why Not
 * It was retconned by a huge Paul fanboy who got into some dark stuff. Too bad about that whole "equivalent plus" exchange thing, which was one poetically relevant human life and having your most beloved subject change to The Catcher in The Rye.
 * Retconned by the Walrus, that's who. And not the one who was Paul. Or the one who was John. Or the one from Scamper the Penguin.
 * It was Michael Jackson. Duh.
 * Jackson wills it.

John was Paul.
Think about it. John said he was the walrus in "I Am The Walrus." Then he said the walrus was Paul in "Glass Onion." If John is the walrus and the walrus is Paul, then John must be Paul!
 * Additionally, in Glass Onion, John says that he told us about the Fool on the Hill, while that was one of pferences to her, (she's at least 60, remember), she took it as teasing. So, she asked Youmu to kill them.
 * That explains why John died first...

The number nine has nothing to do with anything at all.
It's not inconceivable that 9 is a random number picked out of the blue for Revolution #9, and nobody froze on 9/9/09, so...
 * Word of God from Lennon has it that he uses that number in his songs so much because he likes the number since it's the "ultimate" one: after 9 everything resets.

Paul killed the other Beatles
He then started the rumors that he was dead to throw everyone off his trail.

War World Two Started because The Beatles stole German Love Songs, and Love Songs are Serious Business

 * This is an actual theory. The guy who first stated this was dead serious.
 * Note well that this theory requires Time Travel—everyone in the accepted line-up of the group was born in 1940 or later.
 * This is Word of God: in the first chapter of Anthology, Ringo admits that his mother confessed to him World War II started because of him.
 * More precisely, because he was born.

The Beatles were the main inspiration for Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
Well, with a few modifications to please the younger fans. Just a hint: Lennon = Kamina.
 * They need giant robots.
 * "With a few modifications," remember? The Beatles changed the world with their musical skills and charisma. Exactly what it was about them, together or separately (though more together), that made them great is easy to observe (at least for fans), but hard to express. Gurren Lagann, not having access to actual Beatles, rather than having these qualities be Informed Attributes, used giant mecha to symbolize them.

The other members are Viral = Paul McCartney (he won't die), Simon = Ringo Starr (as people mostly don't pay the deserved attention in him), and Kittan probably could be George Harrison (not really sure how). Which would make the whole Yoko Ono incident a bit more complicated...
 * Alternatively, Simon = George, and Ringo = Boota. Or vice versa.
 * I can attest to this interpretation:
 * George, during the beginning of their career was following in the footsteps of John, it wasn't until just before Sgt. Pepper he started to gain his own identity. Something similar happens to Simon after, and grows to be somewhat like him. (after-all Simon is awesome, but nowhere near as awesome as Kamina)
 * Ringo is considered to be the "official band mascot" much like Boota.
 * Note: If Paul = Viral, then the Gurren Lagann WMG that Viral secretly and unknowingly amplifies other creatures' Spiral Energy gains merit.

Mark David Chapman is a Blue Meanie.
It's obvious.

MDC was hired by Ronald Reagan to kill John
You see, John would have started a liberal movement that took over the country in the late 80's. Reagan was doomed to be impeached and removed rom office, so Reagan made MDC go back in time and kill John

The Beatles were the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Think about it:

Death: Paul. Paul is Dead, etc. Fits in with the above Shinigami/Death God theories too.

War: John. Think about it: The last place you'd expect to find War is with peace activists, right? That and maybe he was lazy. Or, just because he was War, it doesn't mean he had to like his job, right?
 * "I came not to bring peace, but a sword."

Pestilence: Ringo. Have you looked at his medical history? Plus, he replaced one of the earlier members, Conquest. (Wait, Conquest, Pete Best...)

Famine: George. Process of elimination, mostly, but also he was kinda tiny. Or... Something.
 * He was interested in India, which suffers from famines?
 * He felt starved of recognition due to being overshadowed by Lennon and McCartney for most of the bands run?

So basically, the Horsemen are pleasant guys who wanted a break from their unpleasant jobs, so they incarnated on Earth and formed a band, and became incredibly popular, and so on.

... That, or we may be in trouble soon.
 * Lennon was Famine (his angst over being the not the Thin One and his subsequent heroin addiction). George was the Quiet One because he was always at war with himself over what to say, and often ended up saying nothing. While My Guitar Gently Weeps is the bemoaning of him being the central node of all the trouble that was going on, and that he wished he could just play. "The problems you serve are the troubles you're reaping", a line which was eventually cut, was a too-overt reference to him being War while he (along with the other band members) was troubled by war.
 * It might be a bit late to point this out, but this is more or less exactly what Charles Manson believed. The Beatles were the four horseman, and had the four keys. He was the fifth, and their music was an attempt to seek him out and "activate" him. Helter Skelter was about a race war that would destroy civilization, and the Manson Murders were an attempt to bring the Helter Skelter about. who knew WMG and Charles Manson had so much in common... Coincidence? Or something more?
 * It should be noted that the proper order of the four horsemen is War, Famine, Pestilence, Death. John Lennon AKA War died first. George Harrison AKA Famine died next. So we're either halfway through with defeating the horsemen or we're halfway to the Apocalypse.

John Lennon was a woman.

 * But the cover of "Two Virgins", ahem, clearly shows us that he wasn't...
 * O RLY?
 * The obvious corollary, which handily clears up the above issue, is that Yoko Ono was secretly a man.

John Lennon was a psyker
He was the primary writer of "Revolution 9," and a theory on this page asserts that the song is by a psyker.

All of John's Cloudcuckoolander behavior and drug abuse were caused by Slaanesh whispering in his mind and telling him to do things.

George Harrison is The Pyro
He never died. In order to save himself from his illnesses brought on by smoking, he donned a life support suit. However, an awful accident while he was meditating sent him back in time to the 60's, where he was forced into servitude by The Announcer. Although unable to speak clearly, both due to the suit and his illnesses, his musical talent extends to his melee weapon taunts. Here Comes The Sun indeed!

John Lennon was actually a time traveler from the future
Think about it, the Beatles did a lot of songs of very different styles, so John Lennon actually traveled from the future with some of the no. 1 hits of different genres and went to meet his favorite songwriter: Paul McCartney (who, in the original timeline, he was only a songwriter) and convinced him to form a band. MDC was actually a time cop who couldn't return to his time.

Also, most of the fans in the Shea stadium concert were actually time travelers (but not from Lennon's own timeline) who wanted to see a real Beatles' concert (itself, a great luxury, like today's space tourists). This explains why George visited the US before and noted that the Beatles were not very famous in USA.

The Beatles are insect enthusiasts
Specifically, beetles. But they don't want to make it too obvious and their band name "The Beatles" is a result of an Incredibly Lame Pun that one of the musicians came up with.

John Lennon became an atheist because he had a bad acid trip influenced by the Book of Revelation.
The symbolism in that book is pretty freaky, almost everyone has a Bible lying around, and it's perfectly likely that John would, on a whim, decide to read Revelation to supplement his acid trip. It also makes total sense that, when faced with the decision to give up either theism or acid, he would part more easily with the former.

John Lennon was raised by walruses
Goo goo g'joob.

I am The Walrus is about an Orwellion Dictatorship
"I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together." refers to society being reduced to identical citizens, the 'he' refers to the ruler of this dictatorship who insists that he is the same as the citizens. "Sitting on a Cornflake" is the rulers reflections that his society could collapse at the slightest rebbelions. ."I am the Eggman" refers to the repressed citizens who have became "The Eggman" (mindless blank slates)"I" refers to the ruler who insists he is like the citezens ("They are also the eggman") but he later adds "I am the Walrus" (therefore he's not actually an eggman) this is a reference to 1984 doublethink idealogy where citzens are brainwashed to the point that they can be told two compeltely conflicting facts by the goverment, and believe both of them. The "pretty little policeman in a row" are his squads that he uses to control the populace. "Boy, you been a naughty girl you let your knickers down." refers to gender growing irrelavant in the society and also implies the anti-sex attidutes in 1984.

Note: This is the result of This Troper listening to I am the Walrus while high in an art class and figuring out it's deep meanings.

Yellow Submarine was about Abbey Road Studios.

 * My sister (she's 14 and I'm 18) was playing Yellow Submarine on Rockband when she gave me this theory. "In the town where I was born" could represent Liverpool. "Lived a man who lived a sea" might represent Brian Epstein. "And he told us of his life, in the land of submarines" is representing being in the music business. "So we sailed into the sun" is the Beatles on tour "till we found the sea of green" could represent fame/mmoney. "And we lived beneath the waves, of our Yellow Submarine" is talking about living on the success of their fame.
 * Continuing on this, we have "Our friends are all aboard" could represent people on management or people close to them. "Many more live next door" could represent other people under management. "And the Band begins to play" could represent the Beatles and their own music.
 * We insert the bridge with Mr. Barkley and them speeding ahead, is the Beatles leaving the touring scene and heading off to Abbey Road Studios.
 * Last but not least "As we live a life of ease" is them now relaxing and chilling in Abbey Road Studios. Then "everyone of us has all we need" is about them having not being stressed out and have what they need to make music. "Skies of blue" is no stress and "Sea of green" repeats the theory of the fame. So that means "We all live in a yellow submarine" is about their life at that very moment!

John Lennon was warned of his death by a time traveler
That's why he was such a free spirit. He knew what was going to happen, where he was going. Knew he'd never OD on drugs - he'd be shot in 1980.

Paul unwittingly wrote 'When I'm 64' about Heather Mills
The whole song is meant to be vaguely ironic. The title, for a start - at 64 Paul was in the middle of divorcing She Who Shall Not Be Named. Then there's the 'scrimp and save' part on the second verse; like Paul McCartney would ever have to 'scrimp and save' (though he does anyway, which probably annoyed Heather Mills no end). Also in the second verse, there's comparisons to Linda. Linda was more dependent on Paul than Heather, hence lines like 'I could be handy mending a fuse' and 'doing the garden, digging the weeds'. It's basically Paul's wish for him and Heather to have more traditional gender roles ('you could knit a sweater by the fireside' etc), like he did with Linda. I mean, Heather was pretty much a different generation to Paul, so the ideals were different. There's evidence of this in the line 'grandchildren on your knee' - Heather is too young to have grandkids of her own, but Paul and Linda's children provided Paul with several. The only real mystery is how Paul wrote it about a girl who hadn't even been born and who he had no idea he'd end up married to.

The Beatles are wizards.
How else to explain it?

Wizards typically live longer than Muggles (Dumbledore lived into his 100s and didn't die naturally). Paul and Ringo are both very much Younger Than They Look and obviously, judging by their musical careers and the fact they both still go on tour, plan to live a while longer. But all four Beatles are/were on missions to destroy Horcruxes. They broke up when Heather Mills rose for the first time in 1968, for their own safety. George couldn't get anyone else to kill him before he was killed by a Horcrux, rather painfully, nastily and in a way reminiscent of cancer. John arranged for Mark David Chapman to kill him because he knew he would eventually die in a similar way. The Horcrux that almost killed John was Yoko Ono. John meant to kill her shortly before his own death so he wouldn't get in any trouble, but MDC turned up too early. The Horcrux that took George was his Badass Beard, which was destroyed when he shaved it off. Unfortunately, the damage had been done and he died too. After George's death, Paul and Ringo realised just how dire their situation was, and Paul became a mole by marrying Heather Mills - that was, until she sussed him out and Paul had to divorce her to avoid getting killed. Paul and Ringo know there are two more Horcruxes they don't know of; specifically, one relating to Paul and one to Ringo. However, since the 'Paul' Horcrux was probably either Michael Jackson or Linda McCartney, that only leaves the 'Ringo' Horcrux and Yoko. Paul, Ringo and Olivia Harrison (determined to avenge her husband's death) are all currently trying to get closer to Yoko (who doesn't know she's a Horcrux, by the way) by doing things such as promoting Rock Band alongside her. Incidentally, Olivia was the only Beatle wife (with the obvious exception of Heather Mills) who was also a witch, hence why Paul and Ringo let her in on their mission.

Hey, compared to a lot of the WMGs here, this is pretty sane.


 * The Beatles themselves attempted to reveal it through Revolver, Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine, but the Muggles didn't get the message.