Beautiful Possibility (episodes in order)

Were John and Paul lovers? Why the question matters far more than you might realize.

NOTE: Beautiful Possibility is not a traditional podcast in which the episodes are standalone, separate episodes. This is a story in which each episode builds on the one before. The possibility of John and Paul as lovers is introduced in episode 1:3 (Hope of Deliverance). But you will get the most out of this series if you listen in sequence.

Preface

Faith Current
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Feb 17
Preface

“The prophet follows the idea wherever it goes, and ideas, by their very nature, like to travel to dangerous places.”

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1:1 Kairos

Faith Current
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Feb 24
1:1 Kairos

To get where we need to go with all of this, we need to start a little further back in the story than Beatles biographies usually do. Not too far back, though —just, y’know, back before the beginning of recorded history.

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Rabbit Hole: The Kennedy Assassination Did Not Cause Beatlemania

Faith Current
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Feb 27
Rabbit Hole: The Kennedy Assassination Did Not Cause Beatlemania

Americans tend to believe that everything that really matters starts in America, and if it didn’t start in America, it must not really matter. But important, world-changing events do actually originate in places other than the US, and Beatlemania is one of them.

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1:2 Love Lies Bleeding

Faith Current
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Mar 3
1:2 Love Lies Bleeding

Whether we lived through the actual breakup or not, John’s breakup interviews made all of us into the abandoned and betrayed children of the twentieth century’s most brutal and consequential divorce, sat down and told by our parents not only that they didn't love each other anymore and were going to live apart, but that they’d never loved each other, or for that matter, us. That it was all an act, a lie, and we're on our own from here on out, good luck, fuck off and goodbye.

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Rabbit Hole: "Magical Misery Tour"

Faith Current
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Mar 6
Rabbit Hole: "Magical Misery Tour"

When we laugh at something and when that laughter is genuine, we undercut its power. If raging at the gods gets us up off of our knees, then laughing at their hubris and occasional cruelty is how we make it a relationship of, if not equals, then at least free citizens of a democratic universe.

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1:3 Hope of Deliverance

Faith Current
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Mar 10
1:3 Hope of Deliverance

We had a lot of ground to cover before we arrived here, so I hope you’ll forgive me for holding this back as the plot twist until now — that what set my soul on fire that cold winter’s night is the beautiful possibility that—

Well, that’s what we’ll talk about in this episode.

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Rabbit Hole: Beatlemania (second half of episode 1:3)

Faith Current
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Mar 13
Rabbit Hole: Beatlemania (second half of episode 1:3)

In which the hot melty pizza of lifeforce erotic love between John and Paul, subliminal advertising techniques and Brian Epstein’s respectability makeover combine to spark the Love Revolution and change the course of human history.

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Rabbit Hole: Notes on Research Methodology

Faith Current
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Mar 13
Rabbit Hole: Notes on Research Methodology

Now that I have your attention, 😎 a few notes on how I research Beautiful Possibility.

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1:4 Are You Afraid Or Is It True?

Faith Current
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Mar 17
1:4 Are You Afraid Or Is It True?

For fifty years, mainstream Beatles writing, constrained largely by the customs and bigotries of a wounded culture, has failed to pay attention to the possibility that John and Paul were lovers. For fifty years, the Fisher King wound that could begin to be healed in earnest by that possibility bleeds steadily out onto the castle floor, as the kingdom sinks further and further into the Wasteland.

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Rabbit Hole: The Nerk Twins

Faith Current
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Mar 20
Rabbit Hole: The Nerk Twins

“Sharing a bed is culturally weighted — there is no neutral. It’s innocent or it’s... not. And that means there’s no way to describe it without planting a flag on one side or the other of the lovers possibility.

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1:5 He Said He Said (part 1)

Faith Current
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Mar 24
1:5 He Said He Said (part 1)

if John and Paul were lovers, it seems without question that love affair will reveal itself in their songs — but only if we look with the right gaze and hear with the right ears.

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