Devoted fans love to learn secrets or interesting trivia about their idols, but at the same time, finding out that something you want to believe isn't true can be a major disappointment.
Take the Beatles, one of the most revered bands of all time. It's long been assumed that the Fab Four used semaphore -- visual signaling, usually with flags -- to spell out the title of their 1965 album Help! on its cover. But twist and shout all you want, the truth is disappointing: If their arms are spelling anything, it's "NUJV" -- or, due to different positioning of the band members on the US album cover, "NVUJ." Disappointingly, that's not secret code for anything, according to Robert Freeman, the photographer who shot the iconic cover.
Even though Freeman wanted to have the band spell "H-E-L-P," the arm positioning for that word wasn't visually appealing, Freeman said. Instead, he had them stand in a more interesting way, even if what they spelled meant nothing. Of course, Beatles fans love to come up with far-fetched rumors, so conspiracy theorists contend that "NUJV" is an acronym for "New Unknown James Vocalist" -- a reference to the supposed singing replacement for Paul McCartney (real first name: James) who, according to urban legend, died in 1966 and was replaced by a look-alike.
Some Beatles truths:
- The band needed only one day to record all of the songs for their first studio album, Please Please Me, in 1963.
- Paul McCartney dreamed the melody for "Yesterday," but before he puts words to it, he sang the tune with the words "scrambled eggs" instead of "Yesterday."
- Frank Sinatra once described the Beatles song "Something" as the greatest love song in history.