I spent hours yesterday, 2/13, going over Swift photos again, and could not justify the original assertion that she is a twin. As a rule of thumb for this and all other projects under review, if I cannot tell them apart with the naked eye, I cannot claim them to be twins. Mea culpa. Taylor Swift is not twins. However, do see a very interesting photo at the very end!

We just happened to discover that Janice Joplin/Amy Goodman were twins. In their case, they are fraternal. There might have been some plastic surgery on the way, as with twins Paul and Mike McCartney above. But with the Joplin twins there was a wide gap in the talent department – no way could the demure and laid back Joplin we know as “Amy Goodman” have stood on stage and belted out songs as her sister below on the right did.

More to the point, however, is the phenomenon of twins in pop culture. It is far more common than I ever knew to suspect, so common, in fact, that my fellow researcher MH thinks now that twins might be a requirement for the upper echelons of stardom in films and music. He has unearthed a wide variety of twins, twelve sets for sure so far including Joplin, McCartney and Elvis Presley (the latter two first discovered by Miles Mathis). I will unveil the others, but we are slowly working our way up to important ones, ones that frankly, will blow my socks off if indeed they turn out to be matched sets.

Before I unveil today’s set of twins, who are not part of the twelve mentioned above but who are easy one to spot, I have to ask myself the question: Why twins?

Intelligence loves twins because they can be in two places at once, run projects at once from different locations, and step in and out of each other’s shoes.

The Beatles, we know now, were an intelligence project with intense recruiting beforehand, including selection of the McCartney twins to play the part of “Paul,” the cute one. Tyrone, a frequent commenter here, thinks that they were running several sets of the group around Great Britain and Hamburg before finally settling on the four (actually, five) they did. And look what they have done with two Paul’s! They were able to slip each in and out of the role (it is original “Paul” in the movie Hard Day’s Night, and the other twin played “Paul” in the movie Help!, for instance.) They were able to run the “Paul is Dead” psy-op on us, extending the shelf life of the group, and selling millions of clue-laden albums.

With the Elvis project, they were able to have one performing in Las Vegas while the other made crappy movies in Hollywood. So it does offer flexibility.

But if it is Intelligence at work, there must be more to it than money, which is never in short supply for spooks. I imagine that having twins as pop icons is added leverage for managers – if one is sick or loses interest, the other can fill in. Each can have different talents, as with the Joplins. (Original “Paul” was much better at interviews than his brother, Mike, the better musician and the guy we know today as Paul McCartney.) Or if one gets uppity and demands more money, they can divide and conquer.

I can’t fathom out the entire spectacle of twins in politics and entertainment. It is beyond me how they spot them other than to keep track of every set born in the country. They do have that capability – maybe “Twins” is a name on the door of a special-purpose NSA surveillance office. I do know that Elvis was spotted early on, and that there are no photos of the two together, to my knowledge. Just that aspect of twins management takes personnel and effort. They can never appear in public at the same time.

I met a man in our local gym from Los Angeles, retired now, having worked decades in the music business back there. He told me one morning that he had developed, in days of more primitive technology, a way for aspiring young musicians to make their own demo tapes renting his equipment. I asked him if he spent some tedious days and hours listening to mediocre performances, and he said no. There is tons of talent out there, and those tapes were mostly quite good. But to make it in the music business takes more than that. “You also have to get lucky,” he said.

More than that, I would add, you have to be related to wealthy families, be part of a bloodline. Then, even without talent (are you listening, David Crosby?), you can have a career.

I used to work for a very wealthy old woman in my early career whose daughter was Stockard Channing. She played a lead role in Grease, worked on Broadway, and even had her own short-lived TV show. I was curious how she made it, as her mother certainly had no talent. I was told by a person whose name and face I’ve long forgotten that Stockard merely had the time and money to wait, train, and be selected for parts, as her wealthy background gave her a foot in the door. Who else has that?

That is food for thought. As we continue to work twins here, we can further explore the phenomenon. It is pervasive.

Here is a set of twins that was so easy to spot I could do it without running faces side-by-side: Taylor Swift. She’s an Intelligence creation, possibly talented, but certainly not the one writing her songs, which do not sell nearly as much as claimed. She’s a manufactured star, but then as we are learning, not only are they all manufactured for us, they are all related too. Swift comes from a line of Merrill Lynch presidents and eastern prep schools.* No grueling coffee shop gigs for her – she had a foot in the door the day she slid down the right birth canal.

It is easy to see that Taylor One on the left has a longer face, and that these are probably identical twins. Taylor Two on the right has a more square face, and a slightly less upturned nose. But honestly, who is going to spot this unless looking for it? They very much resemble one another.

So, setting their pupils at exactly one inch apart and splitting the faces, I get this:

And the differences are readily apparent. Taylor Swift is twins. Which one performs? Given the wealthy background and prep school education, I would venture that both perform, as did the McCartney boys. Next time you see her performing, check out the chin, a little longer on one. That is the easiest way to tell them apart.

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Update: Taylor is not a twin, but who is she really?

This is said to be a photo of her and her mother. Problem however – that appears to be a mannequin. Somebody’s joke? Or is she, like others in the music business, not really a member of the family whose name she bears?