Whenever you release music into the world, you’re no longer in control of how the public will interpret a song’s meaning—something Paul McCartney quickly learned once people started imbuing Beatles songs with extra messages and references the Fab Four didn’t intend to make. On the one hand, these different perceptions are what makes music such an interesting, universal experience.
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But on the other hand, it’s rarely a pleasant experience to have someone put words in your mouth. In a 1967 interview with British artist and graphic designer Alan Aldridge, McCartney clarified what some Beatles lyrics actually meant and, perhaps more importantly, what they didn’t.
“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” Wasn’t An Ode To LSD
The Beatles’ iconic track “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is the third song on the A-side of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a concept album that marked the height of the Fab Four’s psychedelic phase. Consequently, many people believed “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was an ode to LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide, a potent hallucinogen commonly referred to as acid. Paul McCartney told interviewer Alan Aldridge that the connection was “cunning” but that the band “never thought about it.”
“What happened was that John’s son, Julian, did a drawing at school and brought it home, and he has a schoolmate called Lucy, and John said, ‘What’s that?’ And he said, ‘Lucy in the sky with diamonds.’ So, we had a nice title. We did the whole thing like an Alice in Wonderland idea, being in a boat on the river, slowly drifting downstream. This Lucy was God, the big figure, the white rabbit. You can just write a song with imagination on words, and that’s what we did.”
“Fixing a Hole” Wasn’t About Injectable Drugs
Although many were quick to assume the Beatles’ “Fixing a Hole” had to do with injectable drugs, á la “a hole in the arm.” But Paul McCartney refuted these assumptions, explaining, “This song is just about the hole in the road where the rain gets in; a good old analogy. The hole in your make-up which lets the rain in and stops your mind from going where it will.”
“It’s about fans, too. See the people standing there who disagree and never win and wonder why they don’t get in. Sometimes I invite them in, but it starts to be not really the point in a way. I invited one in, and the next day, she was in the Daily Mirror with her mother saying we were going to get married. So, we tell the fans, ‘Forget it.’ If you’re a junkie sitting in a room fixing a hole, then that’s what it will mean to you. But when I wrote it, I meant if there’s a crack or the room is uncolorful, then I’ll paint it.”
“Yellow Submarine” Was Just A Children’s Song
Interviewer Alan Aldridge asked Paul McCartney if “Yellow Submarine” had to do with yellow phenobarbitone capsules, which were reportedly nicknamed yellow submarines in New York City’s Greenwich Village. “I knew it would get connotations,” McCartney replied. “But it really was a children’s song. I just loved the idea of kids singing it.”
“With “Yellow Submarine,” the whole idea was, ‘If someday I came across some kids singing it, that will be it.’ So, it’s got to be very easy. There isn’t a single big word. Kids will understand it easier than adults. In the town where I was born, there lived a man who sailed to sea. And he told of his life in the land of submarines. That’s really the beginning of a kids’ story. There’s some stuff in Greece, like icing sugar. You eat it. It’s like a sweet, and you drop it into water. It’s called submarine. We had it on holiday.”
“A Day in the Life” Actually Was About Drugs
In the second verse of the Beatles’ sprawling Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band closer, “A Day in the Life,” John Lennon sings the lyrics, He blew his mind out in a car. He didn’t notice that the lights had changed. For many listeners, they assumed this was a violent description of suicide by gunshot. Paul McCartney later clarified, “No, he was just high on whatever he uses. Say he was p***ed in this big Bentley, sitting at the traffic lights.”
“He’s driving today. The chauffeur isn’t there, and maybe he got high because of that. The lights have changed, and he hasn’t noticed that there’s a crowd of housewives, and they’re all looking at him saying, ‘Who’s that? I’ve seen him in the papers.’ They’re not sure if he’s from the House of Lords. He looks a bit like that with his homburg and white scarf, and he’s out of his screws. That’s black comedy.”
Photo by Jeff Hochberg/Getty Images
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