The Beatles were wonderful story tellers through their lyrics and words. Images of Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever have indelible effects on how we picture growing up in England in the late fifties and early sixties, while everyone wanted to have their car ticketed by “Lovely Rita”. This list does not contain the stories you’ve heard over and over again about Julian Lennon being behind the song of “Hey Jude” or the friend of the family drawing a picture of “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”. I searched for some off-the-wall Beatles’ tunes to find the true source of the inspiration. Enjoy!
Mrs. Mary McCartney
Let It Be: (1969, single)
Released as a single in March 1970, ‘Let It Be’ sounded as if had been deliberately recorded as the Beatles’ swansong. However, the fact is it was recorded in January 1969. No-one had any idea it was going to be the last single. “Mother Mary calls to me, speaking words of wisdom, Let It Be” Mother Mary was not a reference to the Virgin Mary, as many people thought, but rather the name of Paul McCartney’s real mother. She died when he was 14.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Sexy Sadie: (1968, The Beatles)
Sadie was the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, father of “Transcendental Meditation” whom the Beatles followed to India in 1967. John Lennon had dubbed the Yogi as “sexy” after the scandal between him and actress, Mia Farrow. The Beatles left India after the incident was revealed.
Unknown Groupie
She Came in Through The Bathroom Window (1968, The Beatles):
This song is about an incident that happened to Paul McCartney at his London flat. While he was gone for the day, a gaggle of groupies (called Apple Scruffs by the band) broke into his home and stole several items. Paul wanted a couple of his items back, but some of the items had already been shipped over to America. When he came back to the U.S., the police officer that was assigned to his case, but failed to help him find his stuff became noted in the song with the line, “…and so I quit the police department.”
Pattie Boyd
I Need You (1965, Help!)
The love song, ‘I Need You’ was written by George for his girlfriend Pattie Boyd, and was only one of two of his Beatles’ songs which he didn’t comment on his 1980 book I Me Mine (the other was ‘You Like Me Too Much’). It was also the only George song to be featured in the film Help! and the first to use a wah-wah pedal to distort the guitar sound. Some Beatles’ books have claimed that George wrote it in the Bahamas while separated from Pattie, but the recording began on February 15, 1965, and he wasn’t in the Bahamas until a week later.
Yoko Ono
Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey (1968, The Beatles)
This song is written about the affair between John and Yoko. Yoko being the monkey. I would have loved to have been a fly on that wall when the song came out! It came from the beginnings of John’s affair, when his wife Cynthia found out about it. Everybody around him was hush-hush on what was going on, the British people were upset with him for the affair and John and Yoko left for America.
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#1 by Dr. Keith DeBoer on July 17th, 2009
Just to set the record straight about the Beatles and Maharishi (From Wikipedia):
“John Lennon would never again see Maharishi in person, but would phone him years later to apologize for his youthful mishap of publicly accusing Maharishi of improprieties—accusations that had nothing to do with Maharishi, but, seemingly, everything to do with John’s personal temperament (it was “an error in judgment,” Lennon later commented) An interview with Yoko Ono in Rolling Stone magazine, in March, 2008, reads “If Lennon were alive today, says Yoko Ono, he probably would have reconciled with (Maharishi). “John would have been the first one now, if he had been here, to recognize and acknowledge what Maharishi has done for the world and appreciate it,” she says.”Cynthia Lennon believed that Mardas invented a story about sexual impropriety to undermine the Maharishi’s influence on the Beatles. George Harrison, years later, commented on the contretemps, saying, “Now, historically, there’s the story that something went on that shouldn’t have done—but nothing did.”Paul McCartney, in his biography, likewise says that he does not believe the allegations and also attributes them to Mardas.