The Clever Beatles – Hiding Lyrics In Plain Sight

While The Beatles are famous for their music and creative lyrics, they were adept at placing obscure references and meanings within their songs.

Sometimes this subterfuge would be right in front of the listener without the audience even realizing it.

The Beatles most famous use of “hiding” a lyric is undoubtedly in the fade-out of Strawberry Fields Forever. Many listeners would come to believe they could hear the words “I buried Paul” as the song ended.

The “I buried Paul” lyric was the beginning a long running conspiracy theory that Paul McCartney was killed in a automobile accident and replaced by a sound-alike and look-alike.  “I buried Paul,” was the way The Beatles were letting their real fans in on the secret.

Uh, sure.

The actual spoken words are “Cran- Berry Sauce.” Nonsensical, but not as interesting as I Buried Paul.

Which leads us to some songs that you have heard many times, but may not realize there is something else going on within the song.

1) Paperback Writer (1966)

Underneath the main lyric of Paperback Writer, the background vocals that John Lennon and George Harrison are slowly repeating are “Frère Jacques,” from the children’s nursery rhyme.

The Frère Jacques background chorus begins about 1:03 into the song.

2) Girl (1965)

While revisionists see the nineteen sixties as being swinging, the atmosphere was actually quite repressive and censorship was in full force.

Pete Townshend of The Who challenged himself to write a song about masturbation and have it become a hit. The resulting Pictures of Lily (1967) did get airplay on many radio stations. Because the lyrics are not explicit, quite a lot of people did not understand what the magic was of “pictures of Lily to help me sleep at night.”

The Beatles though preceded The Who on subversiveness. The song Girl allegedly has the sound or a simulation of John Lennon deeply inhaling marijuana at the :24, :54, 1:24, 1:54 and 2:24 marks of the song. It may sound like Lennon is taking a toke but there’s no definitive evidence that is what is going on.

However, that is not the truly subversive part of the song. The Beatles thought it would be hilarious to sing the word “tit” as the innocent background chorus. Starting at the one minute mark “tit” is repeated over 50 times in a 20 second span.

3) Come Together (1969)

I think it took me years to realize this.

Ironically, John Lennon at the very beginning of Come Together under the bass and drums is saying “shoot me.”

For those who have any doubt, here is the isolated vocal.

The “shoot me” lyric was never clearly explained by Lennon. So everyone is guessing when providing a reason, but it is typical of Lennon to use a nonsense word within a song or more seriously “shoot me” refers to heroin usage.

An earlier demo version of Come Together has Lennon saying only “shoot” without the word “me.”

Here is the full version of Come Together.

4- (Honorable Mention) – Sun King (1969)

This does not count as hidden. But it is something that most people are unaware of. Towards the end of Sun King, the Beatles harmonize in what sounds to be Italian. As a joke, the Beatles slip in a bit of slang with the words “chicka ferdy.” Paul McCartney says “chicka ferdy” is the Liverpool way of saying “f*ck off.” Here is that portion of the song.