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TL;DR:

  • Paul McCartney said one of the songs from The Beatles’ Revolver is about marijuana.
  • Paul said marijuana expanded his mind.
  • The song was a hit in the United States but not in the United Kingdom.
The Beatles' Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, and George Harrison wearing suits
The Beatles’ Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, and George Harrison | Michael Ochs Archives / Handout

Paul McCartney revealed one of the songs from The Beatles’ Revolver is about cannabis. Subsequently, the song did not become a hit until years after the Fab Four disbanded. Paul compared writing a song about marijuana to writing a song about chocolate. 

What Paul McCartney was saying when he wrote a song from The Beatles’ ‘Revolver’

In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul discussed his relationship with marijuana. “I’d been a rather straight working-class lad, but when we started to get into pot, it seemed to me to be quite uplifting,” he said. “It didn’t seem to have too many side effects like alcohol or some of the other stuff, like pills, which I pretty much kept off.” 

Paul revealed how marijuana inspired one of The Beatles’ songs. “I didn’t have a hard time with it and to me it was mind-expanding, literally mind-expanding,” he said. “So ‘Got to Get You into My Life’ is really a song about that, it’s not to a person, it’s actually about pot.”

Paul McCartney said writing the song was like writing a song about claret

Paul compared writing “Got to Get You into My Life” to writing a song about chocolate. “It’s saying, ‘I’m going to do this. This is not a bad idea,'” he revealed. “So it’s actually an ode to pot, like someone else might write an ode to chocolate or a good claret. It wouldn’t be the first time in history someone’s done it, but in my case it was the first flush of pot.”

Paul revealed he preferred marijuana to alcohol. He deemed the former less harmful. The Beatle opined marijuana causes people to fall asleep rather than commit murder.

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How The Beatles’ ‘Got to Get You into My Life’ performed on the charts in the United States and the United Kingdom

The Beatles first released “Got to Get You into My Life” on their 1966 album Revolver. It wasn’t initially a single. The Beatles disbanded in 1970.

1976 saw the release of the Fab Four compilation album Rock ‘n’ Roll Music. Afterward, “Got to Get You into My Life” reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100, staying on the chart for 16 weeks. Rock ‘n’ Roll Music peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, remaining on the chart for 30 weeks.

On the other hand, “Got to Get You into My Life” was not a single in the United Kingdom. The Official Charts Company reports the song never charted there. Meanwhile, Rock ‘n’ Roll Music hit No. 11 in the U.K. and stayed on the chart for 15 weeks.

It took several years, but radio stations eventually embraced Paul’s ode to marijuana.

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