The Paul McCartney Song He Says Is About ‘Rolling a Joint’
Paul McCartney has a history of making subtle references to drugs in his music. Many songs from his solo career and The Beatles contain lyrics that are euphemisms for marijuana or psychedelics. One song from McCartney’s Band on the Run album was about the enjoyment of “rolling a joint.”
Paul McCartney wrote a love song for pot for The Beatles
The Beatles had a knack for sneaking drug references into their music. An example of this is “Got to Get You into My Life” from their 1966 album Revolver. Written by Paul McCartney, the song seems like any other love song, but he later revealed the song was an “ode to pot.”
In Barry Miles’ biography Many Years From Now, McCartney discussed how he had developed a hobby of smoking weed during his time with The Beatles. He found the drug to have “literally mind-expanding” effects and wanted to write a song about his enjoyment of pot.
“‘Got To Get You Into My Life’ is really a song about that, it’s not to a person,” Paul said. “It’s actually an ode to pot, like someone else might write an ode to chocolate or a good claret. While we don’t know anyone who writes odes to chocolate, we do get the point.”
McCartney said ‘Let Me Roll it’ is about ‘rolling a joint’
“Let Me Roll it” is a song by Paul McCartney and Wings from their 1973 album Band on the Run. At the time of its release, many believed the song to be a response to John Lennon. The former bandmates had a public feud in the early 1970s and often sent messages to each other through their music.
“Let Me Roll it” had a distinct echo that many believed sounded like an echo commonly used by Lennon. In a 2010 interview with Clash Magazine, McCartney said the song wasn’t meant to be directed at Lennon and that the echo was merely a coincidence. The song had nothing to do with Lennon and was meant to be about “rolling a joint.”
“‘Let Me Roll It’ wasn’t to John, it was just in the style that we did with The Beatles that John was particularly known for. It was really actually the use of the echo. It was one of those: ‘You’re not going to use echo just ‘cause John used it?’ I don’t think so. To tell you the truth, that was more [about] rolling a joint. That was the double meaning there: ‘let me roll it to you.’ That was more at the back of my mind than anything else.”
McCartney had already responded to Lennon with ‘Dear Friend’
While many believed “Let Me Roll it” was about Lennon, the “Yesterday” singer had already addressed their feud in “Dear Friend.” “Dear Friend” is from his 1971 album Wild Life and was a call for a cease-fire with his former songwriting partner. In a 1994 interview with Club Sandwich, Paul McCartney wrote the song because he had to respond to Lennon but didn’t want to “slag him off in public.”
“‘Dear Friend’ was written about John, yes. I don’t like grief and arguments, they always bug me,” McCartney explained. “Life is too precious, although we often find ourselves guilty of doing it. So after John had slagged me off in public, I had to think of a response, and it was either going to be to slag him off in public — and some instinct stopped me, which I’m really glad about — or do something else. So I worked on my attitude and wrote ‘Dear Friend’, saying, in effect, let’s lay the guns down, let’s hang up our boxing gloves.”
