All of Paul McCartney’s Pot Songs
Paul McCartney has publicly expressed his love of marijuana. While it has gotten him into legal trouble in the past, he continues to support the drug’s legalization worldwide. He has also professed his love for the drug in several songs, even if the pot references were subtle. Here are all the songs where Paul McCartney expresses his love for pot.
‘Magical Mystery Tour’
“Magical Mystery Tour” is the title track of the soundtrack to the 1967 television film of the same name. The soundtrack portrayed The Beatles at the height of their psychedelic era in the late 1960s. Paul McCartney wanted to give this song a psychedelic vibe and included the repetitive phrase, “roll up for the mystery tour,” multiple times in the track. The “Let It Be” singer admitted this is a not-so-subtle reference to rolling a joint.
“It employs all the circus and fairground barkers, ‘Roll up! Roll up!’, which was also a reference to rolling up a joint,” McCartney said in Many Years From Now. “We were always sticking those little things in that we knew our friends would get; veiled references to drugs and to trips.”
‘Fixing a Hole’
“Fixing a Hole” is a song from 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. There are many interpretations of the song’s meaning. McCartney explains that part of the song refers to how uncomfortable he is with the fans who hang around his house all day. Some fans believe that “fixing a hole” refers to using heroin, but the singer later said the track is an “ode to pot.”
‘Let Me Roll It’
“Let Me Roll It” is the only song from Paul McCartney & Wings on this list. It debuted on their 1973 album Band on the Run. Many believed the song was a response to John Lennon, as it used an echo effect Lennon commonly used. In an interview with Clash magazine, McCartney said the song was never meant to be addressed to his former bandmate and is actually about “rolling a joint.”
“To tell you the truth, that was more [about] rolling a joint,” he shared. “That was the double meaning there: ‘let me roll it to you.’ That was more at the back of my mind than anything else.”
‘She’s a Woman’
“She’s a Woman” is a track from 1964’s Beatles for Sale. It’s primarily written by McCartney, but does include a few contributions from Lennon. “She’s a Woman” includes The Beatles’ first reference to drugs, and Lennon said he and McCartney were excited to work in some risqué material into a song.
“That’s Paul with some contribution from me on lines, probably,” Lennon told Playboy in 1980. “We put in the words ‘turns me on’. We were so excited to say ‘turn me on’ – you know, about marijuana and all that… using it as an expression.”
‘Got to Get You Into My Life’
Paul McCartney has a knack for writing beautiful love songs. While “Got to Get You Into My Life” seems like a normal love ballad, it’s actually McCartney professing his admiration for pot. McCartney told Barry Miles that the Revolver track is an “ode to pot.”
“‘Got To Get You Into My Life’ is really a song about that, it’s not to a person,” he admitted. “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.”
While alluding to weed in a song today is pretty standard, it was considered taboo in the 1960s and 1970s. McCartney was a leading voice in the legalization of marijuana, and many countries are less strict about the drug today.
