The Beatles’ ‘Lovely Rita’: Paul McCartney Revealed a Woman Falsely Said She Inspired the Song
TL;DR:
- John Lennon had strong feelings about Paul McCartney’s contributions to The Beatles’ “Lovely Rita.”
- Paul said someone falsely said she inspired the track.
- The individual in question was not named Rita.
John Lennon was asked if The Beatles‘ “Lovely Rita” was about a real person. During a separate interview, Paul McCartney said someone incorrectly said she inspired the song. Notably, “Lovely Rita” appeared on one of The Beatles’ most famous albums.
John Lennon praised 1 of The Beatles’ songs
The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono contains an interview from 1980. In it, John was asked about “Lovely Rita.” “That’s Paul, again writing a good lyric,” John said.
John was asked if Rita was real. “Nah!” John replied. “He makes ’em up like a novelist. You hear lots of McCartney-influenced songs on the radio now. These stories about boring people doing boring things: being postmen and secretaries and writing home.”
John contrasted himself with Paul. “I’m not interested in writing third-party songs,” he revealed. “I like to write about me; ’cause I know me.”
Paul McCartney revealed the origin of The Beatles’ ‘Lovely Rita’
In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul discussed the origin of “Lovely Rita.” “I remember one night just going for a walk and working on the words as I walked,” he recalled. “It wasn’t based on a real person but, as often happened, it was claimed by a girl called Rita who was a traffic warden who apparently did give me a ticket, so that made the newspapers.”
Paul ruminated on the traffic warden. “I think it was more a question of coincidence: anyone called Rita who gave me a ticket would naturally think, ‘It’s me!'” he opined. “I didn’t think, ‘Wow, that woman gave me a ticket, I’ll write a song about her.’ Never happened like that.” The warden’s name was actually Meta Davies.
How ‘Lovely Rita’ performed on the charts in the United States and the United Kingdom
“Lovely Rita” was never a single in the United States, so it did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100. The track appeared on The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Sgt. Pepper topped the Billboard 200 for 15 weeks, staying on the chart for 233 weeks in total. Abbey Road was the Fab Four’s only studio album to last longer on the chart.
The Official Charts Company reports “Lovely Rita” did not chart in the United Kingdom either. Meanwhile, Sgt. Pepper topped the U.K. chart for 28 weeks. The album stayed on the chart for 277 weeks altogether.
“Lovely Rita” wasn’t a hit but it highlighted Paul’s imagination.
