Although I was born in Liverpool in 1961, and I lived there until I was about seven, I have never been a big Beatles fan. However, one of my all time favourite songs is I'm so tired by the Beatles which appears on The White Album. The song is credited to Lennon/McCartney but was sung by John Lennon.
According to Wikipedia;
Lennon wrote the song at a Transcendental Meditation camp when he could not sleep. The Beatles had gone on a retreat to study with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh, India. After three weeks of constant meditation and lectures, Lennon missed his soon-to-be wife, Yoko Ono, and was plagued by insomnia that inspired the song. Lennon later said of it: "One of my favourite tracks. I just like the sound of it, and I sing it well".
The song includes the following couple of lines
I'm so tired, I'm feeling so upset
Although I'm so tired I'll have another cigarette
And curse Sir Walter Raleigh
He was such a stupid get.
I'm so tired, I'm feeling so upset
Although I'm so tired I'll have another cigarette
And curse Sir Walter Raleigh
He was such a stupid get.
This couplet includes the immortal Liverpudlian rhyming of Cigarette with stupid get. When sung by Lennon he lets rip with his full and pronounced scouse accent.
This song is also one of the sources of the Paul is Dead conspiracy. At the end of the song there is some mumbling in the background that when played backward sounds like "Paul is a dead man. Miss him. Miss him. Miss him."
You can hear the fragment both forwards and backwards HERE.
There is a great article by Michael Shermer in Scientific American that uses the idea of Paul being dead as an exemplar of anecdotal thinking coming naturally and science requiring training HERE.
