Credit: Raph PH

Paul McCartney on The Beatles song made relevant by the Berlin Wall

Fri 11 August 2023 18:30, UK

Few songs seem to conjure up the ideals and specific style of the 1960s quite like The Beatles’ ‘Fool on the Hill’. Inspired by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and featuring an array of harmonicas and loopy psychedelic sounds, ‘Fool on the Hill’ is immediately associated with a specific time and place: 1967, just as the summer of love is coming to an end.

Paul McCartney felt the same way about the track. While discussing his favourite Beatles songs with the Los Angeles Times in 1989, McCartney initially didn’t want to choose. “The more we go through this, the more I think [Bob] Dylan was right when he said all your songs are like your children,” McCartney claimed.

However, when he was pressed, McCartney opted to go with ‘Fool on the Hill’ as one of his best. “It’s something I wrote at my dad’s house [in] Liverpool one weekend,” he added. “It’s good to do it in the concert now because I enjoy the way it seems to reflect the spirit of the 1960s.”

Strangely enough, McCartney also felt that the song was gaining a new kind of relevancy thanks to the contemporary political climate at the time. The Berlin Wall had just fallen when McCartney was making his reflections on ‘Fool on the Hill’, and the song’s message of wise thoughts being ignored seemed to strike a chord with him at the time.

“I sense it having a great relevancy at this point in time because a lot of the ideals of that period seem to be coming to pass,” McCartney added. “The Berlin Wall coming down … the events in China … the interest in protecting the environment,” he said.

“That’s what we’re are trying to do with the concert program — draw attention to environmental issues,” he said about his then-recent concert tour, ‘The Paul McCartney World Tour’. “There’s even a coupon so that you can join or get information about Friends of the Earth. All that started in the ’60s. There were liberals before that, but it seemed to galvanise then.”

Check out ‘Fool on the Hill’ down below.