| The Beatles – What's the New Mary Jane Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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Lennon first recorded this song on the Esher tape in May 1968, as a demo for the white album. It's certainly NOT anything to do with Syd Barrett (who regurgitated this guff?) who only met Lennon once (March 1967) and by 1968 was incapable of doing anything remotely sensible. When the song was recorded (by Lennon, Yoko Ono, and perhaps George Harrison and Mal Evans) Barrett was on holiday in Spain. Though the song is clearly a psychedelic joke, it's almost certainly NOT a nonsense poem like "I Am The Walrus". There are no other examples of Lennon nonsense poems from this period. It seems most likely to be a song about Yoko, whom Lennon hooked up with in early May (before the Esher recordings). The "pain" of the title would likely be the things that were clouding the newfound love Lennon and Ono had found: his current wife (and her current husband!), the rest of the band, and most of all, press reactions to Ono (though I admit: it's not clear when the press first got a whiff of the relationship, so it might actually be "friends" (eg McCartney) making cruel comments. The first verse appears to be all reactions about Yoko's appearance: a weird-looking foreigner. The last line is certainly "out of Iran" incidentally. There are a couple of references in the song to Yoko's weight. She thought herself fat at the time (too fat for a Beatles girlfriend) and desperately tried to lose weight. Reactions to the "Two Virgins" nude cover show that the press still thought her fat, months later. The Yeti is Lennon himself, of course, and "she tastes..." is one of his normal sexual references to Yoko. The references to Patagonian pancakes and "an gin party" are presumably private jokes. Yoko Ono signed to an Apple contract in 1968. |
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