no, this song is to be taken literally. it is about an american, richard cooke III, who met the beatles while they were in india meditating with the maharishi. this dude went on a tiger hunt and took his mother with him. during the hunt, a tiger jumped towards richard and his mother and he shot it. he later came back and shared his experience with the maharishi, who became disturbed by richard's story of killing. John commented, "Don't you call that slightly life destructive?" and Cooke replied, "Well, John, it was either the tiger or us. The tiger was jumping right where we were." Which became "If looks could kill it would've been us instead of him".
no, this song is to be taken literally. it is about an american, richard cooke III, who met the beatles while they were in india meditating with the maharishi. this dude went on a tiger hunt and took his mother with him. during the hunt, a tiger jumped towards richard and his mother and he shot it. he later came back and shared his experience with the maharishi, who became disturbed by richard's story of killing. John commented, "Don't you call that slightly life destructive?" and Cooke replied, "Well, John, it was either the tiger or us. The tiger was jumping right where we were." Which became "If looks could kill it would've been us instead of him".