THE BEATLES SONG PAUL MCCARTNEY WROTE AFTER BEING INSPIRED BY TAROT CARDS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Beatles were inspired by some of the more mystical, new age, aspects of the hippie era. Paul McCartney once revealed that one of the songs from Magical Mystery Tour was inspired by the art of Tarot reading.

Tarot is a form of fortune telling that utilises a specially-designed deck of cards with specific symbols donating certain outcomes. Tarot decks were invented in 15th-century Italy but became a staple of the occult and the mystical, finding particular favour with the hippies of the 1960s and ’70s. McCartney was introduced to Tarot by an artist called Marijke Koger, who caught the attention of Brian Epstein and Mal Evans with her dazzling poster and album cover designs. She and her colleague Simon were even invited to work on the initial illustrations for the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band cover.
In his 1997 book, Many Years From Now, Paul McCartney opened up about how a Tarot reading with Koger inspired one of his more wayward tracks. “I used to know Marijke, she was a quite striking-looking girl,” he recalled. “She used to read my fortune in Tarot cards, which was something I wasn’t too keen on because I didn’t want to draw the death card one day. I still don’t like that kind of stuff because I know my mind will dwell on it.”

During the reading, Paul kept on pulling the same card: “I always steered a bit clear of all that s**t, but in fact, it always used to come out as the Fool,” he remembered. “And I used to say, ‘Oh, dear!’ and she used to say, ‘No no no. The Fool’s a very good card. On the surface it looks stupid, the Fool, but in fact it’s one of the best cards, because it’s the innocent, it’s the child, it’s that reading of fool.’”

The idea that the fool could actually be interpreted as a wise figure struck a chord with McCartney, who was immediately reminded of how gurus were often treated as quacks and nutters by society as a whole. In ‘Fool On The Hill’, Paul draws attention to the West’s eagerness to dismiss Eastern philosophies simply because they don’t always offer concrete answers. “Day after day, alone on a hill,” he sings in the opening verse. “The man with the foolish grin / Is keeping perfectly still / But nobody wants to know him / They can see that he’s just a fool / And he never gives an answer.”

Shakespeare understood very well that those who appear mad to the rest of society often possess some higher knowledge. Take the Jester in King Lear, for example – the only character the titular mad king allows to question his decisions. Though he is a figure of fun, he has far more sense and sanity than anyone else in the play. 

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