McCARTNEY: "I wrote that." Playboy (December 1984)
Mal Evans, the Beatles' longtime assistant, claimed to have helped write this song. He was not credited but was paid for his help.
Like "Got To Get You Into My Life", this song is described by Paul as "another ode to pot", the drug that got him out of the rut of everyday consciousness and gave him the freedom to explore.
McCARTNEY: " 'Fixing' later became associated with fixing heroin but at that time I didn't associate it really. I know a lot of heroin people thought that was what it meant because that's exactly what you do, fix in a hole. It's not my meaning at all. 'Fixing A Hole' was about all those pissy people who told you, 'Don't daydream, don't do this, don't do that.' It seemed to me that that was all wrong and that it was not time to fix all of that. Mending was my meaning. Wanting to be free enough to let my mind wander, let myself be artistic, let myself not sneer at avant-garde things. It was the idea of me being on my own now, able to do what I want. If I want I'll paint the room in a colourful way. I'm fixing the hole, I'm fixing the crack in the door, I won't allow that to happen any more, I'll take hold of my life a bit more. It's all okay, I can do what I want and I'm going to set about fixing things. I was living now pretty much on my own in Cavendish Avenue, and enjoying my freedom and my new house and the salon-ness of it all. It's pretty much my song, as I recall. I like the double meaning of 'If I'm wrong I'm right where I belong'." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now
RECORDED
February 9, 1967, at Regent Sound Studio, with overdubbing February 21 at Abbey Road. The February 9 session was the first the Beatles had held outside an EMI studio since they had signed their recording contract.
McCARTNEY: "The funny thing about that was the night when we were going to record it, at Regent Sound Studios at Tottenham Court Road. I brought a guy who was Jesus. A guy arrived at my front gate and I said 'Yes? Hello' because I always used to answer it to everyone. If they were boring I would say, 'Sorry, no,' and they generally went away. This guy said, 'I'm Jesus Christ.' I said, 'Oop,' slightly shocked. I said, 'Well, you'd better come in then.' I thought, 'Well, it probably isn't. But if he is, I'm not going to be the one to turn him away'. So I gave him a cup of tea and we just chatted and I asked, 'Why do you think you are Jesus?' There were a lot of casualties about then. We used to get a lot of people who were maybe insecure or going through emotional breakdowns or whatever. So I said, 'I've got to go to a session but if you promise to be very quiet and just sit in a corner, you can come.' So he did, he came to the session and he did sit very quietly and I never saw him after that. I introduced him to the guys. They said, 'Who's this?' I said, 'He's Jesus Christ.' We had a bit of a giggle over that." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now
INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, lead guitar, harpsichord, lead vocal
LENNON: maracas, backing vocal
HARRISON: lead guitar and solo (double-tracked) (Sonic Blue Fender Stratocaster, tremolo model), backing vocal
STARR: drums
guitar from Guitar (November 1987)
COMMENTS BY BEATLES
McCARTNEY: "I liked that one." Playboy (December 1984)
McCARTNEY: "This song is just about the hole in the road where the rain gets in; a good old analogy - the hole in your make-up which lets the rain in and stops your mind from going where it will. It's you interfering with things; as when someone walks up to you and says, 'I am the Son of God'. And you say, 'No you're not; I'll crucify you', and you crucify him. Well that's life, but it is not fixing a hole.
"It's about fans too: 'See the people standing there/who disagree and never win/and wonder why they don't get in/Silly people, run around/they worry me/and never ask why they don't get in my door.' If they only knew that the best way to get in is not to do that, because obviously anyone who is going to be straight and like a real friend and a real person to us is going to get in; but they simply stand there and give off, 'We are fans, don't let us in.'
"Sometimes I invite them in, but it starts to be not really the point in a way, because I invited one in, and the next day she was in the Daily Mirror with her mother saying we were going to get married. So we tell the fans, 'Forget it.'
"If you're a junkie sitting in a room fixing a hole then that's what it will mean to you, but when I wrote it I meant if there's a crack or the room is uncolourful, then I'll paint it." Beatles in Their Own Words
Many authors attribute 'Fixing A Hole' to Paul doing a bit of do-it-yourself to the roof of his Scottish farmhouse, but this is not the case.
McCARTNEY: "It was much later that I ever got round to fixing the roof on the Scottish farm, I never did any of that till I met Linda. People just make it up! They know I've got a farm, they know it has a roof, they know I might be given to handyman tendencies so it's a very small leap for mankind . . . to make up the rest of the story." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now
LENNON: "That's Paul, again writing a good lyric." September 1980, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono
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