News flash: Fab Four used drugs

Paul McCartney says the Beatles’ hit “Got to Get You Into My Life” was a song about marijuana, “Day Tripper” was about LSD and “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” was indeed about dropping acid.

In a new interview in which he details his drug use while he was a member of the Fab Four, published this week in Uncut magazine, McCartney says he unknowingly tried heroin once and used cocaine for about a year around the time the group was working on its landmark 1967 album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

Much of the debate over the years about the connection of John Lennon’s song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” with LSD focused on the title. Lennon always said it was coincidental that it incorporated the drug’s initials, and maintained that his then 4-year-old son Julian came up with it when asked to explain a colorful drawing he’d made of a schoolmate. McCartney also has supported that explanation for the title, but in the Uncut interview says it’s “pretty obvious” the song itself is about an acid trip.

“It’s easy to overestimate the influence of drugs on the Beatles’ music,” McCartney says. “Just about everyone was doing drugs in one form or another, and we were no different, but the writing was too important for us to mess it up by getting off our heads all the time.”

Randy Lewis