THE FOOL ON THE HILL .     Recorded: September 25-27 / October 20, 1967       Filmed: October 31,

THE FOOL ON THE HILL .     recorded: September 25-27 / October 20, 1967       filmed: October 31, 1967, in Nice

PAUL: I used to know Marijke [member of “The Fool”, the Dutch design collective and band], she was a quite striking-looking girl. 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. I always steered a bit clear of all that shit, but in fact it always used to come out as the Fool. 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.’ So I began to like the word ‘fool’, because I began to see through the surface meaning. I wrote ‘The Fool on the Hill’ out of that experience of seeing Tarot cards. (…) I think I was writing about someone like Maharishi. His detractors called him a fool. Because of his giggle he wasn’t taken too seriously. It was this idea of a fool on the hill, a guru in a cave, I was attracted to. I remember once hearing about a hermit who missed the Second World War because he’d been in a cave in Italy, and that always appealed to me. I was sitting at the piano in at my father’s house in Liverpool hitting a D 6th chord and I made up ‘Fool on the Hill’. There were some good words in it, ‘perfectly still’, I liked that, and the idea that everyone thinks he’s stupid appealed to me, because they still do. Saviours or gurus are generally spat upon, so I thought for my generation I’d suggest that they weren’t as stupid as they looked. [myfn]

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PAUL: It was during that time, A-levels time, I remember thinking, in many ways I wish I was a lorry driver, a Catholic lorry driver. Very very simple life, a firm faith and a place to go in my lorry, in my nice lorry. I realised I was more complex than that and I slightly envied that life. I envied the innocence. [myfn]