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Lot Essay
The Fool On The Hill was released on the Magical Mystery Tour double UK ep and on the corresponding US album in 1967. The corresponding sequence for the Magical Mystery Tour film was shot in France at the end of October, 1967. As Mark Lewisohn comments, it became clear when the recording of The Fool... was completed in mid October that the song was going to become a significant part of the film and yet nothing had been shot for it. . McCartney flew to France on 30th October with a small crew, as Tony Brainsby recalled ...Paul set off for France...to a hill above Nice which he'd seen on a previous visit. Of course, because The Beatles had become so used to operating with assistants and minders, it never occurred to him to take his passport...I think they were only too happy to let him in.. Beatles' assistant Peter Brown estimated that ..by the time Paul and the crew returned to London, it had cost £4,000 just for the one shot of him sitting on a hill..
According to Steve Turner, McCartney started work on The Fool On The Hill in March 1967 while he was writing Wtih A Little Help From My Friends. Hunter Davies observed Paul singing and playing "a very slow, beautiful song about a foolish man sitting on the hill", while John listened..." Paul sang it many times, la la-ing the words he hadn't thought of yet. When at last he finished, John said he'd better write down the words or he'd forget them. Paul said it was OK. He wouldn't forget them". Turner describes the subject of the song as an 'idiot savant'; a person everyone considers to be a fool but whose foolishness is actually an indication of wisdom.... Also in his book A Hard Day's Write Turner describes an episode Alistair Taylor recounted that Taylor believed influenced McCartney in writing this song. According to Taylor, when he and McCartney were walking Paul's dog Martha on Primrose Hill one early morning ..they watched the sun rise before realizing that Martha had gone missing. "We turned round to go and suddenly there he was standing behind us...a middle-aged man, very respectably dressed in a belted raincoat...he'd come up behind us over the bare top of the hill total silence". He seemed to have appeared miraculously. The three men exchanged greetings, the man commented on the beautiful view and then walked away. When they looked around, he'd vanished..." He'd just disappeared from the top of the hill as if he'd been carried off into the air!...Paul and I both felt the same weird sensation that something special had happened....
According to Steve Turner, McCartney started work on The Fool On The Hill in March 1967 while he was writing Wtih A Little Help From My Friends. Hunter Davies observed Paul singing and playing "a very slow, beautiful song about a foolish man sitting on the hill", while John listened..." Paul sang it many times, la la-ing the words he hadn't thought of yet. When at last he finished, John said he'd better write down the words or he'd forget them. Paul said it was OK. He wouldn't forget them". Turner describes the subject of the song as an 'idiot savant'; a person everyone considers to be a fool but whose foolishness is actually an indication of wisdom.... Also in his book A Hard Day's Write Turner describes an episode Alistair Taylor recounted that Taylor believed influenced McCartney in writing this song. According to Taylor, when he and McCartney were walking Paul's dog Martha on Primrose Hill one early morning ..they watched the sun rise before realizing that Martha had gone missing. "We turned round to go and suddenly there he was standing behind us...a middle-aged man, very respectably dressed in a belted raincoat...he'd come up behind us over the bare top of the hill total silence". He seemed to have appeared miraculously. The three men exchanged greetings, the man commented on the beautiful view and then walked away. When they looked around, he'd vanished..." He'd just disappeared from the top of the hill as if he'd been carried off into the air!...Paul and I both felt the same weird sensation that something special had happened....