She Said, She Said is an odd little number from the Beatles more experimental period. It’s a pretty interesting song musically, with sitar-like stylings from George Harrison and a fairly interesting drum track from Ringo Starr. It’s pretty much the thing you would expect from the mid-60’s during the height of drug experimentation, but it sounds quite good.
Some background on the song (taken from Worship the Glitch):
“That’s mine. It’s an interesting track. The guitars are great on it. That was written after an acid trip in L.A. during a break in the Beatles tour where we were having fun with the Byrds and lots of girls. Peter Fonda came in when we were on acid and he kept coming up to me and sitting next to me and whispering, ‘I know what it’s like to be dead.’ He was describing an acid trip he’d been on. We didn’t ‘want’ to hear about that. We were on an acid trip and the sun was shining and the girls were dancing, and the whole thing was beautiful and Sixties, and this guy– who I really didn’t know– he hadn’t made ‘Easy Rider’ or anything… kept coming over, wearing shades, saying, ‘I know what it’s like to be dead,’ and we kept leaving him because he was so boring! And I used it for the song, but I changed it to ’she’ instead of ‘he.’ It was scary… I don’t want to know what it’s like to be dead!”
- John Lennon, 1980
Some more information from the usual sources:
And of course, the lyrics:
She said “I know what it’s like to be dead.
I know what it is to be sad”
And she’s making me feel like I’ve never been born.
I said “Who put all those things in your head?
Things that make me feel that I’m mad
And you’re making me feel like I’ve never been born.”
She said “you don’t understand what I said”
I said “No, no, no, you’re wrong”
When I was a boy everything was right
Everything was right
I said “Even though you know what you know
I know that I’m ready to leave
‘Cause you’re making me feel like I’ve never been born.”
She said “you don’t understand what I said”
I said “No, no, no, you’re wrong”
When I was a boy everything was right
Everything was right
I said “Even though you know what you know
I know that I’m ready to leave
‘Cause you’re making me feel like I’ve never been born.”
She said , she said “I know what it’s like to be dead”
(”I know what it’s like to be dead”)
I know what it is to be sad…
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