People Felt 1 Line From The Beatles’ ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!’ Was About Heroin
Some listeners thought The Beatles‘ “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” contained a line about heroin. John Lennon dismissed that idea. In addition, he revealed what inspired “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” and what he thought of the song in retrospect.
A poster inspired John Lennon to write The Beatles’ ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!’
During a 1971 interview in the book Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon, John discussed a song from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. “There was Henry the horse in a song I wrote called ‘Mr. Kite!'” he said. “The lyrics, which I got most of off an old poster for an old-fashioned circus from the 1800s, were all about Pablo Fanque’s Fair, and the horse was there, and they said Henry the horse was horse [heroin], which I didn’t know anything about then.”
For context, “Henry” and “horse” and were both slang terms for heroin at the time. Notably, Pablo Fanque was a real circus-owner from the Victoria era. Notably, Fanque was the first recorded Black businessman in British history to own a circus. Today, he is probably most famous due to his brief mention in “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!”
John Lennon felt The Beatles’ ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!’ was a cosmic song
John wasn’t always a fan of his own work, and sometimes he denigrated The Beatles’ output as a whole. Despite this, he enjoyed “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” In a 1980 interview in the book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, John said the song was “pure, like a painting, a pure watercolor.”
He also described the track as “so cosmically beautiful.” Not bad for a song based on a poster he said he got from a “junk shop!” “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” certainly stands as the greatest song about a circus ever made. It also remains one of the most unique songs on one of the Fab Four’s most unique albums. It makes you wonder what other great tracks The Beatles could have made by taking inspiration from history.
What John Lennon thought about the role of drugs in society
In the interview from Lennon on Lennon, John made some comments about drugs. “I think the basic thing nobody asked is, ‘Why do people take drugs of any sort from alcohol to Aspro [aspirin] to hard drugs?” he said.
“And that question has to be resolved first, before you think, ‘Well, what can we do for the poor drug addict? Why do we and you and anybody have to have these accessories to normal living to live?'” he said. “I mean, is there something wrong with society that’s making us so pressurized that we cannot live in it without guarding ourselves against it? So it’s that basic, the problem.”
“Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!” is a trippy psychedelic song even if it has nothing to do with drugs.
