Beatles – Lovely Rita

I got Sgt Pepper in 1977 when I was 10. I sat there for hours, staring at the cover and listening to this music I had never heard before. This is one of the songs that grabbed my attention. I liked Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Good Morning, Good Morning, and Lovely Rita, but that quickly expanded. 

This song isn’t about a real person. It was Paul making up the character (I have his quote below) after hearing in America that they called Parking Meter Women “Meter Maids.” John didn’t particularly like the song because he liked songs about real things. He hardly ever just made things up…Lennon would write about people he knew or his experiences.

The Beatles recorded their debut album, Please Please Me, in a remarkably short amount of time. The entire recording process for the album took approximately 9 hours and 45 minutes of studio time. Now let’s fast forward 5 years from 1962 to 1966-67.

The Beatles spent up to 700 hours in the studio recording Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. One of the main reasons was their desire to go beyond the limitations of the standard four-track recorder. To achieve this, they linked two four-track machines together—an innovative move at the time—and experimented throughout the process. While this technique wasn’t commonly used, it allowed them to push the boundaries of what was possible in the studio. Sgt. Pepper’s remains one of the most important albums in music history, not just for its songs, but for the groundbreaking recording techniques that helped shape the future of music.

The following year, The Band changed the course of music in some ways. They released Music From The Big Pink and influenced a generation. Bands started to play more earthy…more roots-oriented music. The Beatles did that by recording the rootsy White Album.

Beatles - Lovely Rita Lyrics

Paul McCartney: “I was bopping about on the piano in Liverpool when someone told me that in America, they call parking-meter women meter maids. I thought that was great, and it got to ‘Rita Meter Maid’ and then “Lovely Rita Meter Maid’ and I was thinking vaguely that it should be a hate song: ‘You took my car away and I’m so blue today’ and you wouldn’t be liking her; but then I thought it would be better to love her and if she was very freaky too, like a military man, with a bag on her shoulder. A foot stomper, but nice. The song was imagining if somebody was there taking down my number and I suddenly fell for her, and the kind of person I’d be, to fall for a meter maid, would be a shy office clerk and I’d say, ‘May I inquire discreetly when you are free to take some tea with me.’ Tea, not pot. It’s like saying ‘Come and cut the grass’ and then realizing that could be pot, or the old teapot could be something about pot. But I don’t mind pot and I leave the words in. They’re not consciously introduced just to say pot and be clever.” 

John Lennon: That’s Paul writing a pop song. He made up people like Rita, like a novelist. You hear lots of McCartney influence going on now on the radio: these stories about boring people being postmen and writing home.

Lovely Rita

(Lovely Rita, meter maid)
(Lovely Rita, meter maid)

Lovely Rita, meter maid
Nothing can come between us
When it gets dark I tow your heart away

Standing by a parking meter
When I caught a glimpse of Rita
Filling in a ticket in her little white book
In a cap she looked much older
And the bag across her shoulder
Made her look a little like a military man

Lovely Rita, meter maid
May I inquire discreetly
When are you free to take some tea with me?

Rita

Took her out and tried to win her
Had a laugh and over dinner
Told her I would really like to see her again

Got the bill and Rita paid it
Took her home, I nearly made it
Sitting on the sofa with a sister or two

Oh, lovely Rita, meter maid
Where would I be without you
Give us a wink and make me think of you

(Lovely Rita, meter maid)
(Lovely Rita, meter maid)
(Lovely Rita, meter maid)
(Lovely Rita, meter maid)

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

41 thoughts on “Beatles – Lovely Rita”

  1. Pingback: Beatles – Lovely Rita – MobsterTiger

  2. Lennon’s comments are hilarious. I always thought it was a great song. Good example of McCartney using words like Rita and meter together effectively.

    I suppose meter maid is probably considered too degrading to call someone nowadays?

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    1. I always include a quote from John if I can on a post…it’s always interesting.
      Probably but I don’t know why…it sounds good together.

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    1. I think that meant he was trying to date her and was stuck on a sofa with her sisters….they were what I was when I was a kid to my older sister…a chaperone so nothing happened.

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      2. halffastcyclingclub was talking about that very line in the comments. Thats what he thought as well…you two could be right

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      3. Probably not. Since “made it” is slang for having sex and he “nearly” made it, that means he didn’t. I think Max is right that his sisters were there as chaperones and that’s why he didn’t make it with Rita, but I conjured up the image of sex with multiple sisters this morning. But there are songs (like the Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Did you ever have to make up your mind?”) about getting “distracted by her older sister” or Elvis’ “Little Sister” (“little sister don’t you do what your big sister done”).

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  4. This makes me think of “Lola”, though I know Rita came first. But Rita seems to dominate Paul (looking a little like a military man, buying his dinner). And I always liked the piano on this. It has such an innocent sound, but then he’s suddenly talking about sex on the sofa with Rita and her sisters.

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    1. Jim asked what he meant by the sofa line….you threw a new twist I never thought of…I thought it meant they were basically chaperones and he couldn’t get alone with Rita…but your answer may be right.

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  6. I think I’d read that John didn’t especially like it but didn’t know why. I think it’s great and shows why ‘Sgt.Pepper’ was their best album and the decade’s best…it’s almost a throwaway song, to me there’s at least 7 better songs on there, at least one of the band didn’t like it. Yet it’s still a really good track that was better & more enduring than many, of not most, hits by any other artists that year.

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    1. It has a timeless quality to it…you can’t really tell when it was recorded and that helps. I think that is one of the reasons their songs last…not all…but most don’t really show when they were recorded….I’ll use a word that I simply hate but they are not “dated”…. now I’ll have to wash my hands for typing that lol.

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  7. that was the cool thing about watching Get Back…watching Paul come in with songs, and the interaction between him and Lennon……not to diminish Harrison’s work, and Lennon’s, McCartney’s always seems to be passed off as a lot of Silly Love Songs, but his catalogue during and post Beatles and Wings is incredible…..as hard as you could get, the pop stuff….it’s unreal. you think he’s done, and then ‘Home Tonight’ pops up….

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    1. I’m reading a book series about McCartney now…it’s huge but yea…the guy has been written off many times and just keeps coming back. The Band on the Run album is up there in great albums.
      The Wings songs that draw me in are Jet, Let Me Roll It, 1985, and one of my favorites is Jrs Farm…so he could rock as well when he wanted to.

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  8. It never ceases to amaze me where they found inspiration for their songs. It is also remarkable that to me anyway, so many of their songs still ‘pop’ in the old eardrums. This is a great example of that I think.

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  9. I do love this song. The rhyme of Rita and MEEtah is one you can’t go wrong with. The other songs you mention from the album also have a certain jauntiness that I like. I wonder if that’s what they meant by the Pepper part of the title? Adding Sgt. is the distinct beats of many of the songs? You understand this is off the top of my head and Beatles scholars have probably been debating it for decades 😉

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    1. I get what you are saying…I don’t know if Paul thought it through that much. He wanted to call it….ready? Dr Pepper…but of course that would be frowned on and probably a lawsuit lol. But he did have pepper so you never know

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    1. I need to check that out. I know he did Lady Madonna and Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except For Me and My Monkey.

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  13. That tune is an ear-worm. I have the album and that’s the one I sing to myself, or hum it. The day that Sgt. Pepper came out, I grabbed a copy at The Melody Shop, a record and music store in Dallas. The band I was in locked ourselves away for three days, learning as many songs as we could, and then played them at a teen dance the next weekend. First and last time we did that much work on one album. I knew a girl name Rita, and she was quite lovely.

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    1. Again…I’m jealous that you got to witness this real time. Some of the songs are doable with a 4 piece band. I always wanted to play the title track but never did and the reprise.

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    1. I’m reading a book series about him now (Paul McCartney Legacy)…I’m at “Back To The Egg”… yes that is the difference between Paul’s granny music here vs Wings…it had an edge in the Beatles most of the time.

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