Tag: 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.

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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