I have to say it's been a pleasure joining this forum.
Interesting to hear from others about examples of what they thought a song's lyrics meant when they were younger to when they became older and wiser.
This is kind of a dumb one and goes back to when I was very young but I thought "You Won't See Me" meant that Paul was going to keep out of sight. You know, kind of skulk around. I didn't grasp "see" as allowing someone to visit. So in my interpretation he was the one doing the rejecting. I'm sure I had a bunch like this because I started really listening to my sister's Beatles records when I was in second grade and I misunderstood a lot in general back then! I'll wait until I can come up with something more meaningful before I share again though.
And when I heard I am the Walrus and John sang "I am the egg man" I thought he was saying he was a man who was an egg..... Uh. Hold on....
And I'm still not sure just how I interpreted "love her till the cows come home" from When I Get Home. I assume I imagined the Beatles were farmers in their spare time.
I've often thought that line was put in there on a dare.
Groucho explains it well...
One that I was reminded of on the weekend was when as a young'un I used to listen to Ticket to Ride. I was sure they were singing "Shot a do right by me". What exactly a "do" was an why she'd be firing it in the Fab's direction my young mind didn't explore further.
Maybe it was a hairdo; one of those fake ponytails like my sister's friend ordered out of the back of a magazine. Or a beehive.
Or maybe you were thinking of...
I always thought that, too, Kelley! This isn't Beatles related, but I remember in my sixth-grade music class the teacher playing us the Stones' "Get Off My Cloud" and telling us that in England a "cloud" referred to a woman, and that the song was saying, in essence, "Stay away from my woman." I labored under that misperception for a few years. I wonder why she just didn't pick another song if she didn't want to tell us it was drug related, rather than making up some goofy lie.
Well. It would lend interesting interpretations to a host of songs:
Did they provide ponytail loading rifles as well?? I could see (forgetting all the literal shooting for a minute) how that interpretation might even work in a slightly symbolic way.