Paul McCartney often writes songs centred around fictional characters or inspired by real-life encounters. In one of his compositions, McCartney crafted a narrative around a woman described as a “harlot”. While drawing creative inspiration from his experiences, the figure behind McCartney’s scathing choice of words has captivated listeners, adding a mysterious layer to the track’s origins and leaving fans to speculate about its real-world connections.
In 2020, McCartney released his album McCartney III, finally completing his self-titled album trilogy. Within the album sat the song ‘Lavatory Lil’, a seemingly tongue-in-cheek portrayal of a woman who is excessively concerned with her appearance, emphasising her vanity and preoccupation with her looks. Although many have speculated as to who the song may be about, McCartney remains cryptic in his explanations of the track’s true inspiration.
“’Lavatory Lil’ is a parody of someone I didn’t like,” he told the New York Times in 2020. “[It’s about] someone I was working with who turned out to be a bit of a baddie. I thought things were great; it turned nasty. So I made up the character Lavatory Lil and remembered some of the things that had gone on and put them in the song. I don’t need to be more specific than that. I will never divulge who it was.”
In the same year, he also said that the song wasn’t based on a singular person in particular, but instead a “fictitious character, I just liked the idea of someone being called ‘Lavatory Lil.’” The singer also compared ‘Lavatory Lil’ to a song from The Beatles’ discography. “It harks back to one of John’s old songs, ‘Polythene Pam’,” he said, “And what you do is you take half an idea of someone, you just make a fiction about what they do and what they’re like.”
McCartney’s songs are often misinterpreted – sometimes fans get his muses misconstrued, while an entire nation apparently wrongly assumed that some of his songs were diss tracks aimed at John Lennon. For instance, In 1973, McCartney and Wings released ‘Let Me Roll It’ as the B-side to their successful track ‘Jet’. At the time, some pointed out its similarity to Lennon’s musical style, suggesting that McCartney had done this on purpose to rehash issues encountered during their public feud a couple of years prior.
However, McCartney vehemently dismissed these comparisons, aiming to clarify their differing artistic approaches. Despite the ongoing media-driven debates and comparisons between McCartney and Lennon in their solo endeavours, the song’s lyrics instead subtly hinted at substances like marijuana or psychedelics. “‘Let Me Roll It’ wasn’t to John,” McCartney stated. “It was just in the style that we did with The Beatles that John was particularly known for.”
Therefore, whether or not McCartney wrote ‘Lavatory Lil’ about anyone in particular remains unknown, although the likelihood is that although the initial idea was probably based on someone he knew when the creativity started flowing, it took on a life of its own. Either way, it’s an intriguing composition that offers an invitation to explore its layers of depth and sonic innovation.
