Non-Fiction

Fixing a Hole

Image created by Google Gemini Nano Banana

I liked the Beatles the first time I heard them, which was surprising because, back when I was a high school sophomore, I detested the pop music on the radio. The lyrics of most of those songs were vapid, along the lines of:

Yes-a, I, oh I’m gonna love you, oh oh
Come on let me hold you darlin’
‘Cause I’m the Duke of Earl
So hey yea yea yeah

and

Big girls don’t cry-yi-yi (they don’t cry)
Big girls don’t cry (who said they don’t cry?)
My girl said goodbye-yi-yi (my oh my)
My girl didn’t cry (I wonder why)

It’s true that the lyrics of the first Beatles songs I heard, I Wanna Hold Your Hand and She Loves You weren’t exactly profound, but those songs had an exuberance that set them apart from other AM radio fare. They were colorful and alive, and lyrically, She Loves You gave a hint of things to come by changing the script from the usual formula with the singer crooning about how much he loves his girl. No first person, only second and third person pronouns are used in this song assuring a friend that his girlfriend still loves him after a falling-out. Meanwhile, we, the listeners, hear the good-news message, sounding like they’re telling us personally that “she loves YOU, yeah, yeah, yeah!”

I didn’t immediately become a Beatles fan, but their music eventually won me over and, like a gateway drug, got me to appreciate and enjoy a wide range of music, including songs that I might previously have scoffed at, like Buddy Holly’s Peggy Sue, with those profound lines:

Peggy Sue, Peggy Sue
Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty Peggy Sue
Oh Peggy, my Peggy Sue
Oh well I love you gal, and I need you Peggy Sue

While a change occurred within me and how I listened to music, the Beatles were also instrumental (haha) in changing what popular music was about. Consider the difference between all the lyrics above and the Beatles’ song Fixing a Hole:

I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in
And stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go

What a shift from the trite love songs of earlier pop. John and Paul loved Buddy Holly and covered a bunch of his songs, but the gulf between the Crickets and the Beatles was huge—both lyrically and musically. Fixing a Hole isn’t about love or any of the other topics songs are typically written about. What is it about? For me it’s always been a metaphor for shutting out the noisy distractions of the world and freeing your mind to go its own way instead of being led astray by others. It’s about finding and being yourself, making your world beautiful, and not letting the chatter of the outside world disturb you.

By chance I came across a book last week that I wasn’t aware of before, Paul McCartney’s The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, a beautiful pair of books with pictures and commentary about how the songs were written and the circumstances of their creation. What he says about Fixing a Hole is illuminating. He explains that writing a song feels like filling a hole, and the lyrics refer to creating a landscape from what had been nothing, an empty space. On an LSD trip, the hole took on a definite form. It was a small blue hole that he can still visualize now, that he was drawn to look through in search of answers.

So, am I completely wrong about what the song is about? Not at all. As the song says, it really doesn’t matter if I’m wrong I’m right. By the way, in the book, McCartney discusses the intentional wordplay in the chorus:

And it really doesn’t matter if I’m wrong I’m right
Where I belong I’m right
Where I belong

I’ve always interpreted these lines as they’re written and sung, as if there were a period at the end of each line, expressing the idea that the people on the outside who can’t “get past my door” may say I’m wrong, but that doesn’t bother me because I’m in my own space where I belong, and there I am the arbiter of what is right and wrong. Of course, you can punctuate it differently, placing a period after wrong. In that case, the line I’m right where I belong is repeated twice, and right means exactly, not correct, changing the emphasis a bit.

So, do I abandon my interpretation in the face of the new information provided? Not really. McCartney himself seems to be saying different things—that the hole is something to be filled up, patched over, looked through. Furthermore, McCartney’s last comment is revealing:

As it happens, I was living pretty much on my own in London and enjoying my new house. So the whole world of home improvements was beginning to impinge on me in a quite literal way.

So there is the context for the metaphor. Just as a truck driver might use the metaphor of roads and intersections to describe life events, or a fisherman the casting of nets, we all use tangible real-world artifacts to frame and express our ideas, and McCartney, absorbed in home repair projects, found a metaphor in the patching of holes. He mentions that some people believe the song is about heroin, but that didn’t play any role in his writing of it. Still, we may excuse the addict for interpreting the song in a way that makes sense to him—we’re all free to understand the song in any way we wish. In Fixing a Hole, I believe that McCartney is describing his creative process. He stops up the holes, fills in the cracks to prevent the outside world from disturbing his thoughts, and paints his “room in a colourful way” to allow his mind to wander and create.

There’s a reason this Beatles song has been on my mind lately. With all the catastrophically terrible things happening now here and around the world, there’s a need to shut out the noise around us for the sake of our souls and sanity, yet cloistering ourselves in our own private, comfortable little worlds, gives license to those who would destroy the world we share together. It’s a tricky balance we have to keep in these tricky times, but, at least we have the Beatles and other great artists to help us through.

January, 2026