10 Radio-Friendly Songs About Drugs

4. Day Tripper - The Beatles

It’s fair to say that The Beatles dabbled with drugs. If that comes as a surprise to you, go and watch Yellow Submarine and maybe think about moving out from beneath that rock you’ve been living under.

The Fab Four were pioneers of using psychedelics in the songwriting process, so much so that it would appear John Lennon became a little bit uppity about it. Who’d have thunk it, eh?

On Day Tripper in particular, the songwriter takes a sly dig at casual LSD users who don’t fully commit to the free-spiritedness of drug-inflected culture.

Speaking in an interview with Playboy in 1980, he said: “Day Trippers are people who go on day trips, right? Usually on a ferryboat, or something. But the song was, kind of, ‘You’re a weekend hippie.’ Get it?”

Essentially a thinly veiled diss track aimed at anybody who’s acid consumption wasn’t as committed as his own, the iconic tune found Lennon in as scornful and witty a mood as you might expect from the barb-tongued genius.