The Real Story Behind “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window”
By Sara Schmidt
The
story behind The Beatles song, “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window” is
well known by fans. Paul repeats the
story often and it is even in his book Lyrics. The
story goes like this: There were a group
of girls that always hung around outside of Paul’s house on Cavendish
Avenue. They were called The Apple
Scruffs. One day, when Paul and Linda
were out of town, the girls noticed that the window on the top floor of Paul’s
house was left open. They were able to
open the gate and went onto his property and saw there was a ladder leaning up
near the open window. The girls climbed
up the ladder, went through the window, and landed inside of Paul’s
bathroom. While they were inside of his
house, they took Paul’s trousers and other dirty clothes as well as many
carousels of photo slides taken by Linda.
These slides included photos of
Paul and Linda’s wedding, Paul and his family on holiday, and photos of the
Beatles during the Get Back sessions.
Once Paul learned about all of this, he wrote the song and recorded it
for the “Abbey Road” album.
While
that might be the story that has been told, it is not the true story behind the
song. If you have watched the “Get Back”
documentary, then you will have heard The Beatles rehearsing the song in
January 1969. Therefore, the song had
to have been written prior to that date.
Already the facts do not add up with the “official story.” If the fans stole photos from the Get Back
Sessions and Paul and Linda’s wedding then how can Paul write a song about
something that hadn’t happened yet?
The story behind the song is a
story that was told by The Moody’s Blues member, Mike Pender. Mike said that an incident happened to
fellow band member, Ray Thomas where a girl had climbed through the bathroom window
of his home and got into bed with Ray and spent the night. The
day after this happened, the Moody Blue’s members were telling Paul McCartney
this crazy story. Paul had a guitar in
his hand and he started to strum and sing “She came in through the bathroom
window….”
In September 1969, John Lennon was
interviewed about the songs on the Abbey Road album and he had this to say
about the song, “"It was when Paul and I went to America to publicize
Apple about two years ago, and we were just in the flat we were staying in and
he just came out with that line, 'she came in through the bathroom window.'
So, he had it for years, and he eventually finished it." John remembers Paul working on the song when
he and Paul were in New York City in May 1968.
John was asked about the song
again when he was interviewed by Playboy for the 1980 interview. He said, That was
written by Paul when we were in New York forming Apple, and he first met Linda.
Maybe she's the one who came in the window. She must have. I don't know.
Somebody came in the window."
This
does not mean that no one ever broke into Paul’s house. Last year I read a book that had a chapter
about how a young girl and her friends broke into Paul’s house in 1970 and took
photos of themselves in the various rooms of the home. Fans going into Paul McCartney’s home
without his permission seemed to be an ongoing issue in the late 1960s and
early 1970s. One group of fans must have
gotten into his house while he took Linda and Heather on holiday to Portugal in
December of 1968. This would explain
why he says something about how this recently happened to him before starting
to practice “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window” during rehearsals in
Twickenham in early January.
The
next part of this story that is untrue is the statement that The Apple Scruffs
went into Paul’s home through the bathroom window. The group of tight-nit fans that named
themselves “The Apple Scruffs” started using the name in the Autumn of 1969
AFTER the Abbey Road album had been released.
That small group of fans were not the type that would break into Paul’s
home and take his personal property.
They loved the Beatles and made sure not to cause them harm. It is an insult to those particular girls
that Paul and others flippantly say that they were thieves.
The
event that is often believed to be the inspiration for the song happened in
June of 1969 while Paul and Linda were gone (I personally believe the date most
likely was June 15 – Father’s Day due to the weather and day of the week that
had been told during the various tellings of the story, but that is just an
educated guess). There were several
groups of fans that spent their time outside of Cavendish Avenue at that
time. They were not all friends with
one another and there was some of the typical “girl drama” that tends to go
on along with groups of young women.
One of those groups of girls really disliked Linda and went out of their
way to do cruel things toward her. It
is believed that it is this group that took the items from the home. Most stories say that a girl named “Diane”
or “Little Di” is the person that physically climbed the ladder and landed in
the bathroom sink on the upper floor of the McCartney family house. However, I have seen other names of girls
that went up the ladder. Whoever she was,
she went inside and then supposedly let the other girls into the home. While there the small group of three girls
went through the house and went through Paul’s clothing. Diane gave an interview in the 1990s for a
French Beatles fans magazine and said this, “I didn’t take anything that has value, nothing but memories. I searched
his basket of dirty laundry and took some shirts that had tea stains. We took one each. We looked in the closet and saw all the
costumes: Sgt. Pepper and shoes with the
pointed tips he wore in the beginning. We did not touch.”
More than just dirty shirts were
taken from the home. Slides of
photographs taken by Linda were also stolen and also a photo of Linda and Paul
in a nice frame (Paul and Carol Bedford claim it was a photo of his father) was
taken. Paul was not too bothered by the
missing clothes, but he really wanted to get Linda’s photographs back. He spoke directly to a few of the girls that
would eventually be in the Apple Scruffs and asked them to help him. They were eventually returned to Paul, but
not before copies of the photos were made.
These photos, which we still see to this day, were sold outside of EMI
studios on Abbey Road while hundreds of fans stood outside to catch a glimpse
of John, Paul, George, or Ringo before or after a recording session.
 |
| Photo of Paul taken by Linda McCartney. This is an example of one of the photos that had been stolen from Paul's home that had been taken by Linda. |
It is very possible that this
big break-in, which happened just prior to the recording of “She Came in
Through the Bathroom Window” as it appears on the Abbey Road Album reminded
Paul of the song that he had begun working on the previous year. It very could be why he brought it back to
The Beatles and it was included on the album.
However, it is a crazy coincidence that Diane (or whoever) climbed a
ladder and went through the bathroom window, just as the girl did with the
Moody Blue’s member years before.
Simply put, the event in the early summer of 1969 was not the original
inspiration for the song, but perhaps the inspiration to bring the song back
and record.
I am sure that Paul gets his
stories confused easily because that is how our minds work when it comes to
memories. As humans, we frequently
combine events that happen at the same place during the same time period. Paul is not trying to be a Beatles historian,
but just remembering things that happened in his life. I do not believe he is purposely trying to
give the girls in the Apple Scruffs a bad name, but sadly that is what has
happened. I asked one of them if I
could write something to attempt to right this wrong. She said she would be happy if I did. Today the truth is on the new Apple Scruffs
webpage and hopefully, upcoming books, such as Mark Lewisohn’s biography (volume
3) will contain the correct information.
