The Beatles Song Banned Over Double Entendres That John Lennon Insisted Was “Pure”

Time and time again through the years, the BBC has opted to ban The Beatles’ songs. For one reason or another, some of which were warranted, the BBC banned quite a few of The Fab Four’s biggest and lesser-known tracks.

One of those tracks happened to be “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite” from the hit 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. If you’ve heard or read the lyrics to the song and understand the 1960s’ brand of drug innuendo and double entendre, you can probably guess why the BBC decided to ban it.

“Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite” was banned by the BBC for its use of drug-related lyricism. Some readers might be confused by this; what could possibly be wrong with the lyrics of “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite”?

Why Did The BBC Ban The Beatles’ “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite”?

The notably psychedelic song references not one, but two slang words for drugs. Specifically, the lyrics “Their production will be second to none / And of course Henry the Horse dances the waltz” contained two references to drug slang.

“Henry” was often used to describe the particular weight one would like to purchase of drugs. It’s a direct reference to the English king Henry the VIII, as in an “eighth” of an ounce of a particular drug. “Horse” has historically been used to refer to a long list of drugs, including the ones mentioned previously.

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So, why did John Lennon reference drugs in the delightful circus ditty “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite”? According to Lennon, the song didn’t have anything to do with hard drugs at all.

“The whole song is from a Victorian poster, which I bought in a junk shop,” Lennon explained of the song in an interview with David Sheff. “It is so cosmically beautiful. It’s a poster for a fair that must have happened in the 1800s. Everything in the song is from that poster, except the horse wasn’t called Henry.”

Lennon went on to say that he had never even seen the drugs he’s accused of singing about before during that period of his music career.

“Now, there were all kinds of stories about Henry the Horse being [drugs],” Lennon continued. “I had never seen [this drug] in that period. No, it’s all just from that poster. The song is pure, like a painting, a pure watercolour.”

Who knows if Lennon was telling the truth? Regardless, “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite” is still a very fun song.

Photo by Jeff Hochberg

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