The Beatles,
Abbey Road (
1969)
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The
Apple Scruffs were a rabid group of mostly female fans who hung around
Apple Records on
Savile Row and even published their own fan magazine.
George Harrison penned a song about them, "
Apple Scruffs", which appeared on his solo debut,
All Things Must Pass. Most Scruffs were content to wait outside for a glimpse of the quartet, but one day Diane Ashley found a ladder in the garden of
Paul McCartney's home in
St. John's Wood and used it to climb in his bathroom window, which was slightly ajar. Then she opened the front door and let some other Scruffs in and they rummaged through his house and stole some clothes and photographs. One of the Scruffs, Margo Bird (who worked her way up from walking Paul's dog to the promotional department at Apple), managed to retrieve the photographs for Paul, however.
Paul wrote the song in America in June of 1968. The line "so I quit the police department" was inspired by the NYPD officer assigned to him, Eugene Quits. Diane Ashley thinks the lines "Sunday's on the phone to Monday/Tuesday's on the phone to me" was inspired by his neighbors ringing him up to tell him about the break in.
It was recorded by the Beatles on
February 22, 1969. Like most of the song fragments on side two of the album, there is no break between it and the previous song. Accompanying the change in
meter from "
Polythene Pam",
John Lennon can be heard laughing and Paul cries "Oh, look out!" Perhaps composed with
Joe Cocker in mind, who recorded his own covers of many Beatles songs, Cocker covered it on his modestly titled
1969 album
Joe Cocker!
She Came In Through The Bathroom Window 1:57
(John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
She came in through the bathroom window
Protected by a silver spoon
But now she sucks her thumb and wonders
By the banks of her own lagoon
Didn't anybody tell her?
Didn't anybody see?
Sunday's on the phone to Monday
Tuesday's on the phone to me
She said she'd always been a dancer
She worked at fifteen clubs a day
And though she thought I knew the answer
Well, I knew what I could not say
And so I quit the police department
And got myself a steady job
And though she tried her best to help me
She could steal, but she could not rob
Didn't anybody tell her?
Didn't anybody see?
Sunday's on the phone to Monday
Tuesday's on the phone to me
Oh, yeah!
John Lennon - acoustic guitar, background vocal
Paul McCartney - lead vocal, harmony vocal, lead guitar, background vocal
George Harrison - bass guitar, tambourine, background vocal
Ringo Starr - drums, maracas
Sources:
Bill Harry, The Ultimate Beatles Encyclopedia
Tim Riley, Tell Me Why
Steve Turner, A Hard Day's Write