Written by Paul Mc Cartney, this song is about a contemporary 'outsider'.
A man who is considered a fool by others, but whose foolish demeanor is
actually an indication of wisdom. Apparently, an event which prompted this
song happened when Paul was walking his dog Martha, on Primrose Hill one
morning. As he watched the sun rise, he noticed that Martha was missing.
In an instant, Paul turned around to look for his dog, and there a man
stood, who appeared on the hill without making a sound. The gentleman was
dressed respectably, in a belted raincoat. Paul knew this man had not been
there seconds earlier as he had looked in that direction for Martha. Paul
and the stranger exchanged a greeting, and this man then spoke of what
a beautiful view it was from the top of this hill that overlooked London.
Within a few seconds, Paul looked around again, and the man was gone. He
had vanished as he had appeared. A friend of McCartney's, Alistair Taylor
was present with Paul doing this strange incident, and wrote of this event
in his book, Yesterday.
Both Paul and Alistair could not imagine what happened to this man.
He seemingly vanished into thin air. The nearest trees for cover were too
far to reach by walking or running in a few seconds, and the crest of the
hill was too far as well to reach in that short time. What made the experience
even more mysterious was that just before this man first appeared, Paul
and Alistair were speaking to each other of the beauty they observed of
the view towards London and the existence of God. Once back home, they
spent the morning discussing what had happened, trying to make some sense
of it. They both agreed that this was something that others would infer
to have occurred as a result of an "acid trip," but they both swore they
had not taken or used any drugs. When Paul filmed the sequence for this
song in the film, it shows him on a hilltop overlooking the town of Nice.