Every food & drink mentioned by The Beatles in songs

Did you know “A Taste of Honey” (from the Beatles’ 1963 debut record, “Please Please Me”) wasn’t originally a Beatles song? It’s a cover of the Lenny Welch version of the song written by Bobby Scott and Ric Marlow for the 1960 Broadway version of the 1958 play of the same name (which was also turned into a 1961 movie). Honey was later mentioned numerous times in the song “Honey Pie” off of the 1968 album “The Beatles” — a.k.a. “The White Album.”

The Beatles’ adult beverage of choice was clearly wine — at least when it came to song lyrics. We recall at least four mentions of wine: “A Taste of Honey” (“A taste of honey / Tasting much sweeter / Than wine”), “Norwegian Wood” (“I sat on a rug biding my time / Drinking her wine”), “When I’m Sixty-Four” (“Will you still be sending me a Valentine? / Birthday greetings bottle of wine”), and “Her Majesty” (“I wanna tell her that I love her a lot / But I gotta get a belly full of wine”).

Here’s another cover, this time a rendition of Chuck Berry’s “Rock and Roll Music'' from the Beatles’ fourth album, 1964’s “Beatles for Sale.” Berry’s song has a verse about a rousing Southern celebration that includes the line “They're drinkin' homebrew from a wooden cup / The folks dancin' got all shook up.” Still, the Beatles changed “wooden cup” to “water cup.” We’re guessing “homebrew” is referring to beer. Still, it could also apply to a number of different homemade alcoholic beverages.

Remember the lyric, “Working for peanuts is all very fine / But I can show you a better time”? You should, as it’s from the Beatles’ hit song “Drive My Car” from their 1965 album “Rubber Soul.” Of course, the song isn’t actually referring to food — it’s talking about a small amount of money — but it still counts for the purposes of this article.

The second song on “Revolver” (1966), “Eleanor Rigby,” mentions food in the very first line of the very first verse. “Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice / In the church where a wedding has been / Lives in a dream.” Of course, she’s not eating the rice…maybe she’s picking it up so the birds don’t eat it? (Even though the popular myth of birds eating rice, drinking water, and exploding has been debunked.)

Here’s one of the most obvious mentions of food in anything Beatles-related: pepper. This of course refers to the Fab Four’s eighth studio album, “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1967), as well as the lead single on that record, and also the reprise that’s featured as the second-to-last song on side two. “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was later adapted into a 1974 musical and a 1978 film, with the latter starring Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees.

Did you know the Beatles mention tangerine not once but twice in their lyrics? You might recall the more notable one, the opening lines of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” (from 1967’s “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”) that mention “tangerine trees.” However, tangerines come up again in another song: “Savoy Truffle” off of “The White Album.” In fact, the second word of that song is “tangerine.”

What is paired with the aforementioned tangerine trees? Marmalade skies, of course. At least, that’s the next line of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Completing the rhyme with “marmalade skies” are the lyrics: “Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly / A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.”

Sticking with “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” for one more food, let’s jump to the second verse. “Follow her down to a bridge by a fountain / Where rocking horse people eat marshmallow pies.” We’re not sure what this psychedelic song is actually referring to, nor are we certain if the Beatles are talking about an actual pie made from marshmallows or some kind of a moon pie or whoopie pie-like treat. 

As British gents, the Beatles predictably include tea in many of their lyrics. However, according to our research, the first mention didn’t occur until “Lovely Rita,” which was from “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” the band’s eighth album. Tea was again mentioned on the record’s next track, “Good Morning Good Morning.” The following album, 1968’s “The White Album,” included a mention in the song “Cry Baby Cry,” as did the album after that, the soundtrack to “Yellow Submarine” (1969), in the song “All Together Now.”

“I Am the Walrus,” from the 1967 album, “Magical Mystery Tour,” contains numerous food references. The first occurs in the first verse: “Sitting on a cornflake / Waiting for the van to come.” The band (or more specifically, songwriters John Lennon and Paul McCartney) were probably referring to generic cornflakes as opposed to the cereal made by Kellogg’s. Still, it’s worth noting that the latter is possible because Corn Flakes were invented by Will Kellogg way back in 1894.

The second food mentioned in “I Am the Walrus” fittingly occurs in the second verse: “Yellow matter custard / Dripping from a dead dog's eye.” Like the lyrics surrounding the first reference, the meaning of this one is also unclear…which may have been the point. About a decade after the song was released, Lennon confessed that he intentionally made the meaning vague and difficult to decipher just to mess with people who try to analyze every Beatles song.

Finally, we obviously must recognize the food mentioned in the chorus of “I Am the Walrus”, the most memorable part of the song. We’re of course talking about eggs, as in: “I am the egg man / They are the egg men / I am the walrus / Goo goo g'joob.”

The most obvious food related to “Magical Mystery Tour”? The second song on side two: “Strawberry Fields Forever.” The song was named after a Salvation Army children's home in Liverpool called Strawberry Field, which had a garden in which John Lennon played as a kid. The name was later given to a section of New York City’s Central Park that contains a memorial to Lennon. 

One chorus of “Penny Lane,” also from the “Magical Mystery Tour” album, includes the phrase “four of fish.” This is British slang for fourpenny (or four pence) worth of fish and chips, a classic English meal.

We’ve already touched on a couple of songs from the so-called “White Album,” but we have yet to mention one that has food right in the title: “Glass Onion.” Not only does it include the word “onion” numerous times, but it also references a previously mentioned song by name in its first lines of “I told you about Strawberry Fields / You know the place where nothing is real / Well, here's another place you can go / Where everything flows.”

Another song from “The White Album” is “Piggies,” an anti-establishment protest anthem. We won’t wade into John Lennon’s lyrics too much here other than to say at the very end, they include the word “bacon.”

After “Piggies,” the very next song on “The White Album” is “Rocky Raccoon,” a country ballad written by Paul McCartney. It’s a fairly straightforward song about a guy named Rocky who has his girl taken from him by a man named Dan. Dan shoots Rocky, who is tended to by a doctor who “came in stinking of gin.”

We already mentioned that tangerine has a second appearance in the song “Savoy Truffle,” from the “White Album,” but we didn’t explain that the tangerine reference in that track isn’t actually about the fruit itself. Instead, as the name suggests, “Savoy Truffle” is about the flavors in a box of chocolate truffles. (Written by George Harrison, the song is actually meant to poke fun at friend Eric Clapton’s love of chocolate.) In addition to the aforementioned creme tangerine, the truffle tune mentions Montélimar [nougat], ginger sling with pineapple, coffee dessert, cherry cream, apple tart, and coconut fudge.

The Beatles mention cake in their lyrics twice, and surprisingly, neither instance is in the song “Birthday.” However, birthday cake does get referenced in the “Yellow Submarine” album’s song “It’s All Too Much”: “All the world's a birthday cake / So take a piece but not too much.” A few months after that album was released in early 1969, the Beatles dropped the non-album single “The Ballad of John and Yoko.” “Made a lightning trip to Vienna,” the fourth verse says, “Eating chocolate cake in a bag.”

Let’s move on to a Beatles album that’s often considered a masterpiece, 1969’s “Abbey Road,” which opens with the classic, oft-covered song “Come Together.” This track’s first verse includes the lyrics: “He wear no shoeshine / He got toe jam football / He got monkey finger / He shoot Coca-Cola.” Later in the song, we also hear the word “cracker,” but it’s not referring to the food. Instead, “spinal cracker” was used as another term for someone who breaks the backs of others.

Staying on “Abbey Road” a little while longer, we, of course, need to mention a song with food right in the title: “Mean Mr. Mustard.” Of course, this song is clearly about a man who shares his surname with a food, but that counts in our book. (And we can’t help but wonder if Mr. Mustard is related to Colonel Mustard from the board game Clue.) 

We’ll end with one of the Beatles’ few traditional folk songs, “Maggie Mae,” from their final album, 1970’s “Let It Be.” (Although it’s worth mentioning that “Let It Be” was actually recorded prior to “Abbey Road.”) The song opens with this verse: “Oh, dirty Maggie Mae / They have taken her away / And she'll never walk down Lime Street anymore.” If only we could have ended with “The End,” but unfortunately, that short song doesn’t contain any food or drink references.