"Day Tripper" is a song by The Beatles. Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, it was released as a double A-side single with "We Can Work It Out". Both songs were recorded during the sessions for the Rubber Soul album. "Day Tripper" topped the UK Singles Chart and the song peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100.
Under the pressure of needing a new single for the Christmas market, Lennon wrote most of the lyrics and the famous guitar hook, while McCartney worked on the verses. "Day Tripper" was a typical play on words by Lennon: "Day trippers are people who go on a day trip, right? Usually on a ferryboat or something. But [the song] was kind of . . . you're just a weekend hippie. Get it?" In the same interview Lennon said, "That's mine. Including the lick, the guitar break and the whole bit." In his 1970 interview with Rolling Stone, however, he used "Day Tripper" as one example of their collaboration, where one partner had the main idea but the other took up the cause and completed it. For his part, McCartney claimed it was very much a collaboration based on Lennon's original idea.
In Many Years From Now, McCartney said that "Day Tripper" was about drugs, and "a tongue-in-cheek song about someone who was ... committed only in part to the idea." The line recorded as "she's a big teaser" was originally written as "she's a prick teaser."
