"Girl" is a song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney based on an original idea by Lennon and performed by The Beatles on their 1965 album Rubber Soul. "Girl" was the last complete song recorded for that album
The song's lyrics describe a girl the singer loves, but with misgivings: "She's the kind of girl who puts you down / When friends are there, you feel a fool." Backing the bridges is a refrain sung by Lennon while McCartney and George Harrison repeatedly sing a syllable for vocal percussion (they were supposed to sing "dit-dit-dit-dit" but decided to sing "tit-tit-tit-tit" as a joke). The deep breaths in the chorus were rumoured to have symbolised taking a long inhalation (toke) of a marijuana joint.
According to McCartney, he wrote the lines "Was she told when she was young that pain would lead to pleasure" and "That a man must break his back to earn his day of leisure." , but in a 1970 interview with Rolling Stone, Lennon claimed those lyrics were a dig at the Roman Catholic Church.
In an interview for Rolling Stone magazine on 5 December 1980, Lennon said his 1980 song "[Woman] reminds me of a Beatles track, but I wasn't trying to make it sound like that. I did it as I did 'Girl' many years ago. So this is the grown-up version of 'Girl.'" ("Woman" was the second single released from the Double Fantasy album, and the first Lennon single issued after his death on 8 December 1980.
