See Yourself

‘See Yourself’ is the fifth song on George Harrison’s seventh solo album Thirty Three & ⅓.

It was written about the public outcry after Paul McCartney admitted taking LSD in 1967.

‘See Yourself’ is directly related to taking the the drug LSD and Paul’s experience with the press. John and I had taken it for about two years before it was publicised. After having had that experience we (John and I) wanted the others to know about it because suddenly there seemed to be a big space between us and the other two. Ringo then had some but Paul would not take it. After about two years he finally did, and somehow then it all came out in the papers.

They went to Paul and said ‘Have you taken the dangerous drug LSD?’ and he said ‘Look I’m going to tell the truth: it’s going to be your responsibility, as the newspapers, passing it on’. So they said ‘Look just tell us, have you taken it or not?’ and he said ‘Yes’. And of course they passed it on to the waiting world. There was a big outcry with people saying ‘You should have said “No!”‘, I wrote most of that song back in 1967 but didn’t finish it until much later:

It’s easter to tell a lie
Than it is to tell the truth
It’s easier to kill a fly
Than it is to turn it loose
It’s easter to see the books upon the shelf
Than to see yourself

It was one of the tunes that I forgot about but in 1976 I remembered it, completed the lyrics to the bridge and the second and third verses, and recorded it that year.

Harrison began writing ‘See Yourself’ in the summer of 1967, in response to the media maelstrom surrounding McCartney’s LSD admission. However, it was not completed until almost a decade later, with the lyrics of the second and third verses and the middle eight written in 1976.

Along with ‘Dear One’, ‘See Yourself’ was one of two songs on Thirty Three & ⅓ dedicated to Premavatar Paramahansa Yogananda, author of Autobiography Of A Yogi.