Lavatory Lil'

Song facts

“Lavatory Lil’” is a track from 2020 album “McCartney III“.

One thing we know about ‘Lavatory Lil’ is this… We will never know who Paul wrote the song about! We do know that the character is based on someone who Paul worked with, that turned into a bit of a baddie. Paul recorded the song using a vintage 1954 Telecaster guitar gifted to him by his wife Nancy. To get the great blues rock sound on the song, Paul played the Telecaster through his Vox AC30 amp.

From Spotify Storyline. Storyline is a feature of Spotify that gives behind-the-scenes information from artists about their songs, presented with a carousel of cards featuring a combination of text and images.

“Lavatory Lil” is a parody of someone I didn’t like. Someone I was working with who turned out to be a bit of a baddie. I thought things were great; it turned nasty. So I made up the character Lavatory Lil and remembered some of the things that had gone on and put them in the song. I don’t need to be more specific than that. I will never divulge who it was.

Paul McCartney – from interview with New York Times, November 29, 2020

Tell us about “Lavatory Lil”. This is a bit of light relief?

To tell you the truth, she was someone we rubbed up against. You get a few of ’em in life, these people who screw you over. I thought, ‘I’ll have you. I’ll write a song. You’ll never know it’s about you because I won’t tell anyone. But I’ll know. And people who know who I’m talking about will know.’ So I drew on my dislike of this individual and made her into a song character. It’s a simple little song, and I love playing it. The vocal was the first take. It’s like I say, if you think you’re doing a posh, important album, you might go over the vocal and think you can improve it. But this was: “It’ll do.” My missus gave me this beautiful little 1954 Telecaster which I haven’t played too much until this album, so it gave me a great chance on the lead part of “Lil”.

Paul McCartney, in UNCUT interview, January 2021

Paul McCartney slightly changed his story, during the “McCartney III” Twitter Listening Party, claiming “Lavatory Lil’” was a fictitious character (maybe because a lot of commentators thought and wrote that “Lavatory Lil’” could be Heather Mills, Paul’s second wife):

Lavatory Lil’ is about anybody that you don’t like and that you didn’t get on with and I think in our lives we have a lot of people like that. It’s not about anyone in particular but it is a fictitious character. It harks back to one of John’s old songs, Polythene Pam, and what you do is you take half an idea of someone, you just make a fiction about what they do and what they’re like, so that was Lavatory Lil’. My missus gave me this beautiful little 1954 Telecaster which I haven’t played too much until this album, so it gave me a great chance on the lead part of Lil’.

Paul McCartney – from the “McCartney III” Tim’s Twitter Listening Party, December 21, 2020

An alternative version of “Lavatory Lil’” was released as a bonus track on some versions of “McCartney III“.

In 2021, for the “McCartney III Imagined” project, American musician Josh Homme reimagined “Lavatory Lil’“.

Last updated on April 18, 2021

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