"The Fool on the Hill" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1967 EP and album Magical Mystery Tour. It was written and sung by Paul McCartney and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. The lyrics describe the titular "fool", a solitary figure who is not understood by others, but is actually wise. McCartney said the idea for the song was inspired by the Dutch design collective the Fool, who derived their name from the tarot card of the same name, and possibly by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The song's segment in the Magical Mystery Tour television film was shot separately from the rest of the film and without the other Beatles' knowledge. Accompanied by a professional cameraman, McCartney filmed the scene near Nice in France. In 1968, Sérgio Mendes & Brasil '66 recorded a cover version of the song that reached the top ten in the US. By the late 1970s, "The Fool on the Hill" was one of McCartney's most widely recorded ballads. A solo demo and an outtake of the song were included on the Beatles' 1996 compilation album Anthology 2. Background and lyrics The song's lyrics describe the titular "fool", a solitary figure who is not understood by others, but is actually wise. In his authorised biography, Many Years from Now, Paul McCartney says he first got the idea for the premise from the Dutch design collective the Fool, who were the Beatles' favourite designers in 1967 and told him that they had derived their name from the Tarot card of the same name. According to McCartney, the song possibly relates to a character such as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Beatles' meditation teacher: "Fool on the Hill" was mine and I think I was writing about someone like Maharishi. His detractors called him a fool. Because of his giggle, he wasn't taken too seriously. It was this idea of a fool on the hill, a guru in a cave, I was attracted to... I was sitting at the piano at my father's house in Liverpool hitting a D 6th chord, and I made up "Fool on the Hill". Alistair Taylor, in his book Yesterday, reports a mysterious incident involving a man who inexplicably appeared near him and McCartney during a walk on Primrose Hill and then disappeared again, soon after McCartney and Taylor had conversed about the existence of God. In Taylor's account,