A Fan Climbed Through Paul McCartney’s Window, and He Wrote This 1969 Song About It

Nowadays, it seems like everyone gets a little parasocial about their favorite celebrities. It’s easy to assume that this is a newly developed phenomenon, especially given the rise of the internet in recent years. However, it seems like even when The Beatles were at the height of their fame, there were fans who would’ve given anything for a chance to meet their favorite singer.

In 1969, on the Abbey Road album, The Beatles released a song called “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window”. As Paul McCartney explained in The Lyrics, he wrote this song about one particular fan who actually did attempt to do this. Not only did the fan try to climb through McCartney’s window, but she also stole a photo of his father, as he explained.

This totally explains the line in the song that goes: “She could steal, but she could not rob.”

“A fan, apparently—one of a group called the ‘Apple scruffs’,” Paul McCartney said of the situation. “She found a ladder lying outside my house in London. As far as I recall, she stole a picture of my cotton salesman dad. Or robbed me of it. But I got the song in return.”

Diane Ashley, an Apple Scruff, once admitted to Steve Turner that she was the inspiration for the song. To her credit, though, the window of McCartney’s bathroom was left ajar.

“We found a ladder in [Paul’s] garden and stuck it up at the bathroom window, which he’d left slightly open,” she explained. “I was the one who climbed up and got in.”

Who Were the Apple Scruffs?

The “Apple Scruffs” were a group of Beatles fans who would sometimes gather outside the Apple Corps building and Abbey Road Studios in London, especially in the 60s. The group made such an impact on The Beatles that one of them, George Harrison, actually wrote a tribute song for them. Titled “Apple Scruffs”, this song appears on his album All Things Must Pass.

“Apple Scruffs” is kind of a love song to The Beatles’ especially devoted fans, with a simple chorus in which Harrison tells them, “How I love you, how I love you.” In the verses, he sings of their unwavering dedication.

In the fog and in the rain
Through the pleasures and the pain
On the step outside you stand
With your flowers in your hand, my Apple Scruffs.

Linda Easton, who was an Apple Scruff back in the day, spoke highly of Harrison.

“It was George who would talk to us the most and we could not believe it when he wrote a song about us,” she shared. “Some of the Scruffs even went to see him record it.”

Photo by: Chris Walter/WireImage

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