“Day Tripper” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released as a double A-side single with “We Can Work It Out” in December 1965. The song was written primarily by John Lennon with some contributions from Paul McCartney and was credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. Both songs were recorded during the sessions for the band’s Rubber Soul album. The single topped charts in Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands and Norway. In the United States, “Day Tripper” peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and “We Can Work It Out” held the top position.
Lennon described “Day Tripper” as a “drug song” in 1970,[10] and in a 2004 interview McCartney said it was “about acid” (LSD).[11] The song title is a play on words referring to both a tourist on a day-trip and a “trip” in the sense of a psychedelic experience.[12] Lennon recalled: “Day trippers are people who go on a day trip, right? Usually on a ferryboat or something. But [the song] was kind of … ‘you’re just a weekend hippie.’ Get it?”[8][13] In Many Years from Now, McCartney says that “Day Tripper” was about sex and drugs; he describes it as “a tongue-in-cheek song about someone who was … committed only in part to the idea. Whereas we saw ourselves as full-time trippers …”[14]