Which instrument appears in the Beatles song “Fool on the Hill”?

Orchestral flutes are the main accompanying instrument throughout the piece, alongside McCartney’s piano part. But aside from the three professional flutists, McCartney himself steals the show by playing solos on another woodwind instrument at three different points in the song. These solos were actually recorded before the orchestral overdubs, which producer George Martin says were added later to make the record “sound a bit more professional.”

McCartney’s woodwind part, however, was entirely his own initiative and was included at his insistence. Listening to the song today, it seems like an inspired decision. But it was a decision that took some time for Martin to agree to.

So what did Paul play?

McCartney is generally credited in The Fool on the Hill as playing a wooden recorder, a type of flute with a pipe mouthpiece, also known by the technical term “fipple flute”. In an episode of John Gilliand’s 1969 radio documentary Pop ChroniclesMartin clarified that no recorder was actually played in the song.

According to Martin, at the beginning of the recording process, Paul “brought his little toy whistle, his little penny whistle, which he was experimenting with.” Unlike a wooden flute, a penny whistle, also called a tin whistle, is a lightweight metal instrument that usually has exactly five finger holes. The modern version of the instrument was invented in the mid-19th century by Robert Clarke in the northern English city of Manchester, and was seen primarily as a children’s toy in the 20th century.

To Martin’s chagrin, McCartney said he was going to “try and use it on the latest Beatles record.” In the end, however, the producer relented. “It’s on the record, that’s his tin whistle,” Martin confirmed. “And we double-recorded it so he sounds a bit better.”

Indeed, the childlike innocence evoked by the sound of the tin whistle perfectly reflects the apparent naivety of the “fool” described in the song. As always, McCartney’s musical instincts were on point and his willingness to experiment in the studio resulted in an inspired piece of instrumentation.

His tin whistle belongs in the pantheon of unexpected sounds in Beatles songs, without which their recordings would not sound quite so Beatles-like. Just like the “Fool on the Hill” himself, four boys from Liverpool with no formal musical training often saw things that classically trained musicians simply couldn’t see.

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