“I Dig Rock and Roll Music” was a 1967 song released by Peter, Paul and Mary that poked fun at iconic artists like the Mamas & the Papas, Donovan, and The Beatles. The lyrics were written by Paul Stookey, James Mason and Dave Dixon—but Stookey, 88, has recently admitted that he regrets one line in particular.
“When you write songs, you sometimes get overwhelmed by the desire to rhyme something rather than to say what it is you mean,” he said when speaking with Rolling Stoneon June 23. “I was young and impatient when I wrote ‘I Dig Rock and Roll Music,' and the verse that says, ‘And when the Beatles tell you they got a word love to sell you, they mean exactly what they say,' I never meant to demean their motives.”
He went on to explain that he has always loved The Beatles and said, “I thought [Paul] McCartney and Lennon, Harrison, Starr, they were digging deep into personal relationships, and there was a truth there. There still is. I mean, in pop music today, it's very hard to summon, how shall I say, the substantiation of wanting to do the twist to ‘This Land Is Your Land' or to boogie or to dance to ‘Blowin' in the Wind.'”
Stookey continued, “I thought The Beatles did an amazing job of bringing first-person angst into the public arena, ‘She Loves You,' I mean, even their early tunes. As they got later and later in their careers, I don't think they lost a thing, and their musicality was off the charts. It was just some brilliant writing."
Related: 1962 Classic Hit, Named One of the Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll, Never Reached No. 1
Stookey also added that he thinks people will be “talking about the immense library of work that still is performed that was created by Paul McCartney and John Lennon” 50 years from now.
Peter, Paul and Mary were a folk group comprised of Stookey, Peter Yarrow, and Mary Travers. Some of their most iconic songs were "Leaving on a Jet Plane," "Puff, the Magic Dragon," and “500 Miles.” In 1999, they were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, but the band dissolved after Travers died in 2009. Yarrow died in 2025, making Stookey the last surviving member of the band.
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