# Come together and shoot me **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 13, 2001, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-together-and-shoot-me/49900 "2001-01-13T21:11:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![omni-not](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8dc957/32.png) [@omni-not](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/omni-not)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2001, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-together-and-shoot-me/49900/1 "2001-01-13T21:11:39Z")
Does anybody know if John Lennon has ever explained the insertion of those two words, barely more than whispered and which would prove to be prophetic, in an admittedly already bizarre song? ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2001, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-together-and-shoot-me/49900/2 "2001-01-14T07:01:32Z")
> [@](#): > > He say, “Eins und eins und zwei ist fier” > Got to be good singer 'cause he’s so hard to hear Are you listening to the version on Abbey Road (and The Beatles 1), or the version on Anthology 3? If the former, I’m not hearing it. If the latter, I’ve never heard it. I did find some lyrics sites with “shoot me”, but other sites don’t have it. Where there is supposed to be “shoot me” I hear “shoop”, and I’m not even sure it’s a human voice I’m hearing. I’d be interested in learning if the official lyrics have ever been released. ---
**Author:** ![omni-not](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8dc957/32.png) [@omni-not](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/omni-not)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2001, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-together-and-shoot-me/49900/3 "2001-01-14T15:59:28Z")
> [@](#): > > I did find some lyrics sites with “shoot me”, but other sites don’t have it. Where there is supposed to be “shoot me” I hear “shoop”, and I’m not even sure it’s a human voice I’m hearing. It’s definitely there and the voice is definitely Lennon’s. Even though I haven’t double checked, I’m fairly sure it’s in all of the versions. The “shoop” you’re hearing is the ‘Shoot me’ part. There are 1,030 hits on Google for ‘Come Together’ and ‘lyrics’. As everyone else, I had heard the sound on the very first play (turn table, circa 1969:D), but only fairly recently did I notice, with a pair of headphones on, that what I had thought all that time was ‘shoo’ or ‘shoop’ was in fact ‘Shoot me’. Given what happened a bit more than 20 years ago, it kinda stuck in my mind. ---
**Author:** ![omni-not](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8dc957/32.png) [@omni-not](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/omni-not)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2001, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-together-and-shoot-me/49900/4 "2001-01-14T16:02:11Z")
Should have read: > [@](#): > > There are 1,030 hits on Google for ‘Come Together’ and ‘shoot me’. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2001, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-together-and-shoot-me/49900/5 "2001-01-14T18:46:59Z")
Because happiness is a warm gun … Spookily prophetic as it sounds, I’d just take it to be a needle drug reference. Lennon reportedly had a heroin addiction in the late sixties, though he claimed in a Rolling Stone interview that he only snorted the stuff, never shot it, and “It wasn’t too much fun”. Of course, a more definitive answer would be welcome. “he shoot coca-cola …” ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2001, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-together-and-shoot-me/49900/6 "2001-01-14T18:55:04Z")
According to Geoff Emerick, an engineer at the _Abbey Road_ sessions, “On the finished record you can really only hear the word ‘shoot’! The bass guitar note falls where the ‘me’ is.” No explanation as to the significance of the line, though. ---
**Author:** ![omni-not](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8dc957/32.png) [@omni-not](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/omni-not)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2001, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-together-and-shoot-me/49900/7 "2001-01-14T20:52:22Z")
Well, I hate to disagree with the principal recording engineer for the _Abbey Road_ sessions, but if you listen closely to the _Abbey Road_ CD with headphones glued to your ears, you _can_ hear the ‘me’ in ‘shoot me’, although not every single time. The cocaine angle is interesting, especially given the ‘he shoot coca-cola’ line. But I guess we’ll never know for sure.