"Lovely Rita" originates from when a female traffic warden named Meta Davies issued a parking ticket to McCartney outside Abbey Road Studios.

[7] In his comments to biographer Barry Miles, however, McCartney refuted the idea that this episode inspired the song: "It wasn't based on a real person.

[9] According to a contemporary report on the recording of "Lovely Rita", in Beat Instrumental magazine, the lyrics were completed by McCartney and John Lennon during the session.

[10] According to engineer Geoff Emerick, McCartney had told George Martin, the band's producer, that he wanted the backing vocals to replicate how the Beach Boys "might approach the song".

[11] The Beatles were visited in the studio that evening by Tony Hicks of the Hollies, American musicians David Crosby and Shawn Phillips, and the brother of Ravi Shankar, Harrison's sitar teacher.

Enjoying the lighthearted session, the Beatles also added percussive effects played on comb and paper, serving as handmade kazoos,[8] and vocalised sounds such as moans, sighs and screams.

[9][13] Martin later described the session as "anarchy", given how little was achieved over the seven hours, and cited it as a precedent for the group's "undisciplined, sometimes self-indulgent" method of working on Magical Mystery Tour later in 1967.

Drummer Nick Mason recalled that they watched the band mixing "Lovely Rita" but they were "God-like figures to us" and any interaction between the two groups was minimal.

[8] Pink Floyd later used effects inspired by "Lovely Rita" when recording their instrumental composition "Pow R. Toc H." from their debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

Pepper had the Beatles not been pressured into issuing "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" as a non-album single in advance of the album's release.