Beatles: The Long and Winding Road Meaning

Song Released: 1969

The Long and Winding Road Lyrics

The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I’ve seen that road before
It always leads me here
Lead me to your door

The wild and windy night
That the rain washed away
Has left a pool of tears
Crying for the...

1. 1TOP RATED

   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Dec 31st 2015 !⃝

   as a child this song would make me cry. I was often abandoned and later abused physically / sexually.. I had a mother who drank heavily and many summers she would send me to relatives who would abuse me ..
   
   I would often wait for her to come and get me .. I was eight/ nine years of age..
   It was during one of those summers I heard this song and the line ' you leave me waiting here'.. now fills me w/ the longing . it is a beautiful song about loss in many ways

2. 2TOP RATED

   #2 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Jan 19th 2017 !⃝

   I had a boyfriend for 7 years. Bee were 2 kids on the same block since severe 5 years old. We were childhood sweethearts. We went steady for a long time. 1963-1970( age 23 to 20 years old)
   After High School graduation, 1967, he went away to school, 5 hours away from my home. Tough being so distant.
   January 1970, we were engaged to be married within the year.
   The summer of 1970, he came from school, and told me such sad news, the worst news in my life~~
   We were breaking up.
   He said, he found someone at school that loves him MORE than I love him, but he said, he loves me more than he could love her.
   I stood on my porch with him, so devastated. I was lost for words. I cried so much. Shocked and disappointed. We kissed each other goodbye.
   I called my boss at American Express, to tell him I needed one month away from work. I was at the worst emotional low, I ever experienced. Depression set in. IT took me many months to feel an improvement.
   The song The Long and Winding Road was released during that time.
   I have always related so much of those feelings to my life and his life, in the song. Still feel that way when I hear the song.
   After all those years, I still have a hole in my heart. I always remember our final moments together.
   "You left me standing here a long
   long time ago.........................
   I married in my thirties. Have a nice daughter. Currently divorced for many years.
   I spoke to my old boyfriend since 1970 ~~ a few years ago. He is wheelchair ridden.
   He has MS, since 1988. Still married to the one he met at school. He said to me that he never stopped loving me.
   It's been a very journey, and can honestly say, I've improved year after all those years, but ~~
   "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart"???????????????????
   my email address ~~
   califsurf2@aol.com

3. 3TOP RATED

   #3 top rated interpretation:
   dcs5991

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   Apr 1st 2009 !⃝

   this song is about the long journey to a girl's heart. paul is saying that he always ends up in the same situation and that when he says "The wild and windy night... Has left a pool of tears Crying for the day" he's saying the tough time the relationship ended up in left him waiting for the day, a new start.
4. anonymous

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   Oct 5th 2021 !⃝

   Although the song was likely related to the breakup of The Beatles, I interpret the long and winding road to be the road that leads to heaven’s door. The narrator is talking to God. The song includes an angelic choir in the background and the rising crescendo of them singing represents his movement toward heaven (where God and the angels are). Unfortunately, the door will not open for him and he is saddened by this. He’s asking to know how to gain entrance (“let me know the way”). Since Jesus is “the way, the truth and the life” (as Jesus himself stated in the book of John 14:6) the man is essentially asking to know Jesus. It would have been great to have additional lyrics where he then obeyed the gospel and the door was opened to him.
5. anonymous

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   Sep 25th 2020 !⃝

   To me it's about loss of a loved one by death. Lead me to your door means to meet again in heaven. I lost my husband at a very young age and when I hear the song it always reminds me of him.
6. anonymous

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   May 11th 2020 !⃝

   It's about a song to find a God. Someone really life in this material world with his/her sufferings, troubles and obstacles really try to find the solution in God. She/he is trying so hard to seek every path in this life, questioning the reason of living, contemplating everything which happened to his/her life. Still she/stuck in the same way, a long and winding road. A door is the God Himself but still didn't get the answer what this things all about. He/she mourning, grieving and searching his/her God asking his help and not leaving her/him in such as situation (sufferings, troubles and obstacles). Still the journey is not ended, she/he seeks and tries to enter His door.
7. anonymous

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   Apr 7th 2020 !⃝

   this is the time to wait for, it does not matter if it takes days to years, for that someone to show you her "door", which is basically her "heart" to be open for you again.
   
   basically, this guy thinks that she is the one but lost her at some point in time. and will wait for her to lead him back to her door.
   
   this song is about waiting for her to be ready to open her heart for you again no matter how long and winding the road may be. just keep waiting, eventually, when she feels, then her door will be shown to you once more.
8. anonymous

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   Jul 25th 2016 !⃝

   As it is with many of their songs, I believe "The Long and Winding Road" can have multiple meanings. From a road that Paul has fond memories of in the UK, to the relationship and experiences of the Beatles, to the angst of a love relationship and to life and faith. I interpret this song on the level of a long and winding road in life full of trials and tribulations. I take the door to be the boundary between life and beyond our lives and believe that is why you are always led back and waiting at the door until it is time for your wait on the long and winding road of (life) to end and you are then welcomed through that door. This song, and "Imagine" are my all-time favorites of many beloved songs by the greatest song writers of all time - John Lennon and Paul McCartney .
9. anonymous

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   Jul 23rd 2014 !⃝

   The true love he never had that can never be replaced by another.
10. anonymous

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    Nov 10th 2011 !⃝

    McCartney has confirmed that the 'long and winding road' referred to in the song is in fact the B842 road through East Kintyre in Scotland. He has his farm just off the road near a hamlet called Saddell and the area is close to his heart. Mine too.
11. anonymous

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    Nov 9th 2011 !⃝

    Anonymous Juy 19, 2007 is correct. Paul McCartney would mention years later & confirm it is about the journey of the Beatles. John wanted out when he met Yoko in 1966. It was too close to the beginning of their popularity then, Abbey Road was in fact their best & final effort as a group. They knew that. The long & winding road is a personal note the members [thank you] as well as an anouncement to the public. The Beatles, the greatest rock band of all time was, no more!
12. anonymous

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    Jun 25th 2011 !⃝

    No matter how much he wants to stop seeing her he always goes back to her because he loves her.
13. anonymous

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    Aug 18th 2008 !⃝

    I think its kinda about the long road that the Beatles had been on together, from Liverpool, girls, fame, drugs, and their brotherhood.
14. anonymous

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    Aug 1st 2007 !⃝

    I think this song can relate to fans of The Beatles and The Beatles themselves. The Beatles career hasn't been a plain one. There have been many ups and downs. Yet it can also relate to any person's life in general. It's basically just saying (I think...) that life isn't easy and it's certainly not flat and boring, but when in the end we still have the memories. It's actually a pretty self explanatory song.
15. anonymous

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    Jul 19th 2007 !⃝

    The song was Paul reflecting on the career of the Fab Four. It was on the "let it be" album, and was a message that they had their differences and that while it had been a good time, things were not so good anymore. The long and winding road that leads to your door, was describing the crazy time the Beatles had gone through to get their music to the fans. And when he says that the road will never disappear, he means that their music will not be forgotten. Paul was also the one that left, so it would make sense that he would be the one to tell people its been fun, but it's time to go.
16. anonymous

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    Mar 24th 2006 !⃝

    I truly believe this is a love song and it could be sung about a spouse, a lover, a friend, or a family member. The long and winding road is a metaphor for someone's life. That life always leads back to the door of this other person, and they will always be connected to us somehow -- no matter what. The winding road represents all the challenges we deal with in our lives, but the comfort is "the door" that we can always count on. That person is always standing on the other side of the door and will be there for us. This song "sings" to the comfort that is felt in this awareness.
17. anonymous

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    Dec 23rd 2005 !⃝

    Well, it's one person talking to another about being "outside the door" of another. The door is the heart. The one seeking to be "let in" has been on a journey, on a long (long time) and winding (direction not making sense almost all the time) road (life), and seeking patiently to walk with (vs. being left standing there) the one pursued, on the road, and eventually thru the (their heart's) door. The song/words are sad because it reveals the pursuee is reluctant to "let in" (who knows why for sure - human nature is reluctant when pursued, perhaps out of fear, whether justified or not) the pursuer. But also hopeful because the pursuer knows in his heart, he will not give up in spite of the perhaps temporary unwillingness of the pursued.
    
    For the one who loves unconditionally bares the burden and sadness of waiting for the other, the one who is loved, until they are ready to open the door and have them finally see there was nothing to fear, and most wonderful of all to know they are accepted, completely, with all their faults and in spite of what the pursuer had to go thru to finally be "let in".
    
    In truth, this is the story of God. Jesus, God in flesh, came seeking us and we have time and again left him on the side of the road waiting. Our guilt is so great, we can't believe He would still pursue - but He does, it is who He is. During our life, we zig-zag like children running from their Daddy, half afraid, half hoping He'll catch us. And there are times, windy nights (very difficult times - our ignorant rebellion), that make Him said, yet His longing is to continually be "let in" remains. What a day for those that let Him in! I am one who took the chance to get risky with Jesus and let him in, whom Daddy has caught up in His arms and said, "I gochyou...and I'm never letting you go". And I laugh with delight for there is no better thing than being held by Him.
18. anavrin

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    Apr 14th 2005 !⃝

    I've always taken it to mean sort of the Beatle's career, and how they had a grand journey, but sort of ended up in the same place they left off. I've also heard it's about a winding road near Paul's house in England.

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