The Rolling Stones: Mother's Little Helper Meaning

Song Released: 1966

Mother's Little Helper Lyrics

What a drag it is getting old

Kids are different today
I hear every mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down

And though she's not really ill
There's a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter
Of her Mother's...

1. 1TOP RATED

   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Oct 29th 2009 !⃝

   NO the song was NOT about speed, but the opposite, a yellow VALIUM, which was given out quite liberally in that time to not just bored housewives but anybody really who could go to the doctor. "Theres a little yellow pill, and she goes running for the shelter of her mothers little helper." The ending goes, "and if you take more of those you will get an overdose, no more running for the shelter of our mothers little helper!" P.S. not that you had to go to the doctor for them they(valium)were everywhere but the doctors presribed them to everybody with anything a headache, sleeping trouble, nervous habits etc..
2. anonymous

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   Jul 21st 2022 !⃝

   It was about suburban neurosis, women going craay stuck at home. Down the track it reflected the women's liberation moment when women started working out of the home, for good or bad. The drug was definitely valium.
3. anonymous

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   Nov 13th 2019 !⃝

   isnt it the drug Miltown ?
   
4. anonymous

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   Nov 18th 2018 !⃝

   I think you are all wrong. In 1966 I was working in a mental hospital in Sydney and the consensus of the nurses and Psychiatrists is that the drug was Largactil - a drug that has been used for over 100 years as an anti-depressant. My ancient medical books give the formula for Largactil as opium dissolved in alcohol until a saturated solution is achieved. Largactil was still being prescribed in 1966 in Australia.
5. anonymous

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   Oct 3rd 2018 !⃝

   Vallium was the little yellow pill, Xanax didn't appear until the 80s.
6. anonymous

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   Nov 17th 2014 !⃝

   A lot of people are saying the drug in the song is valium. Actually the drug is Xanax. I know they are practically the same, but Xanax is just a little different.
7. anonymous

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   Jan 21st 2013 !⃝

   I think it is referring to a pill called nembutal. A yellow pill that was classified as a barbituate or possibly valium not sure what color valium came in during the 60's.
8. anonymous

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   Apr 17th 2011 !⃝

   The local radio station stated the song was about drugs to help a woman from getting stressed out really bad. Mick Jagger thought it would make a cool song.
9. anonymous

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   Jan 27th 2011 !⃝

   Some of the videos mention this song & Jagger's prophecy @ www.cchr.org...
   
   Though those dudes have the story about right, most shrinks don't know it, being too young to have experienced older methodologies.
   
   The advent of psychotropics like lithium in the mid-70s fulfilled the prophecy - "sedate & medicate" came to replace hands-on therapies -- "Cuckoos Nest" looks humane compared to the skinner-box type "Psychiatric Units" of today.....no need for lobotomies -- it's now done chemically w/heavy-duty meds that scream through the blood-brain barrier and hammer the "patients" receptors into submission.
10. JasmineStar

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    Apr 26th 2009 !⃝

    When you gets adverts on TV or press coverage of hte issue of drugs there is a general speaking of drugs being something young teenagers and young adults abuse. it is also considered typical of men in bands and a lot of guys in particular are busted for drugs. However it is a bit hidden in our society how it is just as likely to be the mother who is abusing drugs. Antipscychotic, sleeping tablets, barbiturates, Valium and so much more gets prescribed to women by their doctors "doctor please, some more of these". We know the song does not talk about someone who takes some prescription for a week to recover from a death in the family. "outside the door she took one more". It is about the abuse of drugs by women in our society, and makes us realize that it is not just young people who are needing drugs to cope somehow with life.
11. anonymous

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    Feb 3rd 2009 !⃝

    This song is about using narcotics[speed] to help with life's daily stresses. Rich p.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway

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