A dry-witted story of a man who failed to charm his love interest into bed, and how he got his revenge in an extreme (and sociopathic) way.

Norwegian Wood is my song completely. It was about an affair I was having. I was very careful and paranoid because I didn’t want my wife, Cyn, to know that there really was something going on outside of the household. I’d always had some kind of affairs going, so I was trying to be sophisticated in writing about an affair, but in such a smoke-screen way that you couldn’t tell. But I can’t remember any specific woman it had to do with.
John Lennon, interview with David Sheff

The song is known for its Indian influences. Hindu culture was very popular in the sixties, especially sitar music. This is the first recording of sitar in a Beatles record. George Harrison found an old sitar in a closet in Abbey Road studios and the band decided to use it for the song. Harrison would continue to play sitar for the next few years, even studying for a time with famed maestro Ravi Shankar.

Haruki Murakami, one of the most influential Japanese authors of our time, wrote a book inspired by this song and named it “Norwegian Wood.”