By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Music is a major part of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but most of the show featured newer music that both the characters and their young fans would vibe to. This includes everything from the series’ rollicking opening theme to crooning tunes of all those hip young bands that appeared at the Bronze. However, the Buffy episode “Out of Mind, Out of Sight” bucked the show’s modern musical trends by hiding references to the Beatles’ “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” in a pivotal scene.
Buffy Meets The Beatles
If you need a quick refresher, “Out of Mind, Out of Sight” is the episode where Buffy and the Scooby Gang must contend with an invisible girl who is using her newfound powers to try to murder people. In a remarkably dark coda for this episode, we see that the invisible gal in question has been recruited by the FBI and is given a textbook with the ominous name Assassination and Infiltration. “Cool,” she says, and this Buffy moment is so weird and shocking that it’s easy to miss the Beatles references hidden within the textbook.
For this particular Buffy episode, the producers chose the perfect Beatles song: “Happiness is a warm gun.” As with many songs from the iconic band, the song lyrics (which appear prominently in the assassination textbook) are up for interpretation, but most take this song at face value in how it equates happiness and killing. Therefore, the book lyrics are perfect for an assassination textbook that has just been handed to a young girl who has just spent an entire episode trying to murder several people, including our favorite heroes.
However, Buffy fans who pay close attention to this scene will notice that some of the lyrics to this beloved Beatles song have been changed. For example, the actual line “happiness is a warm gun” has been changed to “joy is a hot revolver.” This is one of the reasons that many fans have overlooked this Beatles Easter egg, as the most recognizable line of the song has been completely changed.
For Buffy fans who take a really close look at this textbook, there is a line that doesn’t come from “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” or any other Beatles song. The last visible line of text reads, “because joy is a hot revolver, and he is afraid of the monkeys who are in possession of digital skeletons of Swiss cheese.” This nonsense line has always gone unexplained, though the cheese reference brings to mind the infamous Cheese Man from “Restless”. Then again, considering how Joss Whedon confirmed there is no greater meaning to that character, there’s likely no greater meaning behind these fictional cheese skeletons.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Beatles make for a strange combination, especially considering that the episode “Once More, With Feeling” emphasized how sinister a catchy tune can be. Nonetheless, this strange Easter egg makes “Out of Mind, Out of Sight” that much more captivating. This is an episode that confirms the American government is recruiting superpowered individuals and training them to kill using lyrics from the most dangerous weapon of them all: John Lennon’s brain.
