John Lennon Love Songs/Hate Songs

Here's John Lennon's views on the hits and misses of the Beatles back catalogue, almost all quotes are from All We Are Saying (David Sheff) and Lennon Remembers (Jann Wenner) [reviews here].

HITS

Here There And Everywhere was a great one of [Paul's]. That's Paul's song completely, I believe. And one of my favourite songs of the Beatles

Something - I think that's about the best track on [Abbey Road] actually

For No One - Another of [Paul's] I really liked. One of my favourites of his. A nice piece of work.

Got To Get You Into My Life - I think that was one of [Paul's] best songs, too, because the lyrics are good

Things We Said Today - Good song

Fixing A Hole - That's Paul, again writing a good lyric

I'm Only Sleeping - One of my favourites

Fool On The Hill - Paul proving he can write lyrics if he's a good boy...shows he's capable of writing complete songs

I'm So Tired - One of my favourite tracks. I just like the sound of it, and I sing it well

Oh! Darling was a great one of Paul's ...If he'd had any sense he should have let me sing it.

Hey Jude is a damn good set of lyrics and I made no contribution to that...It's one of [Paul's] masterpieces

All My Loving is Paul, I regret to say. Ha ha ha … Because it's a damn fine piece of work. But I play a pretty mean guitar in back.

Within You Without You - One of George's best songs. One of my favourites of his, too. He's clear on that song. His mind and his music are clear. There is his innate talent. He brought that sound together.

Come Together was a funky record - it's one of my favourite Beatle tracks, or, one of my favourite Lennon tracks, let's say that. It's funky, it's bluesy, and I'm singing it pretty well. I like the sound of the record. You can dance to it. I'd buy it!

I like Across the Universe because it's one of the best lyrics I've written. In fact, it could be the best, I don't know … it's good poetry ... the ones I like are the ones that stand as words without melody … it's a poem, you know?

Happiness Is a Warm Gun - Oh, I like that, one of my best. I had forgotten about that. Oh, I love it. I think it's a beautiful song. I like all the different things that are happening in it.


MISSES

Run For Your Life I always hated. It was one of those I knocked off just to write a song, and it was phony.

And Your Bird Can Sing - Another horror. Another of my throwaways.

Birthday - A piece of garbage

Cry Baby Cry - Not me [Yes it was!]. A piece of rubbish

Honey Pie - I don't even want to think about that

Mean Mr Mustard - That's me, writing a piece of garbage

Sun King - That’s a piece of garbage I had around

Dig A Pony - Another piece of garbage

I'll Get You - That was Paul and me trying to write a song, and it didn't work out

Hold Me Tight - That was Paul's...It was a pretty poor song and I was never really interested in it

I Wanna Be Your Man - It was a throw-away. The only two versions of the song were Ringo and the Rolling Stones. It shows how much importance we put on them. We weren't going to give them anything great, right?

Eight Days A Week was never a good song. We struggled to record it and struggled to make it into a song. It was [Paul's] initial effort, but I think we both worked on it. I'm not sure. But it was lousy anyway

It's Only Love is mine. I always thought it was a lousy song. The lyrics were abysmal. I always hated that song

Good Morning Good Morning is mine. It's a throwaway, a piece of garbage, I always thought.

Maxwell's Silver Hammer - I hate it. 'Cuz all I remember is the track – [Paul] made us do it a hundred million times. He did everything to make it into a single and it never was and it never could've been, but he put guitar licks on it and he had somebody hitting iron pieces and we spent more money on that song than any of them in the whole album.





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Long Lennon Interviews (Double Book Review)

Time to take a look at two book length interviews with John Lennon: 1970's Lennon Remembers (Jan Wenner) and 1980's All We Are Saying (David Sheff).

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Book Review - John Lennon: The Definitive Biography

One of the most highly regarded biographies of John Lennon. Does it deserve it's reputation?

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For Yer Blues

Was [Yer Blues] deliberately meant to be a parody of the English blues scene?

John Lennon: Well, a bit. I'm a bit self-conscious — we all were a bit self-conscious and the Beatles were super self-conscious people about parody of Americans which we do and have done. I know we developed our own style but we still in a way parodied American music... there was a self-consciousness about singing blues. We were all listening to Sleepy John Estes and all that in art school, like everybody else. But to sing it was something else.


Rolling Stone interview with Jann Wenner (8 Dec 1970)

Links

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70+ Songwriting Tips From The Beatles
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Ticket 37: The Lennon Edit

In the words of Ian MacDonald, John Lennon suffered from “A thoughtful impatience…a keenness to draw in the slack” (RGTTB p.370) and what appear to be odd time signature are often better understood as John's eagerness to get to the next line of vocals. So apply this songwriting trick by looking at your vocal line and simply remove beats or whole bars at points where there are gaps.

All You Need Is Love
Any Time At All
Good Day Sunshine
Good Morning Good Morning
Happiness Is A Warm Gun
I Me Mine
Julia
Savoy Truffle - verse 1 & 2
She Said She Said
The End
You Never Give Me Your Money

also

Country Blues and Folk tunes (especially as performed by solo guitarists), Advertising jingles, TV theme tunes

See also

Ticket 15: Change Time Signatures Between Sections
Ticket 29: Use Polyrhythms
Ticket 36: Emphasise Key Lyrics By Changing Chord On Every Syllable Or Word
Ticket 52: The Lennon Extension
Ticket 61: Don't Bore Us, Get To The Weirdness

See the full list of songwriting tips here - Tickets To Write

Songwriting Academy News - No Bull!

Not sure 'John' rhymes with 'LenNON' but British Rapper Dan Bull is right - if you want to be a great writer you should "write and write and write" so...

...in the name of furthering musical knowledge (and giving BSA a spring clean) I'll be posting a daily songwriting tip aka Ticket To Write

10:31 Glass Onion (pt.1)

John Lennon was a man of many contradictions. On the one hand he hated people over analysing, and reading hidden meanings into, his songs. From intellectuals enraptured by his aeolian cadences, though 'Paul is Dead' stupidity, to the Manson Family's lethal interpretations. But on the other hand , for all his protestations, he was just as guilty as his audience - convincing himself that Hey Jude was REALLY about his love affair with Yoko rather than a song of comfort for his own abandoned son.

Arguably his attempts to ridicule and infuriate the obsessives DaVinci-coding their way through lyrics sheets only added more fuel to the fire. In Glass Onion, if you look closely, you can clearly see, not the Freemason's all seeing eye, but the Lennon's raised middle finger as he references five other Beatles songs - including one which references a song which references another song. Deep man!

1) Glass Onion - Strawberry Fields Forever

I told you about Strawberry Fields you know the place where nothing is real

Let me take you down 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields Nothing is real


2) Glass Onion - I Am The Walrus

I told you about the walrus and me/here's another clue for you all/the walrus is Paul

I am the egg-man, they are the egg-men, I am the walrus, goo goo a' joob


3) Glass Onion - Lady Madonna - I Am The Walrus – Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

Lady Madonna trying to make ends meet

Lady Madonna, children at your feet/Wonder how you manage to make ends meet?


Lady Madonna - I Am The Walrus

Monday's child has learned to tie his bootlace/See how they run

See how they run like pigs from a gun


I Am The Walrus – Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

See how they fly like Lucy in the sky

With your head in the clouds and you're gone/Lucy in the sky with diamonds


4) Glass Onion - Fool On The Hill

I told you about the fool on the hill

But the fool on the hill sees the sun going down


5) Glass Onion - Fixing A Hole

Fixing a hole in the ocean/Tryin' to make a dovetail joint

I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in/And stops my mind from wandering

   The song is another example of Lennon's trippy lyrical style aka 'stream of consciousness, free-association, psychedelic, nonsense literature, surrealism'. It's something that is often attributed to LSD use but was evident in his prose and poetry even from childhood. I think drugs receive far too much credit for inspiring the Beatles songwriting (something I plan to write about in more detail) - anyone who grew up on The Goon Show, Stanley Unwin & Lewis Carroll wouldn't need much chemical encouragement to bring the weird.

Like Happiness Is A Warm Gun most of the weird phrases are simply real life details made startlingly poetic. The bent back tulips were an unusual flower arrangements in a posh London restaurant called Parke's, a perfect place for 'seeing how the other half lives', a dovetail joint is something in carpentry (and a cheeky drug reference) and the Cast Iron Shore was a real place in Liverpool.

Next time we'll look at what Glass Onion does well from a songwriting point of view.

        

Lennon As McCartney

Here's some rare outtakes of John Lennon taking vocals on some Paul McCartney led songs

I've Got A Feeling

And who knows what Paul is thinking on this one...

Oh! Darling

(thanks to Martin Quibell for links)

Coming Soon!

February is February Album Writing Month so I'll be taking time out to write lots of songs, but NEVER FEAR! I'll be posting a longer Ticket To Write post EVERY BLOOMING DAY during Feb.!

Ray Davies Reviews Revolver

Paul McCartney was one of the most competitive people I've ever met. Lennon wasn't. He just thought everyone else was sh*t 

Ray Davies (The Kinks) in Revolver: How the Beatles Reimagined Rock 'n' Roll by Robert Rodriguez

As well as that gem, here's another I found via Rodriguez's book - Ray's review of Revolver for Disc and Music Echo Magazine in Aug '66

'Really, it's a load of RUBBISH'

Taxman - It sounds like a cross between the Who and Batman. It's a bit limited, but the Beatles get over this by the sexy double-tracking. It's surprising how sexy double-tracking makes a voice sound.

Eleanor Rigby - I bought a Haydn LP the other day and this sounds just like it. It's all sort of quartet stuff and it sounds like they're out to please music teachers in primary schools. I can imagine John saying: 'I'm going to write this for my old schoolmistress'.

I'm Only Sleeping - It's a most beautiful song, much prettier than 'Eleanor Rigby'. A jolly old thing, really, and definitely the best track on the album.

Love You Too - This sort of song I was doing two years ago--now I'm doing what the Beatles were doing two years ago. It's not a bad song--it's well performed which is always true of a Beatles track.

Yellow Submarine - This is a load of rubbish, really. I take the mickey out of myself on the piano and play stuff like this.

Good Day Sunshine - This'll be a giant. It doesn't force itself on you, but it stands out like I'm Only Sleeping. This is back to the real old Beatles. I just don't think the fans like the newer electronic stuff. The Beatles are supposed to be like the boy next door only better.

Got To Get You Into My Life - It just goes to prove that Britain's jazz musicians can't swing.

Tomorrow Never Knows - Listen to all those crazy sounds! It'll be popular in discotheques. I can imagine they had George Martin tied to a totem pole when they did this!

So, after listening to each track three or four times, the Ray Davies verdict: This is the first Beatles LP I've really listened to in it's entirety but I must say there are better songs on 'Rubber Soul'.

Go to KindaKinks.Net to read the whole review

Under The Influence: Jerry Cantrell (Alice In Chains)

I always considered John Lennon the 'dark' Beatle, and I guess I always dig the dark horse guys. But there was always a lot of heart in his songs. [A Day In The Life] is a really magical one about how there are beautiful things in life, though it’s a journey through some heavy stuff. 

 Jerry Cantrell in Lava Magazine

10:22 Happiness Is A Warm Gun (pt.1)

The Genesis and Structure of Lennon's Precursor to the Abbey Road Medley

This is probably John Lennon's most complex Beatles song, rivalled only by A Day In The Life and Strawberry Fields Forever, which are both complex for very different reasons.

Genesis

The original demo (recorded at George Harrison's house) has five sections one of which doesn't appear on the finished version. The White Album has four sections, two of which don't appear on the demo.

White Album                 Anthology 3 (Esher Demo)

She's Not A Girl             -
I Need A Fix                  I Need A Fix
-                                   Mother Superior
-                                   Yoko Ono Oh No
-                                   I Need A Fix
Mother Superior             Mother Superior
Happiness Is A...            -

The three distinct sections that make up the demo are all different songs that were pieced together (ticket 55). Though the weakest section was dropped (Yoko Ono, Oh No), two more sections were added between demo and studio sessions and were presumably written specifically for inclusion in this song. So there are four sections, but they're constructed from three separate 'parts'. With me so far?

In working this way Lennon was prefiguring the Abbey Road medley in his own miniature way, for, though he contributed fragments to 'The Long One', the latter was McCartney and Martin's baby and Lennon had little enthusiasm for it.

The song was fully formed by the time Lennon turned up at Abbey Road on Sep 23, 1968, which means the edits and revisions were mostly John's handiwork rather than a group effort (see below). But what the band undoubtedly contributed was nailing him down to specific time signatures and numbers of bars. Listen to the demo (above) to hear how (ahem) 'fluid' Lennon's timing is. Elastic doesn't begin to cover it. There are so many odd bars it's hard to know where beats have been removed (ticket 37) or added (ticket 52).

Though “95 takes” is often bandied about it actually took a mere 70 (!) to lay down the backing track (an edit of takes 53 and 65, probably spliced at 1:34). The remaining takes were spent overdubbing backing vocals, organ, piano, snare drum, tambourine, extra bass, barely audible tuba (!) and rerecording the lead vocals (you can hear a spill from a guide vocal at 2:21).

At the start of recording the title was Happiness Is A Warm Gun In Your Hand. It's unlikely that was the demo's title as that section hadn't been written yet!

Structure

Let's look at the song section by section.

Section 1: “She's not a girl who misses much”

John trims the fat (ticket 2) by having the intro consist of a single syllable “she's...”

What follows is the finger picking pattern John learned from Donovan in Rishikesh and used on Julia and Dear Prudence. Paul used it in a more primitive fashion on Blackbird. The guitar sounds heavy, almost slowed down in a similar way to the Rain backing track. The 2 chord pattern appears initially in the key of Em then switches to Am. The riff is in 4/4 albeit with a varying numbers of bars, and a single 2/4 bar appears during the words "donated to the...”

Lyrically this is, by far, longest section, there are no repeats and nothing in the 'first person'.

This section also features the work of one of the Beatles many uncredited co-writers (more on this here). Apple's publicist Derek Taylor* brainstormed lyrics on this section with Lennon and contributing the “lizard on a window pane” and “velvet hand” lines from personal recollections. Despite the bizarre stream of consciousness lyrics almost everything mentioned in this song has it 's basis in real life, or news reports. Donating what you've eaten “to the National Trust,” for example, is a euphemism for taking a dump outside.

Section 2: “I need a fix...”

Here we switch to 3/4 time and become modal. The centre is still A but the chord sequence (A7 - C - Am) veers between major and minor. The lyrics consist of two first person lines (one repeated). Lennon later (unconvincingly) denied “I need a fix cause I'm going down” referred to drugs.

Section 3: “Mother Superior jumped the gun...”

Here the chords (implied by the riffing) are Am C Am G. The time signature is either a 9/4 bar followed by a 10/4 bar (a clear Lennon extension – ticket 52) or a sequence of 6/8, 3/4 and 3/4 followed by 6/8, 3/4 and 4/4. Lyrically we have one line sung six times with melodic variations.

Section 4: “Happiness is a warm gun”


The chords switch from Am to the relative major key – C major. The progression is a stock doo wop pattern C, Am, F, G with an Fm (the m4 - ticket 8) preceding the false ending (ticket 47). The song boasts a second false ending as the track fades back in for a final drum hit.

Lennon took the title from a gun magazine, The American Rifleman, which he saw in Abbey Road studios.

Next time we'll get some tips for how to combine your random song fragments into a complete song, then take a closer look at all the rhythmic weirdness going on it this song, before concluding with what (if anything) ties together such a patchwork quilt of a song.

*Uncredited, he may have been, but he did get a namecheck in John's Give Peace A Chance

Ev'rybody's talkin' 'bout
John and Yoko, Timmy Leary, Rosemary,
Tommy Smothers, Bobby Dylan, Tommy Cooper,
Derek Taylor, Norman Mailer, Alan Ginsberg, Hare Krishna

10:20 Honey Pie (pt.1)

My dad's always played fruity old songs like that...I like the melody of old songs, and the lyrics actually as well...I would quite like to have been a 1920's writer, 'cause I like that thing...up in top hat and tails...So this is just me...pretending I'm living in 1925.

'Honey Pie' was me writing ... to an imaginary woman, across the ocean, on the silver screen...it's another of my fantasy songs...it's not a parody, it's a nod to the vaudeville tradition that I was raised on.

Paul McCartney: Beatles Interview.org 

Style And Structure

The Beatles frequently dabbled in what Paul called 'fruity songs' and John Lennon dismissed as 'granny music' - deliberately and derivatively old fashioned songs. Love em or loath em, this breadth of styles is another mark of the Beatles songwriting greatness. Can you imagine Zeppelin/Gaga/Bieber/Springsteen revisiting long discarded unfashionable genres? Discuss...

Of all the Beatles time travelling Honey Pie is probably the most assured 1920's jazz pastiche and would sit happily in a 'Jim Mac's Jazz Band' set list.

Paul's Dad and friends...

First of all we have a 12 bar long jazz style verse (tickets 35 and 53). In modern pop songs the verse appears two or three times with different lyrics, but in jazz songs the verse, is usually sung once at the beginning, often in free time, to set the scene - lyrically, the content of all verses like this can be boiled down to “And that is why I say...”. Then we have a 32 bar 'chorus' or refrain in an AABA structure (Ticket 26).

In contrast Yellow Submarine (which Lennon didn't hate, by the way) was more of a folk song, though it did originally have an intro verse. When I'm Sixty Four and Maxwell had no intro verse,  Sixty Four has two very non-jazz bridges (both subtly different) and musically Maxwell is straight forward verse/chorus 60's style cheesy pop.

Within the structure, we have a very consistent attention to detail in the period vocabulary and whimsical tone of the lyrics

I'm in in love but I'm lazy
Honey Pie
silver screen
weak in the knees
you are driving me frantic
my position is tragic
will the wind...kindly send her sailing back to me

And while, Paul is no match for any of the great showtune lyricists of the early 20th century he displays true wordsmithery here, in his command of assonance and alliteration -

assonance – silver screen and now the thought of meeting you makes me weak in the knee

alliteration – will the wind, blew her boat, across the sea, send her sailing, silver screen

Arrangement

The arrangement keeps up the 20's conceit in obvious (scratchy old record effect - 0:10) and subtle (distorted, over-compressed sax/clarinet) ways. There is no double tracking, Ringo uses brushes on the kit, and George's bass on the 1st and 3rd beats contrasts with Paul's 4 to the bar piano chords (which is usually the role of rhythm guitar). But John's chord stabs really add to the groove and the whole track swings.

You can't say the same for Lennon's solo though. When George Harrison said "John played a brilliant solo on 'Honey Pie' - sounded like Django Reinhardt or something" he was right up to a point. The point being 1:40 onwards. Because, after a few bars of genius (1:33 – 1:39), he hilariously bails out, realising he can't navigate the changes and quits while he's ahead.

"Sounds like John Lennon or something..."

The arrangement show glimpses of madrigalism (ticket 49) with the 'seasick' chromatic rising (Eb7 E7 - 0:44) and falling chords (G F# F Em - 1:04) and clarinet fills (1:56).

Next time we'll finish up with a look at the heart of this great song – the melody and chord progressions.

Under The Influence: Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day)

A lot of punk rock bands are always trying to be so hard all of the time, macho brutality doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a good songwriter. I think that some of the Beatles’ songs are way more punk rock than most punk songs written today. Like the song Yesterday. It’s such a bittersweet song. It’s very important for me to have a message that goes along with the writing. So...what comes to mind for me is a song like The Ballad of John & Yoko, where [Lennon] had this really nice sounding song. But the lyrics penetrate like a knife. “They’re gonna crucify me…” That’s kind of nice way — nice, I mean, in an oxymoronic sense – to put forward something you want to attack.

Interview with Paul Zollo 

There are Beatles songs that are way more punk rock than anything the Circle Jerks or Bad Religion ever put out. That guitar figure at the beginning [of In My Life] introduces the song perfectly. Plus the harmonies and backup playing are terrific. John Lennon is analysing his past, all the people that came in and out of his life. He’s sort of bitter, but he’s trying to be levelheaded about it. I can imagine him singing it and having a very sly smile on his face. It’s almost like he’s sincerely bidding someone farewell - but telling them to f*** off at the same time.

Lava Magazine

Book Review: John by Cynthia Lennon

There are few 20th artists that have been the subject of such concerted revisionism as John Lennon in the 30 years since his death. Both his character and the quality of his post-Beatles work have been so airbrushed that if there was such a thing as secular sainthood Lennon would certainly have been canonised by now.

Which makes this book both disturbing and refreshing. I am tempted to say that if you revere Lennon's memory don't read this book. But then if you do buy into the Gospel of St John then you probably need to read this more than anyone.

There is a sub genre of character assassination biography out there which is unedifying and despicable, but Cynthia Lennon's book does not fall into that category. It is written by someone who loved Lennon and continued to love him but isn't afraid to show us the warts.Any there are lots of warts.

A blogger recently suggested commemorating Lennon's death by doing "something that he might’ve done, if he were still here with us like...spending some extra time with a kid." Sadly this is something Lennon didn't do.  

"After the age of five...I saw him only a handful of times" say Julian Lennon in the foreword. He goes on "Dad was a great talent, a remarkable man who stood for peace and love in the world. But at the same time he found it very hard to show any peace and love to his first family...my mother and me".

The book chronicles the early years when Cynthia was the 'secret wife' hidden from the fans, alone in a £5 a week bedsit, to her post-divorce life as a single mother working hard to support the son of one of the richest musicians in the world.

The apple doen't fall far...

The book gives heartbreaking insight into why John was so messed up, both parents seeming highly dysfunctional in totally different ways (to say nothing of the domineering Aunt Mimi & the early deaths of his mother and his beloved Uncle George). It was sad too to see the transformation from fearlessly humorous iconoclastic mickey-taker to the po-faced moralist who took himself way too seriously. Arguably the more seriously he took himself and his art, the worse his art became.

You won't learn anything new about his songwriting but you will be reminded that great art is made by ordinary people with feet of clay, and that children as well as songs often outlast the people who gave them birth.

Read more Beatles book reviews

Lennon on iPlayer

I don't know if it's any good, but you can watch Christopher 'Dr Who' Eccleston in the BBC biopic Lennon Naked AND a special 30 minute Lennon: Top Of The Pops compilation, but only in the UK and only until 30th July.

The Guardian called it "a brilliant performance, in a brilliant film"

Did you see it? Your verdict?