10 Artists Who Slated The Beatles
2. John Lennon
John Lennon was never one to mince his words and, having lived through the craziness of Beatlemania and the band’s stifling (and at times rancorous) final years, nor was he one for sentimental Beatles nostalgia.
Most Beatles' fans can tell you that John referred to some of Paul’s songs as “granny music” and went even further on solo number How Do you Sleep?
He tells McCartney, “The only thing you did was Yesterday,” and, “the sound you make is Muzak to my ears”. The song comes complete with a stinging George Harrison slide guitar solo, to rub more salt in the wound. But John didn’t just take issue with McCartney’s contributions to the group, he would later decide he disliked the production on all The Beatles records.
In fact he said as much over dinner with the band’s producer George Martin. As Martin recounted to Rock Cellar Magazine:
“It shook me to the core when we were talking about old things and he said, ‘I’d love to do everything again.’ To me that was just a horror. And I said, “John, you can’t really mean it. Even ‘Strawberry Fields?’ And he said, “Especially ‘Strawberry Fields’!” I thought, oh sh*t, all the effort that went into that.”