10 Darkest Songs John Lennon Ever Wrote

Of all The Beatles’ music, most people first encounter their classic pop made for the masses. Tracks can seem lame and twee, singing about handholding and women called Eleanor.

The White Album though, changed this.

It's like nothing you’ve ever heard from a thousand imitators in the same listening experience. It converts critics into fans, even if they qualify liking ‘just their experimental stuff’, and insists that drugs deserve a heap of song writing credits. The White Album sees a darker undercurrent in The Beatles’ music. It is an album that is largely open to interpretation, as taken to the extreme by infamous cult leader Charlie Manson, who decoded the tracks to inform part of his post-apocalyptic Helter Skelter scenario.

Of the ‘Fab Four’, John Lennon has the most complex legacy. From inspiring other generational idols such as Kurt Cobain to a past which dogged him throughout his life and career – notably his parental abandonment, abusive relationships, and jealousy issues - Lennon was given the chance to make large steps towards making amends.

He processed many of his personal demons through songwriting, and that led to some notably dark moments.

Featured on: Imagine (1971)

How Do You Sleep? is best known as Lennon’s scathing attack on Paul McCartney, particularly the line: “those freaks was [sic] right when they said you was dead”, which used the ‘Paul is Dead’ urban legend to mock his former bandmate.

Lennon also turned his personal attack to McCartney’s musical output, comparing it to “muzak” and stating his only achievement was Yesterday. Lennon was the lead song writer. However, Yoko Ono, and Lennon’s manager Allen Klein are said to have contributed lyrics. McCartney himself said “I just let [John] do it, because he was being fed a lot of those lines by Klein and Yoko”.

Lennon described the song as “what you might call an ‘angry letter’, sung”, and compared it to Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone, “one of his nasty songs”. Lennon later backtracked somewhat saying the song was really an attack on himself.

Journalist Felix Dennis, who was present when the track was recorded, recalled a lot of the unused lyrics were “absolutely puerile” and “highly, highly personal”.

Dennis supposed McCartney “must have been some sort of figure of authority in Lennon’s life, because you don’t take the p*ss out of somebody that isn’t a figure of authority”.