10 Darkest Songs John Lennon Ever Wrote

Featured on: The Beatles (The White Album) (1968)

Lennon wrote Happiness Is a Warm Gun about the “very sexually oriented” beginning of his and Yoko’s relationship. It is a song loaded with double-entendre and sexual metaphor.

The Lennon penned Beatles track no doubt has acquired much of its darkness due to the tragic assassination of John Lennon. The song’s title was borrowed from The American Rifleman, a gun magazine. Lennon commented “I thought it was a fantastic, insane thing to say. A warm gun means you’ve just shot something”.

However, the song’s content was dark and subversive prior to personal tragedy. The line “She's well-acquainted with the touch of the velvet hand” was inspired by Apple publicist Dennis Taylor’s encounter with a gloved fetishist while holidaying in the Isle of Man.

Also, “[the] man in the crowd with the multi-coloured mirrors on his hobnail boots” was a real-life pervert who used mirrors on his shoes to look up women’s skirts at football games.

Taylor elaborated on the enigmatic line “A soap impression of his wife which he ate. And donated to the National Trust” commenting “… to donate what you’ve eaten to the National Trust was what would now be known as ‘defecation on common land’”.