10 Rock Songs That Insulted Other Musicians

With years removed from the Beatles’ breakup, John Lennon could really be described as the most vicious person in the band. Although Paul McCartney may have gotten into some major disagreements with Lennon, the Intellectual Beatle always wanted to push the envelope that much further, trying to wake the audience from their lives and expose them to all of the pain that was really happening in the world. When the optimistic of the two started dishing out stuff on Too Many People, Lennon came out ready for war on How Do You Sleep.

While the album Imagine may have been about finding some sort of inner peace within yourself, this song is a straight up diss track towards Lennon’s writing partner, picking apart every single bit of his career and how he charmed his way to the top. Aside from the petty jabs, Lennon talks about how the only good thing that Paul ever wrote was Yesterday and how all of the rest of his songs are just muzak to Lennon’s ears. The insults only get worse on the demo version, with John shouting obscenities at Paul and Yoko even chipping in on some of the more vicious lines.

Even with some of his former bandmates working on the project, Ringo Starr eventually had to put his foot down in the studio, acting as a sort of mediator and telling Lennon to be a bit nicer than what was going on the final recording. John may not have meant everything that he said at the time, but this is enough to tell us how ugly the Beatles’ relationships got within the span of a few months.