6 Biggest Beatles Mysteries
4. Who Wrote In My Life?
In My Life is not only one of the greatest Beatles songs of all time but one of the best examples of popular music ever recorded. Don't just take my word for it though, Rolling Stone ranked it 23rd on their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list back in 2004.
The nostalgic ballad in which Lennon sings wistfully about his childhood would be featured on the group's 1966 album Rubber Soul.
As with many classic compositions in the Beatles catalogue, the song was credited to Lennon and McCartney with the lyrics penned entirely by Lennon. The mystery around the song comes from who wrote the famous melody. In a 1976 interview, McCartney claimed that the song's tune was his work, claiming to have taken inspiration from Smokey Robinson and The Miracles.
I liked 'In My Life.' Those were words that John wrote and I wrote the tune to it.
In one of the final interviews before his death, Lennon would contradict his former bandmate's account saying that McCartney's melodic contributions were confined solely to the song's middle eighth.
The debate has continued amongst Beatles aficionados in the decades since, but a 2018 study may have finally shed some light on the mystery. Using techniques drawing on Lennon and McCartney's melodic tendencies, Mark Glickman, Ryan Song, and Jason Brown noted that it was highly probable that the majority of the song's melody was written by Lennon alone.
So while this Beatles mystery may have finally been put to bed, the next will likely never be revealed...