8 Hard Rock Songs Probably Written Out Of Spite
7. John Lennon - How Do You Sleep?
After the release of Paul and Linda McCartney’s album RAM, John Lennon became convinced that the record was full of coded digs at himself and wife Yoko One. This went right down to a photograph of two Beatles copulating on the sleeve, which John interpreted as an implicit “f*ck you”.
McCartney would later insist that his references to John and Yoko were confined to a couple of small digs in opening track Too Many People. One track John took personally, Dear Boy, was actually aimed at Linda’s ex-husband, Mel See.
Nonetheless, John’s revenge was merciless. How Do You Sleep? was filled with stinging lines like, “The only thing you done was Yesterday,” and, “The sound you make is Muzak to my ears.” It’s a hard listen for Beatles fans to hear Lennon tear into McCartney so aggressively.
It only adds insult to injury to find out that it’s George Harrison playing the song’s slide guitar solo and The Beatles’ Hamburg pal Klaus Voorman was on bass.
John famously described his Imagine album as being like previous album Plastic Ono Band “with chocolate coating.” He must have run out of the sweet stuff when they got round to recording this one.