The John Lennon song the other Beatles resented: “They were so upset”

When The Beatles broke up, it was a day that rocked the music world to its core. Despite having only been a mainstream band for just over a decade, there was no escaping that they had completely changed music for the better. Not only had they impacted the kind of songs people were writing, but they were also changing how people marketed themselves and promoted themselves as a band.

However, while it was incredibly sad when the band broke up, anyone who was paying attention likely wouldn’t have been that surprised by the news. While people loved The Beatles, they were on the verge of imploding as friction caused by multiple factors pushed the band to near breaking point. One of the biggest problems that they had was the fact that they were constantly clashing creatively.

Kiss once spoke about The Beatles and how they wanted to be like them in that they could make music which varied in genre but was still undeniably them. “We also took pride in having the same freedom The Beatles had,” said Gene Simmons, “Their philosophy was, ‘No matter what kind of music we do, it’s still The Beatles’. That’s what was amazing about them… The Beatles were not trapped in that way. They could do music hall, psychedelia – anything – and they did. Yet somehow it always sounded like The Beatles.”

Simmons is right that the band had a great deal of creative freedom; however, while this meant they could push themselves, it also meant that band members were constantly coming forward with various ideas. This led to various disagreements as each band member had different concepts on the angle they believed they should take with their music.

One song in particular that John Lennon liked but the rest of the band hated was ‘Revolution’. While a lot of the band were away, Lennon wrote the track and said that he wanted to put it out as a single. The rest of the band pushed back, saying it was too slow for them to put out as a single. Instead, they opted to release ‘Hey Jude’, which wound up being a good move, but Lennon still believes it was good enough to put out as a single.

“We recorded the song twice. The Beatles were getting real tense with each other,” said John Lennon. “The first take, George and Paul were resentful and said it wasn’t fast enough. Now, if you go into the details of what a hit record is and isn’t, maybe. But The Beatles could have afforded to put out the slow, understandable version of ‘Revolution’ as a single, whether it was a gold record or a wooden record.”

Lennon believed that the band was worried that he was entering a new creative stride and felt threatened by him. “They were so upset over the Yoko thing and the fact that I was again becoming as creative and dominating as I was in the early days (after lying fallow for a couple of years),” he said, “It upset the applecart. I was awake again and they weren’t used to it.”