“My resentment against Paul”: How John Lennon used hate and heroin to create masterpieces

The much-talked-about fallout between John Lennon and Paul McCartney produced some better diss tracks than modern-day hip-hop. And it was lucky that it did, because it made the universal heartbreak that music’s greatest ever band were breaking up on the grounds of a fallout between their two leaders. A tragic and unnecessary end to a decade of greatness.

Given how prolific The Beatles were, it came as no surprise that the songwriting duo had already released a few tunes by 1971, just two years after the release of Abbey Road. But the remnants of those fateful studio sessions were still irking the pair and they chose to neglect the opportunity of using their newfound independence to move forward.

Lennon began the squabble on his album Imagine. A record that’s title track famously soundtracked a global movement towards peace. But while Lennon’s ideologies worked on a macro level, within the microcosm of his own life there was still some conflict to be addressed and that started with Paul.

On the B-side of Imagine sits ‘How Do You Sleep?’, a gloves-off rebuttal to McCartney, who had used a track on his album Ram, released in the same year, to make a little dig at Lennon. “It was the 1970s version of what might call today a ‘diss track’ Paul said of his track ‘Too Many People’. It was a classic Macca foot-stomper showcasing flowing harmonies, bluesy guitar licks and a four-on-the-floor rhythm that ten years earlier, would have cried out for a twisted Lennon vocal line.

Instead, Macca decided to fill his absence with a little dig, aiming the line “Too many people preaching practices” at his politically inclined former bandmate. McCartney explained the meaning of that line, saying “He’d been doing a lot of preaching, and it got up my nose a little bit. In one song, I wrote, ‘Too many people preaching practices.’” But he later admitted, “It’s a fairly upbeat song. It doesn’t really sound that vitriolic, and if you didn’t know the story, I don’t think you’d be able to guess at the anger behind its writing. It was all a bit weird and a bit nasty, and I was basically saying, ‘let’s be sensible’.”

But McCartney’s innocently wrapped contempt wasn’t slick enough to get past the man who knew him better, and Lennon decided it was enough to warrant a response. ‘How Do You Sleep?’ was a groovier, more understated rebuttal sonically, but an undoubtedly more targeted lyrical take that wasn’t shy in making very blatant references to Paul. After spending two verses referencing Paul’s baby Sgt Pepper and questioning his mother’s influence on his seminal songwriting, Lennon sings “The only thing you done was yesterday” to finally cut his former partner at the knees.

While Lennon was elusive in press conferences that asked him the meaning of the song, he finally admitted what we all knew and expressed its vitriolic sentiment towards McCartney.

He said, “I used my resentment against Paul, that I have as a kind of sibling rivalry resentment from youth, to write a song. It was a creative rivalry… It was not a vicious vendetta… but I felt resentment, so I used that situation the same as I used withdrawing from heroin to write Cold Turkey; I used my resentment and withdrawing from Paul and the Beatles to write ‘How Do You Sleep?’”

That’s a fairly on-the-nose description of what either song meant, for yes, both tracks have a bitter heart to them, yet their playful sonic demeanours prove it was nothing but a bit of pre-bedtime squabbling.