Individual Beatles members got together on several occasions after the band broke up. Though they were never all in the studio as a foursome again, different duos and trios broke off from the pack, creating pseudo reunions for fans to get excited about. The one pairing that never could work things out, at least musically, was Paul McCartney and John Lennon. The two took jabs at each other in their solo discographies, making it known that at least part of their breakup as a band was to do with this fracturing relationship. Lennon tapped George Harrison for one of his most cutting songs about McCartney. Harrison found it intensely “nerve-wracking” to work on this Lennon project. Find out why below.
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Behind a Broken Partnership
The title track to Lennon’s 1971 album, Imagine, is his most famous work from his post-Beatles career. The rest of the album was similarly popular upon its release, but it may not be as widespread as Lennon’s magnum opus ballad.
Other than “Imagine,” the most interesting part of this album is “How Do You Sleep?” Lennon penned this song as a reaction to his broken partnership with McCartney. He certainly didn’t set out to spare McCartney’s feelings with this song, basically undermining all of his hits up to that point.
What made this song all the more hurtful was the fact that Lennon enlisted Harrison to help out on guitar duties. It’s bad enough that your former bandmate wrote a sonic slap in the face for you; it’s another to have a second bandmate jump in on the disrespect.
Harrison’s “Nerve-Wracking” Post-Beatles Team-Up
George Harrison once spoke about the recording of this track, calling it “nerve-wracking as usual.” The quiet Beatle found working with Lennon a tenuous task. Because of the band’s fallout before their breakup, it was up in the air whether or not things would go smoothly.
“It was nerve-wracking, as usual,” Harrison once said. “Previously, I’d worked on ‘Instant Karma.’ At that time, very strange, intense feelings were going on. Sometimes people don’t talk to each other, thinking they’re not going to be the one to phone you up and risk rejection.”
“I turned up and he was openly pleased I came,” George Harrison added. “I enjoyed ‘How Do You Sleep?’; I liked being on that side of it with Paul, rather than on the receiving end. Moreover, I was earnestly trying to be a slide guitar player at that time, but I always blacked out at solos, especially live ones. I seemed to have no control over what was happening and my mind’d go blank. That was one of them where I hit a few good notes, and it happened to sound like a solo. We did all that work in one day.”
How Do You Sleep?
There is really no mistaking the fact that Lennon wrote “How Do You Sleep?” about McCartney. With lyrics like The only thing you done was yesterday / And since you’re gone you’re just another day, it’s tough to argue the contrary. Nevertheless, Lennon tried.
“It’s not about Paul, it’s about me,” Lennon once said. “I’m really attacking myself. But I regret the association, well…what’s to regret? He lived through it. The only thing that matters is how he and I feel about these things and not what the writer or commentator thinks about it. Him and me are OK.”
While we can’t agree with Lennon that he and McCartney were “OK” around the time of this song’s release, the pair did make amends before Lennon died in 1980. Although they never returned to the studio together, they did meet up at least once and considered the possibility of a reunion. Unfortunately, we were never given that gift as fans, but it’s nice to know that the hatchet was buried behind the scenes.
(Photo by Steve Morley/Redferns)
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