We often assume an artist’s favorite song they ever wrote would also be one of their longest, most complex, or most ubiquitous, but John Lennon’s favorite Beatles song is a notable exception. The Fab Four began recording this “White Album” B-side on October 8, 1968. This session also included “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill”, another Lennon composition.
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The first song the band taped during this session was notable in that it commemorated Lennon’s feelings toward Yoko Ono. (He was still married to his first wife, Cynthia, at the time.) Lennon was in India with Cynthia and the rest of The Beatles at the time. The group was studying meditation under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. But of course, as anyone who has had a crush on someone can attest, clearing one’s mind is next to impossible when you’re in the throes of puppy love.
Thus, “I’m So Tired” was born, an unassuming, doo-wop-esque addition to the “White Album” that Lennon once cited as one of his favorites. “I just like the sound of it,” Lennon told David Sheff in 1980. “And I sing it well.”
We doubt this had much to do with Lennon’s affections for the song. But The Beatles’ “I’m So Tired” is also notable in that it added fuel to the speculative flames surrounding the infamous “Paul is Dead” conspiracy.
John Lennon’s Favorite Song Was About Yoko Ono, Not Paul McCartney
John Lennon spent many sleepless nights at the ashram, where he studied with his loved ones and bandmates under the guidance of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The ashram forbade drugs, alcohol, and tobacco, which left Lennon with nothing to do but meditate in the dark. From those quiet moments by himself, he wrote “I’m So Tired”. Some of the lyrics are straightforward. “I’m so tired / I haven’t slept a wink / I’m so tired / my mind is on the blink / I wonder, should I get up and fix myself a drink?”
Then, the narrator’s focus shifts. “I’m so tired / I don’t know what to do / I’m so tired / my mind is set on you.” Lennon was thinking about Yoko Ono, with whom he already had a regular correspondence. “I got so excited about her letters,” Lennon later said of the postcards the artist sent him at the ashram. “I started thinking of her as a woman and not just an intellectual woman.”
Interestingly, some fans believe that John Lennon’s favorite Beatles song plays into the “Paul is dead” conspiracy theory. This theory posits that McCartney died in 1966, after which the band replaced him with a lookalike. A bit of gibberish at the end of the short song serves as the conspiracist’s evidence.
Lennon reportedly sings, “Monsieur, monsieur, how about another one?”
His speech is slurred and hard to hear. Play the record backwards. And even the most reasonable Fab Four fan could admit it kind of sounds like, “Paul is a dead man. Miss him, miss him, miss him.”
Photo by Andrew Maclear/Getty Images
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