Selecting a favorite Beatles track (or tracks) is wholly dependent on the listener’s unique experience and tastes, and John Lennon’s favorite Beatles songs are no exception.
While the Fab Four’s highly public and equally arduous breakup in the late 1960s and early ‘70s might’ve made it seem like the Beatles were irreparably at odds with one another, the musicians were still able to give credit where credit was due—with the odd diss track or sideways comment in an interview, of course.
Lennon’s reputation for saying exactly what was on his mind almost preceded his musical legacy, which is how we’ve come to find which Beatles songs he despised and, conversely, the ones he loved. Let’s take a look at songs that fit in the latter category.
“Help”
John Lennon wrote “Help!” for the 1965 Beatles’ musical comedy of the same name. In a 1980 interview with Playboy, Lennon said, “I didn’t realize it at the time. I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie, but later, I knew I was really crying out for help. It was my fat Elvis period.”
He expressed similar sentiments in a Rolling Stone interview, saying “Help!” was one of his favorite Beatles songs because “I meant it. It’s real. The lyric is as good now as it was then. It is no different, and it makes me feel secure to know that I was aware of myself then. It was just me singing “help,” and I meant it.”
“Within You, Without You”
John Lennon once cited “Within You, Without You” as one of his favorite Beatles songs that George Harrison wrote. “I like the arrangement, the sound, and the words,” he told Playboy. “He is clear on that song. You can hear his mind is clear, and his music is clear. It’s his innate talent that comes through on that song, that brought that song together.”
“Within You, Without You” is the eighth track off the Beatles’ 1967 release Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and marked Harrison’s interesting departure from the rest of the band, both ideologically and sonically.
“Oh, Darling!”
“Oh, Darling!” is the fourth track on the Beatles’ enduring 1969 record Abbey Road. With its bluesy swing and desperately belting vocals, it’s one of the Beatles’ most distinctive tracks on the album—and it also happens to be one of John Lennon’s favorites.
“[The song] was a great one of Paul’s,” Lennon conceded in his 1980 Playboy interview before adding, “that he didn’t sing too well. I always thought I could have done it better. It was more my style than his. He wrote it, so what the hell, he’s going to sing it.”
“In My Life”
John Lennon had a soft spot for “In My Life” for the same reason he had an affinity for “Help!” The songs came from a real, authentic place. “It was the first song I wrote that was consciously about my life,” Lennon told David Sheff in his Playboy interview. “[Before], we were just writing songs a la Everly Brothers, a la Buddy Holly, pop songs with no more thought to them than that.”
“In My Life,” Lennon continued, “started out as a bus journey from my house on 250 Menlove Avenue to town, mentioning every place that I could remember. It was, I think, my first real major piece of work. Up till then, it had all been sort of glib.”
“Here, There, and Everywhere”
While he might have had his favorite Beatles tunes, John Lennon was careful with the compliments he doled out to his bandmates. Unsurprisingly, when Lennon did praise his colleagues, they remembered the moment in great detail.
In an interview with 60 Minutes, Paul McCartney recalled Lennon complimenting his Revolver track, “Here, There, and Everywhere.” “John says, just when it finishes, ‘That’s a really good song, lad. I love that song.’ I was like, ‘Yes! He likes it!’ You know, I’ve remembered it to this day.”
“Hey Jude”
John Lennon called Paul McCartney’s “Hey Jude” a masterpiece in his 1980 interview with David Sheff. Although Lennon said he didn’t have anything to do with the track compositionally speaking, he acknowledged his lyrical influence. “[Paul] said it was written about Julian, my child. But I always heard it as a song to me.”
“If you think about it…Yoko’s just come into the picture,” Lennon continued. “He’s saying, ‘Hey, Jude—hey, John.’ I know I’m sounding like one of those fans who reads things into it, but you can hear it as a song to me.”
Photo by ITV/Shutterstock
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