The 2 Beatles Songs That John Lennon Felt Suffered From “Subconscious Sabotage”

The Beatles are remembered as some of the best musicians of our time, responsible for one classic song after another. But despite the great music they made together, they didn’t always get along, and according to John Lennon, one of the problems they faced was the “subconscious sabotage” of some their songs. And he pointed the finger specifically at Paul McCartney.

Lennon discussed the supposed sabotage in an interview with Playboy, which was later included in All We Are Saying, a compilation of interviews by David Sheff. He expressed his frustration that the band would “spend hours doing little detailed cleaning-ups of Paul’s songs” but that his didn’t get the same treatment and instead, “this atmosphere of looseness and casualness and experimentation would creep in.”

Lennon Was Not a Fan

Lennon particularly disliked the way “Across the Universe” turned out, saying the band “didn’t make a good record of it.”

“It was a lousy track of a great song and I was so disappointed by it,” he said in the interview.

Lennon was inspired to write the song after an argument with his first wife, Cynthia Powell.

“It’s not a matter of craftsmanship; it wrote itself,” he said of the writing process. “It drove me out of bed. I didn’t want to write it. I was just slightly irritable and I went downstairs and I couldn’t get to sleep until I got it on paper, and then I went to sleep.”

The Beatles originally recorded “Across the Universe” in February of 1968, and it was included on the charity album No One’s Gonna Change Our World for the World Wildlife Fund. They revisited the song when they needed more songs for Let It Be—their final album—and according to Lennon, producer Phil Spector came across it and overdubbed it.

“The guitars are out of tune and I’m singing out of tune ’cause I’m psychologically destroyed and nobody’s supporting me or helping me with it and the song was never done properly,” Lennon said of the recording.

Lennon also cited “Strawberry Fields Forever” as another example of a song which suffered due to the band’s “experimental games,” saying it was “badly recorded” but that “it got away with it and it worked.” He also criticized some of his other famous songs, including “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

It’s hard to imagine how much different these classic Beatles songs might sound without the “sabotage” Lennon described.