The Beatles song John Lennon called “one of my favourite Lennon tracks”
Liverpool, 1957: A teenage musician sits with a guitar, valiantly attempting to replicate the infectious sounds of the hit parade in his own voice. Eventually, this burst of artistic inspiration would produce one song, ‘Hello Little Girl’. This might seem pretty unnoteworthy until you consider that the teenage songwriter in question is John Lennon, and ‘Hello Little Girl’ would set him on a course to become one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
From The Quarrymen to The Beatles to his extensive solo discography, Lennon’s songwriting has spoken to multiple generations of music lovers.
‘Hello Little Girl’ would end up forming part of The Beatles’ audition for Decca Records some years later, in 1962. Famously, the label passed on the opportunity to sign the band, but in a few short years, there was scarcely a corner of the globe that had not been infected with Beatlemania. The group were a cultural phenomenon, in addition to being a truly groundbreaking musical outfit. Throughout it all, the songwriting partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney was a guiding light which consistently found new ways to push the boundaries of popular music.
Although much of Lennon’s greatest work arose from his time with The Beatles, the tumultuous experiences and inner conflict within the band, particularly towards the end of the 1960s, seemed to sour the songwriter’s view of the group and their material. He was often intensely critical of The Beatles’ work, including the songs he had written himself. For instance, Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1970, “‘Run for Your Life’, I always hated, you know. I never liked ‘Run For Your Life’ because it was a song I just knocked off”.
Similarly, the songwriter often heaped criticism onto songs written by his former songwriting partner, Paul McCartney. ‘Lovely Rita’ was one of the songs he was quick to announce his disdain for, once saying, “I’m not interested in writing about people like that. I like to write about me, because I know me.”
That quote, in particular, reflects Lennon’s penchant for writing songs about himself and his own experiences, a process which produced some of The Beatles’ finest work. “‘Come Together’ is me,” the songwriter once shared, citing the opening of Abbey Road among his greatest efforts with the Fab Four, “Writing obscurely around an old Chuck Berry thing.”
Based loosely on the Chuck Berry track ‘You Can’t Catch Me’, Lennon recalled how the song came about. “The thing was created in the studio. It’s gobbledygook,” he shared. “‘Come Together’ was an expression that Tim Leary had come up with for his attempt at being president or whatever he wanted to be, and he asked me to write a campaign song.” However, this plan never really came to fruition. “I came up with this, ‘Come Together,’ which would’ve been no good to him– you couldn’t have a campaign song like that, right?”
Although Leary was not best pleased and later accused Lennon of “[ripping] him off”, the resulting song was an absolute triumph for Lennon and The Beatles. “It was a funky record,” he shared. “It’s one of my favourite Beatle tracks or one of my favourite Lennon tracks, let’s say that. It’s funky, it’s bluesy, and I’m singing it pretty well. I like the sound of the record. You can dance to it. I’ll buy it!”
Ironically, the same came together when The Beatles were at their most fractured, with Abbey Road the last album they ever recorded together. It is telling of Lennon’s love for ‘Come Together’ that, even in all the bitterness of the band’s decline, he could still find an appreciation for the track.
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