Every song John Lennon released as a solo artist but wrote for The Beatles
Being a songwriter doesn’t necessarily stop when an artist walks out of the studio. For any creative artist, a song could come to them at any time, and listening to each of their tunes seems like a window into that phase of their life, whether it’s a sad ballad or one of the happiest tunes anyone has ever heard. While John Lennon couldn’t claim to be completely happy watching The Beatles slowly disintegrate, he did eventually manage to adapt some of his greatest discarded tunes into solo masterpieces.
But looking back on how The Beatles split, nothing about it could have been clean. The ongoing legal disputes between Paul McCartney and the rest of the band with Allen Klein left everyone resentful towards each other, so it wasn’t like they were calling each other up to grab some coffee in between business meetings or anything.
Although Lennon saved much of his vitriol for later when writing tunes like ‘How Do You Sleep’, there were remnants that never got tied up that much. The cardinal rule between him and McCartney in the old days was that they had to remember the tune the next day, or it wasn’t any good, and considering these tunes waited for a few years, it was well worth the wait once they finally arrived.
But the beauty behind the tracks came from the way they were refined once Lennon finally took his foot off the gas. This was the moment when he was finally free to be himself, and that meant having total control over the mix and getting his message across, no matter how uncomfortable it may have been to listen to.
So, which songs were left over?
Of all the tracks from the Beatles era, a lot of them began life during sessions for The White Album. Amid the onslaught of classics and also ‘Revolution 9’, Lennon was working on ‘Look at Me’ as well as ‘Jealous Guy’, the latter of which was known as ‘Child of Nature’ when he began working on the track in India when studying under the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. But of all the tunes from that time, ‘Oh My Love’ would become the most revealing piece of his catalogue.
Since Plastic Ono Band was his excuse to air out a lot of his pent-up aggression, ‘Oh My Love’ could not have been put out by the Fab Four and still sound this sublime. This was finally the moment for Lennon to spread his wings, and even if it isn’t on the most exciting song, you can tell that he is finally satisfied with his place and can be at rest for the first time since Beatlemania began.
Despite The White Album leaving many pieces on the cutting room floor, the sessions for what would become Let It Be led to him shelving a song like ‘One Day (At a Time)’, which he would eventually unpack during the recording of Mind Games. While a lot of rewrites were made on that track to make it about the dissolution of his relationship with Yoko Ono, ‘Gimme Some Truth’ is as close to a lost Beatles song to have come from those sessions.
Outside of Lennon coming in with it during the Get Back sessions, McCartney is seen in the documentary of the same name talking about changing the lyrics, which means that only Ringo Starr was absent from the song coming to fruition after George Harrison played guitar on the final version. But even though Lennon could have easily turned some of these tunes into Beatles songs, it wasn’t right for the time. He needed to progress on his own, and even if it left the world with a few broken hearts, he needed to do what was right for him.
The solo songs John Lennon wrote for The Beatles:
- ‘Look At Me’ – Plastic Ono Band
- ‘Oh My Love’ – Imagine
- ‘Jealous Guy’ – Imagine
- ‘Gimme Some Truth’ – Imagine
- ‘One Day (At A Time) – Mind Games
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