“The point of origin”: the Fleetwood Mac song John Lennon adored and copied
John Lennon inhabits a certain impenetrable godly quality when it comes to the history of rock music, which is understandable given he was the helm of the biggest band of all time. But equally, it’s quite ambitious – not least untrue – to suggest that musical prowess just flowed from his fingertips like some kind of sonic visionary. After all, at the end of the day, he was only human and took inspiration from his own rock heroes just as much as anyone else.
As much as the 1960s were largely typified by The Beatles’ rapidly snowballing world takeover, at the same time, there were a slew of other bands who were also gearing into life but did not, in some cases, experience their own dominant glory days until much later. One of those examples was Fleetwood Mac, a band who began life in this period as a blues outfit that caught the attention of Lennon’s skiffle roots.
To that end, as much as The Beatles’ back catalogue was hailed as one of ingenious innovation, there was one song that bore a remarkable resemblance to an early Fleetwood Mac hit that Lennon took a particular shining to. That was the Abbey Road cult worship song ‘Sun King’, on which the Beatle had used the Fleetwood Mac guitar instrumental ‘Albatross’ as a pertinent muse.
George Harrison later confirmed this in 1987, saying: “At the time, ‘Albatross’ was out, with all the reverb on guitar. “So we said, ‘Let’s be Fleetwood Mac doing ‘Albatross’, just to get going.’ It never really sounded like Fleetwood Mac… but that was the point of origin.”
It seems there’s a deep-seated lineage in the history of these songs, however, as even in the backstory to ‘Albatross’ itself, Mick Fleetwood had gleaned inspiration from the likes of Chuck Berry’s 1957 ‘Deep Feeling’ and Santo and Johnny’s 1959 ‘Sleepwalk’. Its famous loose guitar strums had all the makings of a paradise dream to anyone who heard it, and certainly Lennon must have felt its easy-going beat fitted in with the Fab Four’s swaying psychedelia – except the result didn’t exactly turn out as he expected.
While ‘Sun King’ did ultimately make the cut on to Abbey Road – having had its original name changed from ‘Here Comes the Sun King’ to avoid confusion with the album’s other famous summery offering – Lennon was far from pleased with its eventual composition, branding the song as “garbage”. He later admitted to Rolling Stone that: “I think it’s junk. It was just bits of song thrown together.”
On the whole, it proves that sometimes other people can simply do things better than you can – and that’s a good thing, especially in Beatles terms, for keeping one’s feet firmly planted on the ground. Lennon may not have been able to live up to Fleetwood Mac’s heady heights with his ‘Albatross’ inspired tune on this occasion, but it begins to break down the illusion of the Fab Four being untouchable gods because ultimately, they could only ever be as good as their next song.
