The Beatles project which was hell for John Lennon: “The most miserable session on earth”
While The Beatles surpassed their greatest dreams and endured a career filled with exhilarating, unprecedented highs, it wasn’t a constant source of joy for John Lennon. Naturally, like any other occupation in the world—whether a teacher or a rock star—Lennon saw elements of the job as undesirable and wished he could have avoided them.
As a member of the world’s biggest band, it would be assumed that Lennon didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to, and full creative control would be in his hands. However, while some groups are dictatorship led by an egomaniac of a frontman that call all of the shots, The Beatles were a collective in every sense. For the most part, they worked in tandem, whether this be how they chose to dress or their musical direction.
Towards the end of their reign, Paul McCartney became somewhat the captain of the ship and took command, much to Lennon’s frustration. Although they once enjoyed a telepathic relationship that changed music forever, the unthinkable happened, and they were no longer creatively aligned by the end of their time together. However, Lennon stubbornly agreed to go along with certain things that were against his better judgment.
Being a band member means signing up for a democratic oath, and things don’t always follow each individual’s creative vision. Sometimes, Lennon had to bite his tongue and allow his bandmates to take the driving seat, which he found torturous. ‘Let It Be‘ is a prime example of this. It was a song that arrived at l McCartney in a dream, and he was the only one who could do justice to the shot of imagination in his sleep. The experience of creating the song explained why Lennon felt claustrophobic in The Beatles and decided to spread his wings with The Plastic Ono Band. Nevertheless, it was his duty as a member of the Fab Four to be silent and leave McCartney to his own devices.
In an interview with Village Voice journalist Howard Smith in 1969, Lennon lamented the recording process of ‘Let It Be’ and the album of the same name, stating, “We were going through hell. We often do. It’s torture every time we produce anything. The Beatles haven’t got any magic you haven’t got. We suffer like hell anytime we make anything, and we got each other to contend with. Imagine working with The Beatles, it’s tough.”
He continued: “We never really finished it. We didn’t really want to do it. Paul was hustling for us to do it. It’s The Beatles with their suits off.”
John Lennon
The same interview, which took place shortly after the recording concluded, was lost for several decades before surfacing at auction in 2013 and demonstrated Lennon’s true feelings for the album.
His stance only strengthened as the years went on, and in a 1980 interview with David Sheff, Lennon said: “That’s Paul. What can you say? Nothing to do with The Beatles. It could’ve been Wings. I don’t know what he’s thinking when he writes ‘Let It Be’.” Lennon was even more scathing while speaking about the film surrounding the album: “It was hell making the film, ‘Let It Be.’ Even the biggest Beatle fan couldn’t have sat through those six weeks of misery. It was the most miserable session on earth.”
The fact that he used “hell” on two occasions more than a decade apart shows how much Lennon detested the process of making Let It Be. Admittedly, Peter Jackson’s documentary Get Back suggests Lennon rather enjoyed the making of Let It Be, and it was anything but a chore to create.
Although he may have had an aversion to The Beatles welcoming in cameras to give fans a glimpse behind the curtain, this decision proved to be a masterstroke. The hours of footage in Get Back capture the Fab Four at work, demonstrating the alchemy that existed when those four musical magicians stepped into a room together. It was a revolutionary move that has spawned a whole genre of music documentaries, and like in so many other areas, it was pioneered by The Beatles. Lennon may have hated being surrounded by cameras while at work, but it was a beautiful gift to the world.
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