‘Nowhere Man’: John Lennon’s Beatles epic that Paul McCartney got completely wrong
When John Lennon wrote songs, he always wanted one pivotal factor at the heart of them: the truth. He tried to write as much honest music as possible in The Beatles; however, this came with pushback from other band members. When he became a solo artist, he made a conscious effort to make music that was a true reflection of himself.
With such an affinity for the truth within music, it’s hardly a surprise that he became such a big fan of Bob Dylan. Steve Van Zandt once attributed Bob Dylan with being the person who ended the British invasion, as people on board with The Beatles hype became equally enamoured with the folk-rock movement.
“The floodgates opened until the summer of ’65,” he said when talking about what it was like to experience the British Invasion first-hand, “When the Americans took the charts back with the folk-rock of The Byrds and Bob Dylan.”
People were drawn to Dylan’s music, though, not just because of his music but also because of the honesty with which he wrote. There were no secrets in Bob Dylan, as he explored his emotions, his place in the world, and his view of the world within the words of his songs. John Lennon was such a fan initially that members of The Beatles and fans of his have previously said their album Rubber Soul was essentially Lennon trying to make music like Bob Dylan.
Narrative has always been at the heart of folk music, so Lennon was likely searching for parts of himself that he was willing to reveal to the public at the time. In doing so, he found it difficult to write more profound music, to the point that he ended up writing a song about the fact he couldn’t write a song.
‘Nowhere Man’ was released on the album and was, by John Lennon’s admission, a song about how he didn’t feel like this album was going anywhere. “I thought of myself sitting there, doing nothing and getting nowhere,” he said.
In a separate interview, he provided more information on the writing process. “I remember I was just going through this paranoia trying to write something and nothing would come out,” he said, “So I just lay down and tried to not write and then this came out, the whole thing came out in one gulp.”
What’s most interesting about the song is that Paul McCartney completely misinterpreted what Lennon was attempting to write about. When discussing the song separately, he said he believed that Lennon was actually writing about the state of his marriage instead of his creative output.
“It was really an anti-John song. He told me later, he didn’t tell me then, he said he’d written it about himself, feeling like he wasn’t going anywhere. I think it was actually about the state of his marriage,” said McCartney, “It was in a period where he was a bit dissatisfied with what was going on; however, it led to a very good song. He treated it as a third-person song, but he was clever enough to say, ‘Isn’t he a bit like you and me?’ – ‘Me’ being the final word.”
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