The one song John Lennon wishes he had written: “I’d give my eyetooth”
The world of music is now full of seemingly unattainable stars with legacies that stretch out of the public stratosphere and go on to shape the entire universe. It means that almost every musician has a single performer or band whom they would love to emulate. Any aspiring rock songwriter would give their left arm to be as good as John Lennon.
From his work in The Beatles to some of the highlights of his solo catalogue, Lennon was always the wordsmith behind the Fab Four, crafting songs that were more concerned with the intricacies of words and what effect they might have on listeners many years after he has left the Earth. Then again, Lennon was still just as concerned with writing the next great song.
From his early years with The Beatles, Lennon would always talk about the aspiring songwriters that he wanted to be. As The Beatles were cutting their first handful of records in the early 1960s, it was albums like The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan that set his world on fire, eventually writing the songs that would become a pale imitation of Dylan like ‘You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away’.
Lennon always prided himself on being a musical chameleon of sorts, crafting material that was in the vein of artists he liked, such as Fleetwood Mac, whose instrumental ‘Albatross’ would serve as the inspiration behind the music of ‘Sun King’ in Abbey Road. In truth, the band had been routinely influenced by a whole range of different artists from their earliest moments, copying Eddie Cochrane and Chuck Berry. This feeling continued as the band grew up together, and once Lennon left the group, his influence began to stretch far beyond traditional rock and roll.
For most of his life, Lennon professed himself to be a rocker, and that showed in the many inspirations he threaded into his work. In between stints working on his solo albums and experimental projects with Yoko Ono, Lennon was still following the pop charts and was slowly becoming enamoured with the sounds of disco music.
“I am too literal to write ‘Rock Your Baby.’ I wish I could. I’m too intellectual, even though I’m not really an intellectual.”
John Lennon
Despite some rock fans thinking that the genre was the death of music, Lennon always had a soft spot for the song ‘Rock You Baby’ by George McCrae, telling SPIN in 1975: “‘Rock Your Baby’, I’d give my eyetooth to have written that. I am too literal to write ‘Rock Your Baby.’ I wish I could. I’m too intellectual, even though I’m not really an intellectual.”
While Lennon’s music has always been about writing the lyrics first, the songs that were about turning off one’s brain and having fun didn’t suit him at the time; instead, he rallied against political figures who were conspiring against his bid for US citizenship. After this interview, Lennon would quietly retire from music for a few years, leaving the limelight to raise his son Sean with Yoko in New York City.
As the times began changing again, Lennon started to get back into writing, eventually making the collaborative album Double Fantasy in 1980, with a few songs that felt left over from the disco craze, such as Yoko’s ‘Kiss Kiss Kiss’. Lennon’s time back on top would be short-lived, though, being gunned down outside his apartment building only a few months after the album hit store shelves.
From his fascination with other genres, though, Lennon was far from being a snob when it came to his own brand of rock and roll. Despite his reputation for being the ‘Intellectual Beatle’, Lennon was never one to look down on someone for writing a certain kind of song.
It was about singing what was in one’s heart, and Lennon was always just hoping to be there when the next musical masterpiece fell out of the sky.
