The best John Lennon songs from every year of his career
John Lennon was a remarkably prolific songwriter. Between his first attempt at writing his own words and music to the final tune ever recorded, Lennon notched over 200 songwriting credits over his life, including being the primary author of over 50 Beatles classics.
To understand the full scope of Lennon’s songwriting, we’re taking a look at every year that he put pen to paper. By most accounts, Lennon wrote his first song in 1957. That’s where this list will start. Finding exact writing dates for pre-studio material is tricky, but once we hit The Beatles era of writing and recording, we’ll base the organisation on when the songs were released, not necessarily when they were written.
A few songs are included around their estimated writing date in order to flesh out the gaps in known recordings. Some periods of time, including his earliest stabs at songwriting in the 1950s and his five-year professional hiatus from 1975 to 1980, are left purposefully blank since Lennon barely wrote during those eras.
Take a dive into the diverse world of John Lennon’s songwriting, from his earliest love songs to his most complex later works.
The best John Lennon songs from every year of his life:
1957 – ‘Hello Little Girl’
Largely credited as the first song that Lennon ever wrote in earnest, ‘Hello Little Girl’ shows off Lennon’s love of Elvis Presley and his undying love for old-school rock and roll.
Although it features some basic chord changes, the song is surprisingly complex for a first attempt at songwriting. No doubt the group polished and added to it when it first got recorded at their Decca Records audition in 1962, but the song’s earnest heart beats loudly.
1958 – ‘One After 909’
Lennon estimated that he began writing ‘One After 909’ when he was “about seventeen”. That means that the song could be considered a 1957 song, but it likely didn’t take shape in any real sense until 1958.
A spirited and simplistic rocker, ‘One After 909’ bounced around the early days of The Beatles before finally seeing the light of day at the band’s rooftop concert in 1969.
1960 – ‘Please, Please Me’
There’s precious little information regarding what, if anything, Lennon wrote in 1959. The Quarrymen were largely kaput by this time, only reviving the name once the group got a residency in Mona Best’s basement, the Casbah Coffee Club. Lennon was probably still writing, but it doesn’t appear as though any of his songs from that year were ever properly recorded or released. Until we hear ‘Winston’s Walk’ or ‘Looking Glass’, 1959 will have to remain blank.
1960 has its own sketchy history, but Lennon experienced a major breakthrough that year when he heard Orbison’s ‘Only the Lonely’. Inspired, Lennon penned his own song in the style, ‘Please, Please Me’. The song was first recorded in 1962, but given that ‘Only the Lonely’ was released in 1960, it seems likely that Lennon penned ‘Please, Please Me’ that same year.
1961 – ‘Cry For a Shadow’
1961 is another fuzzy year for nailing down Lennon’s writing. Undoubtedly, the first wave of songs that would occupy The Beatles’ original catalogue was flaring up during this time, but frequent gigs meant that the group had to be on their game as a covers act. The group had their first professional recording session this year, backing up singer Tony Sheridan.
During their downtime, the group recorded an original instrumental credited to Lennon and George Harrison, ‘Cry For a Shadow’.
1962 – ‘Do You Want to Know a Secret’
By 1962, Lennon began formalising his role as one of the two main songwriters in The Beatles. A steady stream of songs began to take shape this year, including ‘Ask Me Why’ and ‘There’s a Place’. But Lennon’s ear for new styles was best represented by ‘Do You Want to Know a Secret’, a track that was given to Harrison after Lennon grew tired of it.
Many have suggested the song was written specifically for George Harrison by Lennon: “I can’t say I wrote it for George. I was in the first apartment I’d ever had that wasn’t shared with fourteen other students – gals and guys at art school. I’d just married Cyn, and Brian Epstein gave us his secret little apartment that he kept in Liverpool for his sexual liaisons separate from his home life. And he let Cyn and I have that apartment.”
1963 – ‘It Won’t Be Long’
1963 was year zero for The Beatles’ recorded output. Please Please Me was released in March, while With the Beatles followed in November. Those two albums alone represented the greatest leap forward in Lennon’s songwriting, and there are more classics from those two albums than can be stated.
Of all the songs written by Lennon at that time, ‘It Won’t Be Long’ showed the increasing complexity that Lennon found in harmony. The song also provided a sense of the band’s intellectual iconography, something that Lennon largely rejected: “The Beatles were more intellectual, so they appealed on that level, too. But the basic appeal of the Beatles was not their intelligence. It was their music. It was only after some guy in the London Times said there were aeolian cadences in ‘It Won’t Be Long’ that the middle classes started listening to it – because somebody put a tag on it.”
1964 – ‘If I Fell’
Lennon arguably had his most prolific year as a writer in 1964. As the main architect behind A Hard Day’s Night and Beatles for Sale that year, Lennon began to incorporate elements from genres like country and folk into his writing. But nothing could beat his abilities to craft a perfect pop song, sometimes in rock form and sometimes in ballad form.
‘If I Fell’ was Lennon’s first major slow songs, and remains one of his best, ballad or otherwise. He noted of the track: “That’s my first attempt to write a ballad proper. That was the precursor to ‘In My Life’. It has the same chord sequence as ‘In My Life’: D and B minor and E minor, those kinds of things. And it’s semi-autobiographical, but not consciously. It shows that I wrote sentimental love ballads, silly love songs, way back when.”
1965 – ‘Help!’
As the biggest songwriter in the world, Lennon was under plenty of pressure in 1965. With the stress and strain of The Beatles’ popularity weighing heavily on him, Lennon’s focus on light pop love songs began to diminish.
Partially inspired by Bob Dylan, Lennon incorporated his real-life thoughts and experiences into his material, starting with the stark plea of ‘Help!’. As the songwriter explained, the track was a not-so-secret cry for help, “When ‘Help!’ came out, I was actually crying out for help. Most people think it’s just a fast rock ‘n’ roll song. I didn’t realise it at the time; I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie. But later, I knew I really was crying out for help,” he told David Sheff.
1966 – ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’
With the introduction of new drugs and new horizons to his life, traditional songwriting was no longer a restriction for Lennon. Experimentation and exploration became Lennon’s primary focus, and when he walked in with his first contribution to Revolver, it proved to be the most expansive Beatles song ever conceived.
Words don’t do ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ justice: one chord, multiple tape loops, and a legendary call from Lennon to “Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream.”
1967 – ‘I Am the Walrus’
Lennon had an uncanny ability to take the wild explosion of sounds present in psychedelia and condense them into a catchy song. There’s a throughline that can be traced from ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ to ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ to ‘I Am the Walrus’, the latter being Lennon’s most successful music trip.
An explosion of different chords and sections gives the song a unique edge, while Lennon’s comfort with nonsense helped make the song pop. But don’t be fooled; from the barbs destined for Beat writers and a whole host of kaleidoscopic imagery, this remains one of The Beatles’ most psychedelic moments.
1968 – ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun’
A lot of things changed in John Lennon’s life around 1968. Yoko Ono became a permanent presence around him, while harder drugs like heroin began to sneak into his purview. The darkness around Lennon played havoc with his songwriting, but when he could rise above, the results were phenomenal.
‘Happiness is a Warm Gun’ is three different songs shoved into the space of one, proving that Lennon’s creativity was still at peak performance. While many have connected the song to Lennon’s spiralling habits, the songwriter refuted the claims.
1969 – ‘Don’t Let Me Down’
Lennon entered a dry spell in 1969. Famously, he barely brought any material to the start of the Get Back sessions and struggled to stay focused throughout the project. Throughout most of the rehearsals, Lennon could be heard workshopping ‘Don’t Let Me Down’, an emotional plea to Ono.
At one of his least prolific times, ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ gave Lennon a reason to keep writing and keep trying, and for Paul McCartney, the song was clearly aimed at Yoko Ono: “It was a very tense period: John was with Yoko and had escalated to heroin and all the accompanying paranoias and he was putting himself out on a limb. I think that as much as it excited and amused him, and at the same time it secretly terrified him. So ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ was a genuine plea… It was saying to Yoko, ‘I’m really stepping out of line on this one. I’m really letting my vulnerability be seen, so you must not let me down.’ I think it was a genuine cry for help. It was a good song,” McCartney told Barry Miles for Many Years From Now.
1970 – ‘Mother’
Once The Beatles were firmly in Lennon’s rearview, he turned his attention to combating his own trauma. John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is filled to the brim with painful memories and difficult realities, and none are starker than the ones put out in the opening track, ‘Mother’.
Featuring some of the most emotional vocals of Lennon’s career, ‘Mother’ kicked off his solo career in perfect fashion. Uniquely placed as one of Lennon’s most expressive works of maternal anguish, the track typifies the songwriter.
1971 – ‘Imagine’
The most legendary song of Lennon’s entire songwriting career, it’s easy to forget just how elegant and subtle ‘Imagine’ really is. Instead of preaching or soapboxing, Lennon simply wants the listeners to think about all the ways that life could be better for everyone on Earth. It all adds up to a song that continues to resonate as much as it did more than half a century ago.
The iconic work which is left behind following John Lennon’s untimely death in 1980 is vast and expansive. But there’s one song that will represent Lennon for Infinitum.
1972 – ‘New York City’
1972 is usually seen as a major down period in Lennon’s songwriting career. After the creative peak of Imagine, Some Time In New York City found Lennon at his most political and most obvious. ‘New York City’ has none of that pretentiousness: it’s just a rave-up good time featuring Lennon singing lovingly of his new home.
It’s not the best Lennon song of all time, but it’s the best Lennon song in a particularly bad time, but not everybody can always be at the top of their game.
1973 – ‘Mind Games’
Mind Games was Lennon’s call for independence. Newly separated from Ono, Lennon sounds remarkably confused and unwilling to take most things seriously on the album. One of the sole exceptions is the album’s title track, where Lennon lets his uncertainty carry him to new levels of creativity.
Perhaps where this song truly excels is the fact that Lennon returns to his hook-making ability after the noticeably stark and militant Some Time in New York City.
1974 – ‘#9 Dream’
Lennon didn’t always need to pull from real life or divine inspiration in order to write great songs. In fact, one of his best solo songs, ‘#9 Dream’, came from no inspiration whatsoever, barring a vague recollection of a dream he had. “That’s what I call craftsmanship writing, meaning, you know, I just churned that out,” Lennon said in 1980.
“I’m not putting it down, it’s just what it is, but I just sat down and wrote it, you know, with no real inspiration, based on a dream I’d had.”
1975 – ‘Move Over Ms. L’
1975 kicked off nearly a half-decade of Lennon releasing no original material. That year’s Rock ‘n Roll contained all covers, with the sole exception being the B-side to the ‘Stand By Me’ single, ‘Move Over Ms. L’.
Just because it’s his only original of the year doesn’t mean that ‘Move Over Ms. L’ isn’t a great song. In fact, Lennon is at his loosest and most sublimely ridiculous on the high-energy rocker. If there were one image that Lennon would have liked to be immortalised alongside him, it would be of him as the eternal rocker.
1980 – ‘Woman’
With a newfound dedication to his career, Lennon never actually got to see the major success of his final album, Double Fantasy. Songs like ‘(Just Like) Starting Over’ and ‘Watching the Wheels’ proved that Lennon still had his songwriting skills, but it’s ‘Woman’ that continues to age the best.
Lennon should have been able to sing the song for another couple of decades. Instead, he was killed just as he was starting a new chapter, the ultimate in poetic sentiment.
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