The “monster” song John Lennon knew was a hit as soon as he recorded it
Describing the moment when inspiration strikes is never easy. While many musicians spend countless hours trying to overcome writer’s block, a select few seem to experience it rarely, effortlessly writing music and lyrics that appear to come from nowhere. Fortunately, this was a common trait among The Beatles, as both John Lennon and Paul McCartney aimed to create the most extraordinary and other-worldly music possible.
In his formative years, most of Lennon’s ‘light-bulb moments’ occurred either when he was tired, high on LSD, or frustrated at things way out of his control. As someone whose upbringing was far from trauma-free, Lennon was a walking poem, his ability to access realms dark even to him a necessary conduit to crafting the perfect soundscape. Even those he constantly surrounded himself with, including his band members, didn’t know the extent of his pain, at least not until he released John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band.
Writing solo material meant many things for the former Beatle, but mainly, it meant finally unpacking the many challenges he had protected by layers of thick skin over the years. Even his former bandmates couldn’t believe the honesty he injected into his solo music and how they could have missed it all these years, but here he was, finally the musician he always wanted to be. Of course, freedom from creative restriction was also supported by a certain Yoko Ono, who kept Lennon grounded and authentic in every artistic endeavour.
But while his knack for creating musical gold in no time at all occurred throughout his career, like the genesis of some of the most popular The Beatles tracks like ‘Across the Universe’, Lennon utilised this even more later in his life, likely due to the walls both solo work and his relationship with Ono broke down along the way.
One such example of this was ‘Instant Karma’, which was borne out of Lennon’s inherent interest in Buddhist cause-and-effect happenstance and the general idea that we face consequences constantly, not just after a lifetime of bad choices.
This might be one of the reasons why ‘Instant Karma’ became one of Lennon’s most favoured and memorable hits, but it also endeared itself to his audience by being a pure and effortless creation of a mind unshackled from the pressures of commercialism. It was one of Lennon’s fastest pieces of work, made on a single afternoon one Tuesday, and he became so enamoured with the whole thing that he immediately called producers Phil Spector and George Harrison to break the news. “Come over to Apple quick,” he exclaimed, “I’ve just written a monster.”
And he had—by every measure, he had written a monster. “I wrote it for breakfast, recorded it for lunch and we’re putting it out for dinner,” the singer said, relating the insatiable nature of its process to the art of consumption wherein the entire thing occurred as natural as the day’s daily meals. Although the actual timing was strange to consider as Lennon navigated the dissolution of the biggest band in the world, this song was his guiding principle. “I knew I had a hit record,” he said.
While Lennon knew he had captured lightning in a bottle, it wasn’t until Spector turned up that the track transformed from a great one into a fantastic one. “Suddenly, we went in the room and heard what he’d done to it…it was fantastic.” While the song itself reflects quite possibly one of the most bitter emotional journeys you can encounter in your life, Lennon’s signature duality peers through as he offers the perspectives of both sides of the coin. “We all shine on like the moon and the stars and the sun,” he sings, showing the positive side of life where karma neglects to rear its head if your heart is pure.
