John Lennon - 1988 - Musician - The Beatles

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Which John Lennon solo songs made it to the top 10?

Sun 22 February 2026 18:00, UK

Despite becoming the most famous musician in the entire world, there was arguably no one more ill-equipped to handle fame than John Lennon, who was, for all intents and purposes, an artist forced to cosplay as a celebrity, just to fulfil his creative desires.

The music always came first for Lennon, right back to the days when he first met Paul McCartney and formed the band, to the bitter end, when bureaucracy had forced a wedge between the pair.

The weight of the celebrity sat heavily on his shoulders, particularly in the later years of the band, and so you could argue that the oncoming solo career was needed most for Lennon. He sought out liberation from the industry pressure of being the figurehead of the world’s biggest band and needed to reacquaint himself with the purity of his own music.

It’s why the lyric, “I don’t believe in the Beatles / I just believe in me” felt like a big sigh of relief on ‘God’. In fact, Plastic Ono Band as a whole was a record that marked the dawn of a liberated new era for him, and while he showcased all of the songwriting sensibilities that made him so beloved in the previous decade, it clearly soundtracked the moment an artist jailed by his own fame was set free.

“I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done,” he remarked, “I think it’s realistic and it’s true to the me that has been developing over the years from my life. I always wrote about me when I could. I didn’t really enjoy writing third-person songs about people who lived in concrete flats and things like that. I like first-person music. But because of my hang-ups and many other things, I would only now and then specifically write about me. Now I wrote all about me, and that’s why I like it. It’s me! And nobody else. That’s why I like it. It’s real, that’s all.”

As the 1970s rolled on, and the bespectacled Beatle found his feet as a solo artist, his wings continued to spread, and all of the control placed on him in the previous decade slowly fell away as he relearned what it was to be a true artist. In ‘75, he continued to unveil the revelations becoming a solo artist afforded him, explaining, “It dawned on me that the reason I became an artist was freedom, because I couldn’t fit into the classroom, the college, the society. But suddenly I was obliged to a record company, obliged to the media, obliged to the public, obliged to go to court every time some expletive bumped into me on the street. I know freedom is in the mind but I couldn’t clear my mind. So it was time to regroup.”

While personal freedom was the ultimate goal, it didn’t come at the expense of his career success. Being the household name he was, his legion of adoring fans continued to follow him into these new artistic breaches and allowed his music to stay relevant in the chart space, even if that didn’t matter to him.

So, which John Lennon songs hit the top 10?

In total, eight of his songs hit the top ten in the charts, which is pretty meagre if you compare it to the success of The Beatles, but then again, that isn’t the point.

This is Lennon, the solo artist, writing music that felt pertinent to him rather than the charts. The eight songs that achieved chart success proved that Lennon being himself resonated with the public, and while the results represent something of a diverse list, the big hitters were the songs that tapped into his philanthropic edge and proved the general public wanted that passionate style of songwriting from him.

The eight songs were 1969’s ‘Give Peace a Chance’, 1970’s ‘Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)’, 1971’s ‘Power to the People’ and ‘Imagine’, 1973’s ‘Mind Games, the subsequent two years’ ‘Whatever Gets You Thru the Night’ and ‘#9 Dream’, and lastly, 1980’s ‘(Just Like) Starting Over’. Of these eight, it was ‘Whatever Gets You Thru the Night’ that bagged Lennon his solo number one.