Write Away Magazine - Issue No1

Write Away
The Working Class Hero
A friend once asked John Lennon
“What is the best lyric you ever
wrote?” To which he replied “All
You Need Is Love.”
The Beatles , John Lennon,
Paul McCartney, George
Harrison and Ringo
Star shared an astonishing
twenty seven
number one hits in
the USA and UK
during their
time
together
starti
n g
out
i n
1962.
Of those
number
o n e s ,
twenty six
c a m e
from the
unique
collaboration
of Lennon
and
McCartney. John
Lennon penned seven on his
own and collaborated on a further five.
To this day Lennon and McCartney are
still considered the most successful songwriting
duo in musical history, and some of
their records still stand today.
Although many of the songs within the Lennon-McCartney
songbook were initially
penned by either one or the other separately,
they had decided around the age of
fifteen or sixteen to form a songwriting partnership
that would last until 1970. Despite
a falling out between the two artists, John
Lennon confirmed in one of his last interviews
that their intimate methodology was
to write songs “eyeball to eyeball.” The final
composition they collaborated on is appropriately
titled “The End”—the final track on
Abbey Road, written and recorded in 1969.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
topped the US and British charts, won four
Grammy awards in 1968 and the song is
ranked number 26 in Rolling Stone magazine's
list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All
Time.
The lyrics, which once belonged to the
Beatles' road manager Mal Evans, provide
a glimpse into the band's methods, with
Lennon noting where Paul McCartney
would insert his more upbeat verse. Lennon's
words appear to be inspired by newspaper
headlines and articles.
The song includes the words "He blew his
mind out in a car/He didn't notice that the
lights had changed", widely accepted to be
a reference to the accidental death in a car
crash of Lennon and McCartney's friend
Tara Browne.
On a lighter note, the final verse about "four
thousand holes in Blackburn Lancashire"
was taken from a report on the high
number of potholes on the roads.
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