“He Was the One Who Would Write a Hurtful Song”: The Story Behind “How Do You Sleep?” by John Lennon

The divisions within The Beatles were evident long before they split up. When the band stopped touring and focused only on making recordings, they began splintering and moving in different directions. The 1967 death of manager Brian Epstein left them without a guiding hand they had grown to rely on. By the time of the self-titled project, commonly referred to as the White Album, the individual Beatles were using different recording studios and working independently. Drummer Ringo Starr threatened to quit the band for two weeks before he was lured back into the fold.

The sessions for what would become Let It Be were an effort to bring everyone back together and make a record again as a unit. As the movie cameras rolled, it became apparent this was a group in crisis. Now, it was George Harrison’s turn to leave the band. As the group contemplated replacing the guitarist with Eric Clapton, it looked as if they were unsure of their future. Things with Harrison were patched up, and keyboardist Billy Preston came in and saved the day as the group all seemed to be on their best behavior when he was in the studio.

The famous rooftop concert captured a unified band, letting it all out for one last time before continuing to go their own separate ways. John Lennon was more interested in making music with Yoko Ono than another Beatles album. Harrison had a backlog of songs he was anxious to record, and Paul McCartney seemed to be the only one actively rallying the troops and trying to keep the band together.

On September 20, 1969, Lennon informed his bandmates he would be leaving the group, although it wasn’t clarified if it was a permanent decision. On April 10, 1970, McCartney made it official when he issued a press release stating he was no longer working with The Beatles. Lawsuits followed, and the band’s dissolution would not be complete until December 29, 1974. Meanwhile, things got a bit heated between John and Paul. Let’s look at the story behind “How Do You Sleep?” by John Lennon.

So, Sgt. Pepper took you by surprise
You better see right through that mother’s eye
Those freaks was right when they said you was dead
The one mistake you made was in your head
Oh, how do you sleep
Oh, how do you sleep at night

“A Little Dig at John and Yoko”

The song begins with an orchestra tuning up, just as Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band did. It’s the identical length. Lennon’s acerbic wit is on full display as he cuts right to the chase. Undoubtedly, McCartney was familiar with Lennon’s jabs. He had released his album Ram several months before. In 1984, McCartney told Playboy magazine, “I was looking at my second solo album, Ram, the other day, and I remember there was one tiny little reference to John in the whole thing. He’d been doing a lot of preaching, and it got up my nose a little bit. In one song, I wrote, ‘Too many people preaching practices,’ I think is the line. I mean, that was a little dig at John and Yoko. There wasn’t anything else on it that was about them. Oh, there was, ‘You took your lucky break and broke it in two.’”

You live with straights who tell you, you was king
Jump when your momma tell you anything
The only thing you done was yesterday
And since you’re gone, you’re just another day
Oh, how do you sleep
Oh, how do you sleep at night

“I’ll Just Get Right Down to the Nitty-Gritty”

Of course, fans picked right up on the lyrics, and so did the press. McCartney was asked about it multiple times in interviews. McCartney told Melody Maker magazine, “He says the only thing I did was ‘Yesterday,’ He knows that’s wrong. He knows, and I know it’s not true.” In 1980, Lennon told author David Sheff, “It was like Dylan doing ‘Like a Rolling Stone,’ one of his nasty songs. It’s using somebody as an object to create something. I wasn’t really feeling that vicious at the time, but I was using my resentment towards Paul to create a song. Let’s put it that way. It was just a mood. Paul took it the way he did because it obviously pointedly refers to him, and people just hounded him about it, asking, ‘How do ya feel about it?’ But there were a few little digs on his albums, which he kept but I heard them. So I just thought, Well, hang up being obscure! I’ll just get right down to the nitty-gritty.”

John Being John

One of the main divisions between The Beatles was who would manage them after Epstein. McCartney lobbied for John Eastman, while the rest of the band voted for Allen Klein. McCartney wrote in The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, “John actually had Allen Klein and Yoko in the room, suggesting lyrics during writing sessions. In his song ‘How Do You Sleep?’ the line The only thing you done was yesterday was apparently Allen Klein’s suggestion, and John said, ‘Hey, great. Put that in.’ I can see the laughs they had doing it, and I had to work very hard not to take it too seriously, but at the back of my mind, I was thinking, ‘Wait a minute, All I ever did was ‘Yesterday’? I suppose that’s a funny pun, but all I ever did was ‘Yesterday,’ ‘Let It Be,’ ‘The Long and Winding Road,’ ‘Eleanor Rigby,’ ‘Lady Madonna.’ … A lot of hurt went down during that period in the early 1970s—them feeling hurt, me feeling hurt—but John being John, he was the one who would write a hurtful song. That was his bag.”

A pretty face may last a year or two
But pretty soon, they’ll see what you can do
The sound you make is muzak to my ears
You must have learned something in all those years
Oh, how do you sleep
Oh, how do you sleep at night

“Him and Me Are OK”

The song is clearly aimed at McCartney, but Lennon was deflecting a bit of the blast when he spoke of it in the Imagine film, “It’s not about Paul, it’s about me. I’m really attacking myself. But I regret the association, well, what’s to regret? He lived through it. The only thing that matters is how he and I feel about these things and not what the writer or commentator thinks about it. Him and me are OK.”

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