The Beatles song John Lennon wrote as a cry for help

(Credits: Bent Rej)

Mon 20 October 2025 17:39, UK

In 1964, it seemed like John Lennon had everything he’d ever wanted as Beatlemania swept the world into a collective state of hysteria.

Within the space of two years, The Beatles had gone from being unknowns to being among the most famous faces on the planet. They were no longer playing The Cavern Club in Liverpool in order to pay rent, and now, their faces were adorned on magazine covers and billboards across the globe.

For Lennon, who had given everything in pursuit of achieving his dream of musical greatness, it seemed like he’d hit the jackpot. However, the harsh reality is a different story, and it wasn’t until he climbed to the top of the mountain did he discovered this to be true.

Once The Beatles achieved their first number one in 1963 with ‘From Me To You’, his life would never be the same again. The days of being able to nip to the shops without being harassed were a relic of the past. While the general public doesn’t typically have sympathy for millionaire musicians, many downsides affected him significantly. Lennon had lost the lust for life from the group’s early days, and it became a suffocating experience.

Admittedly, countless positives came with The Beatles taking over the world, such as the unfathomable riches he accrued and the places it allowed him to visit; it wasn’t all sunshine and flowers for Lennon. He once succinctly put it, “The price of fame is not being able to go to the Phil for a quiet pint.”

The Beatles in 1966. (Credits: Far Out / Alamy)

Although missing out on a quiet pint in the pub isn’t the end of the world, Lennon did greatly miss being able to experience the ordinary. To navigate the complex emotions that came with success, Lennon turned to his pen. In 1964, he wrote ‘I’ll Cry Instead’, which was his way of dealing with the dark side of fame and losing his freedoms.

The track, which sees Lennon bare all, includes the heartbreaking verse: “I’ve got a chip on my shoulder that’s bigger than my feet, I can’t talk to people that I meet, If I could see you now, I’d try to make you sad somehow, But I can’t, so I’ll cry instead.”

While Lennon often talked freely about his back catalogue and wasn’t unafraid to put his own creations under the bus, he shied away from talking about ‘I’ll Cry Instead’ when David Sheff interviewed him in 1980.

He bluntly said of the track: “I wrote that for A Hard Day’s Night, but Dick Lester didn’t even want it. He resurrected ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ for that sequence instead. I like the middle eight to that song, though – that’s about all I can say about it.”

However, his then-wife, Cynthia, claimed the song was Lennon’s way of crying out for help. She said: “It reflects the frustration he [John Lennon] felt at that time. He was the idol of millions, but the freedom and fun of the early days had gone.”

It has also been speculated that the song was about the breakdown of his relationship with Cynthia, which officially ended in 1968 when she was granted a divorce due to his adultery with Yoko Ono.

As it was such a vulnerable track, it’s understandable why Lennon was reluctant to dive back into the turbulent headspace he was in during its creation. He had moved on with his life from that point, and there was little to gain by reopening old wounds. In this case, Lennon let his songwriting speak for itself, and to this day, ‘I’ll Cry Instead’ continues to provide a window into how Lennon really felt about becoming famous.

The Beatles song John Lennon wrote as a cry for help

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