{"id":650602,"date":"2026-05-18T16:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T16:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/650602\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T16:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T16:05:10","slug":"4-beatles-songs-that-were-inspired-by-john-lennons-personal-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/650602\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Beatles Songs That Were Inspired by John Lennon\u2019s Personal Struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Lennon<\/a> was a great artist, but he wasn\u2019t without his issues. Here are some Beatles songs that give a little insight into John Lennon\u2019s personal struggles.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting Better\u201d<\/p>\n

Of all Beatles songs, this one is definitely a little bit controversial, to say the least. In \u201cGetting Better\u201d, Lennon is brutally honest, singing about his struggles with anger and domestic violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a diary form of writing,\u201d Lennon explained to David Sheff<\/a>. \u201cAll that \u2018I used to be cruel to my woman, I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved\u2019 was me. I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically \u2013 any woman. I was a hitter. I couldn\u2019t express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace, you see. It is the most violent people who go for love and peace. Everything\u2019s the opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m A Loser\u201d<\/p>\n

This one sings about letting go of a lover and feeling regret afterward. Written primarily by Lennon, even Paul McCartney thought the emotional depth in this song was particularly brave.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking back on it, I think songs like \u2018I\u2019m A Loser\u2019 and\u00a0\u2018Nowhere Man\u2019\u00a0were John\u2019s cries for help,\u201d McCartney admitted to Barry Miles<\/a>. \u201cWe used to listen to quite a lot of country and western songs and they are all about sadness and \u2018I lost my truck\u2019 so it was quite acceptable to sing \u2018I\u2019m a loser.\u2019 You didn\u2019t really think about it at the time, it\u2019s only later you think, \u2018God! I think it was pretty brave of John.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHelp!\u201d<\/p>\n

Although this song sounds kind of upbeat and fun, according to Lennon, this song was literally him asking for help.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen \u2018Help!\u2019 came out, I was actually crying out for help,\u201d Lennon explained to David Sheff<\/a>. \u201cMost people think it\u2019s just a fast rock \u2018n\u2019 roll song. I didn\u2019t realize it at the time; I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie. But later, I knew I really was crying out for help. So it was my fat Elvis period.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve Got To Hide Your Love Away\u201d<\/p>\n

Like \u201cI\u2019m A Loser\u201d, this song was written during what Lennon called his \u201cDylan period,\u201d a time during which the songwriter took quite a lot of inspiration from the \u201cBlowin\u2019 In The Wind\u201d singer.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018You\u2019ve Got To Hide Your Love Away\u2019 is my Dylan period,\u201d he explained in The Anthology. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those that you sing a bit sadly to yourself, \u2018Here I stand, head in hand\u2026\u2019 I\u2019d started thinking about my own emotions. I don\u2019t know when exactly it started, like\u00a0\u2018I\u2019m A Loser\u2019\u00a0or \u2018Hide Your Love Away\u2019, those kinds of things. Instead of projecting myself into a situation, I would try to express what I felt about myself, which I\u2019d done in my books.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo by: Vinnie Zuffante\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Lennon was a great artist, but he wasn\u2019t without his issues. Here are some Beatles songs that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,15763,216,13979],"class_list":["post-650602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-john-lennon","tag-music","tag-the-beatles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}