The above is one hell of a headline, right? One that sounds ludicrous at best. John Lennon, arguably one of the more important pop songwriters to ever live, was embarrassed by his work?! Even before you take into account the man’s monumental ego, how could anyone possibly write ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, ‘Help!’ and ‘Come Together’ and feel anything other than the kind of pride that can justify that ego? Well, I think it’s more likely than you’d know.
The man was human after all. Deep down, he had the same insecurities as anyone else, if not more so. Then he became one of the world’s most famous and beloved people. As we can tell by looking at literally any other famous person, that does strange things to your head. Think of it this way, and this may be a strange question to ask, but indulge me a moment. Look back on the things in your life that other people have been most proud of. How do you feel about them?
There’s a reasonably high chance that you don’t quite feel the same as everyone else. In extreme cases, you might want people to stop talking about them and focus on things that you’re actually proud of. Take that feeling, multiply it by being one of the world’s most famous people, then multiply it again by the fact that all those achievements people won’t stop comparing you to were made with people you hate.
That right there goes some way to explaining Lennon in the 1970s. A man desperately trying to move on from the art he made in his 20s, and finding the world won’t let him. No wonder he took an extended break from music to raise his kids (second time’s the charm, I guess). If I made John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and found that all people really wanted to hear from me was ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, I’d chuck my toys out of the pram too.
So, was John Lennon embarrassed by his music?
However, in an interview Lennon conducted with Rolling Stone in 1970, Lennon kept talking about how it’s not just his work in The Beatles that embarrasses him, but his solo work too. However, they come from very different places. He’s constantly undercutting his time in The Fabs, saying he’s embarrassed by his own guitar playing from that time and generally seems as uncomfortable discussing it as one does their baby photos.
However, he finds himself discomfited by his solo work because of how intensely, nakedly personal it is. Which checks out, after all, Plastic Ono Band was an album informed by intense primal scream therapy. The project was built around Lennon saying things on record that left him vulnerable, that he couldn’t take back. As if to reflect that, he’s remarkably candid in this interview, and when he’s asked if he can stand to listen to the record after it’s made, he doesn’t hold back.
“I get embarrassed,” he reveals, “You see, sometimes I can hear it and be embarrassed just by the performance of either the music or the statements, and sometimes I don’t. I change daily, you know. Like just before it’s coming out, I can’t bear to hear it in the house or play it anywhere, but a few months before that, I can play it all the time. It just changes all the time.”
All this to say there were days when he could live with himself and days when he couldn’t. A complicated answer from a complicated man.
