5 Beatles Songs John Lennon Wrote About Yoko Ono
While each member of The Beatles got married, John Lennon and Yoko Ono were the power couple of the group. The pair appeared to be attached to the hip, with Ono being present at many of the band’s recording sessions. Lennon often expressed his love for Ono in his music and dedicated several Beatles songs to her.
Here are 5 Beatles songs John Lennon wrote about Yoko Ono
1. ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’
“I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” is a track from Abbey Road. The nearly eight-minute-long song features John Lennon expressing his love for Yoko Ono, with the repeated “I Want You/ I Want You So Bad” lyrics that make up most of the song. While the lyrics are simple, the song is elevated by the excellent guitar-playing from Lennon. It’s one of the heavier performances from his career with The Beatles.
2. ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun’
“Happiness is a Warm Gun” is from The Beatles’ The White Album (1968). The title is based on an advertisement from an American gun magazine. The radio banned the track for possibly alluding to drugs, but Lennon said the happiness he referenced in the song came from Ono, not drugs.
“A gun magazine was sitting around, and the cover was the picture of a smoking gun. The title of the article, which I never read, was ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun,’” Lennon said in a 1980 interview with Playboy. “I took it as the idea of happiness after having shot somebody. Or some animal. That was the beginning of my relationship with Yoko and I was very sexually orientated then. When we weren’t in the studio, we were in the bed.”
3. ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko’
“The Ballad of John and Yoko” was a single released by The Beatles that never made its way on the album. The single was written by John Lennon during his honeymoon and chronicles the events of his marriage to Yoko Ono. Lennon once called the song a “piece of journalism” since it documented real events. The song did become a hit, reaching No. 1 in the U.K. and No. 8 in the U.S.
4. ‘Don’t Let Me Down’
“Don’t Let Me Down” was released in 1969 as the B-side to the “Get Back” single. Many have called this one of Lennon’s more vulnerable love songs. In Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now, Paul McCartney called the song a “cry for help” from Ono as he put himself out there.
“John was with Yoko and had escalated to heroin and all the accompanying paranoias, and he was putting himself out on a limb,” McCartney shared. “I think that as much as it excited and amused him, and the same time it secretly terrified him. So ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ was a genuine plea… It was saying to Yoko, ‘I’m really stepping out of line on this one. I’m really letting my vulnerability be seen, so you must not let me down.’
5. ‘Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey’
This track is another love song to Yoko Ono that John Lennon wrote that also works as a message to the other Beatles. Lennon wasn’t happy with how his bandmates reacted to Ono when they first started dating, and this song addressed the band’s skepticism about their relationship.
“It was about me and Yoko,” Lennon told Playboy. “Everybody seemed to be paranoid except for us two, who were in the glow of love. Everything is clear and open when you’re in love. Everybody was sort of tense around us: you know, “What is she doing here at the session? Why is she with him?” All this sort of madness is going on around us because we just happened to want to be together all the time”
