John Lennon ‘Wasn’t Very Proud’ of a Beatles Song He Stole ‘Word for Word’
John Lennon has been lauded as one of the most prolific songwriters of all time, but he once admitted to stealing the lyrics to a Beatles song. He said that he often looked to the world around him for inspiration. He once took this a bit further than usual, though. Lennon couldn’t help but feel slightly embarrassed by the song.
John Lennon said he took outside inspiration for many Beatles songs
Lennon said that of all the songs he wrote with The Beatles, only one seemed to fall into his head from nowhere. Fittingly, the song is “Nowhere Man.”
“I was just sitting, trying to think of a song, and I thought of myself sitting there, doing nothing and going nowhere,” he said, per the book The Beatles: The Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies. “Once I’d thought of that, it was easy. It all came out. No, I remember now, I’d actually stopped trying to think of something. Nothing would come. I was cheesed off and went for a lie-down, having given up. Then I thought of myself as Nowhere Man — sitting in his nowhere land.”
For the most part, though, he tried to use the world around him as inspiration. Lennon said he would write songs with the newspaper spread in front of him and pick out interesting phrases. He also took inspiration from film, television, and the places he walked past every day.
John Lennon admitted to stealing the lyrics of a Beatles song
Once, Lennon was looking at a poster when inspiration struck him. He wrote the song “Being for The Benefit of Mr. Kite” using the words on the poster.
“‘Mr. Kite’ was a straight lift,” he explained. “I had all the words staring me in the face one day when I was looking for a song. It was from this old poster I’d bought at an antique shop. We’d been down in Surrey or somewhere filming a TV piece to go with Sergeant Pepper. There was a break and I went into this shop and bought an old poster advertising a variety show which starred Mr. Kite.”
He said he barely had to put effort into the song.
“It said the Hendersons would also be there, late of Pablo Fanques Fair,” he said. “There would be hoops and horses and someone going through a hogshead of real fire. Then there was Henry the Horse. The band would start at ten to six. All at Bishopsgate. Look, there’s the bill, with Mr. Kite topping it. I hardly made up a word, just connecting the lists together. Word for word, really.”
The band included the song on the album, but Lennon wasn’t thrilled with it.
“I wasn’t very proud of that,” he admitted. “There was no real work. I was just going through the motions because we needed a new song for Sergeant Pepper at that moment.”
It is still creative, despite its origins
While this song may not have been the pinnacle of Lennon’s musical innovation, it still required some creativity. He had to set the lyrics to music, and the stomping, psychedelic carnival sound fits the song well.
Lennon also had to pick out phrases from the poster to stitch together in a way that flowed. While he may have directly lifted certain phrases from the poster, he didn’t sing every word as it appeared on the document. The song may have come together quickly, but it still required some thought.
