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John Lennon took inspiration from Bob Dylan for a song from The Beatles’ Help! Paul McCartney said John wished his life was more like Dylan’s. On the other hand, John said he stopped caring about Dylan early in the folk singer’s career.

Bob Dylan with a guitar
Bob Dylan | Bettmann / Contributor

John Lennon drew from Bob Dylan poems in a song from The Beatles’ ‘Help!’

In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul discussed his feelings about Dylan’s musical evolution. “Dylan’s Woody Guthrie period was very nice and I liked him then, but then he had a second wave of popularity when he became more psychedelic and more associated with drugs and at that time John particularly became very enamored of him because of his poetry,” he said. 

“All those songs were great lyrically,” Paul added. “Masses of cluttered lyrics like John had written in his books. So Dylan’s gobbledegook and his cluttered poetry was very appealing, it hit a chord in John, it was as if John felt, ‘That should have been me.'” 

Paul said Dylan’s music inspired John to write “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” from The Beatles’ Help! “And to that end, John on this one track did a Dylan impression,” Paul recalled. “I think it was 100 percent John’s song. I might have helped him on it, I have a vague recollection of helping to fill out some verses for him.”

John Lennon said he was inspired by Bob Dylan around the time the Fab Four made ‘Help!’

The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features an interview from 1980. In it, John said the song came from a time when he was deeply inspired by Dylan.

John compared himself to a chameleon. “If Elvis can do it, I can do it,” he said “If the Everly Brothers can do it, me and Paul can. Same with Dylan.” John revealed he wasn’t as massive fan of the “Blowin’ in the Wind” singer. He revealed he stopped listening to Dylan after hearing Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde. Notably, John only listened to those albums at George Harrison’s direction.

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The Beatles’ ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away’ became a part of a hit mashup song

“You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” wasn’t a hit but the song was incorporated into “The Beatles’ Movie Medley,” a mashup of several tunes from Beatles movies. “The Beatles’ Movie Medley” reached No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. It lasted on the chart for 11 weeks.

According to The Official Charts Company, “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” didn’t chart in the United Kingdom either. However, “The Beatles’ Movie Medley” peaked at No. 10 there, lasting on the chart for nine weeks.

“You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” also inspired covers by many notable musicians. The Beach Boys, Eddie Vedder, Waylon Jennings, Oasis, all put their own spin on the track.

Regardless of John’s feelings about Dylan, “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” is a classic.

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