The Beatles Song John Lennon Called His ‘First Real Major Piece of Work’

John Lennon wrote many hit songs for The Beatles and his solo career. Many of the songs he wrote include “Help!,” “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “Please Please Me,” and “Come Together.” One song he wrote during his tenure with The Beatles he called his “first real major piece of work.”

‘In My Life’ is a personal Beatles song for John Lennon

“In My Life” debuted in 1965 on The Beatles’ album Rubber Soul. While the song is credited to Lennon and Paul McCartney, Lennon wrote most of the lyrics. McCartney admitted later in an interview with Hit Parader that he wrote the music while the lyrics were “words that John wrote.”

The song was personal for Lennon as the lyrics referenced aspects of his life. The lyrics are based on a bus route he used to take in Liverpool, alluding to various locations along the way, including Penny Lane and Strawberry Field. These locations would later become Beatles’ song titles. 

Lennon called ‘In My Life’ his ‘first real major piece of work’

All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono by David Sheff contains the complete text of the 1980 Playboy interview with Lennon and Ono. During the interview, Lennon talked about “In My Life” and he called it his “first major piece of work.” The reason was that Lennon believed it was the first time he wrote a song containing his personal experiences. 

“For ‘In My Life,’ I had a complete set of lyrics after struggling with a journalistic version of a trip from home to downtown on a bus naming every sight,” Lennon explained. “It became ‘In My Life,’ which is a remembrance of friends and lovers of the past. Paul helped with the middle eight musically. But all lyrics written, signed, sealed, and delivered. And it was, I think, my first real major piece of work. Up till then, it had all been sort of glib and throw-away. And that was the first time I consciously put my literary part of myself into the lyric.”

Lennon reminisced about writing the song and said he had to rewrite the song after he found the initial draft to be boring. He decided to make the lyrics vaguer and less about naming locations he could remember. 

“‘In My Life’ started out as a bus journey from my house at 250 Menlove Avenue to town, mentioning every place I could remember,” Lennon shared. “I wrote it all down and it was ridiculous… it was the most boring sort of ‘What I Did On My Holiday’s Bus Trip’ song, and it wasn’t working at all. But then I laid back, and these lyrics started coming to me about the places I remember.”

The song performed reasonably well on the charts

While “In My Life” is not a number one hit for The Beatles, it performed somewhat well on the charts. The song peaked at number nine on the US Billboard Hot 100 and reached number 78 on the charts in the UK. It’s still remembered as a fantastic song by The Beatles and was even placed at number 98 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.