Some of his targets were obscure album tracks, but others were beloved classics that defined an era. 🎸 What\u2019s striking about John\u2019s self-criticism isn\u2019t just that he disliked certain songs\u2014it\u2019s how much<\/em> he disliked them, and how willing he was to say so. This wasn\u2019t false modesty or artistic posturing; it was genuine regret, wrapped in the kind of blunt honesty that made John Lennon both fascinating and occasionally infuriating. <\/p> \u201cI always hated \u2018Run For Your Life.\u2019\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 John Lennon, 1980 Playboy Interview<\/p> If there was one Beatles song John Lennon truly despised, it was \u201cRun For Your Life\u201d <\/strong>from Rubber Soul<\/em> (1965). In his final major interview, with David Sheff for Playboy in 1980, John didn\u2019t mince words: He called it his least-favorite Beatles song ever. The lyrics\u2014borrowed from an old Elvis Presley song\u2014threatened violence against a cheating woman, and by 1980, Lennon was deeply embarrassed by them. The song\u2019s opening line about preferring to see a woman dead than with another man<\/strong> horrified the older, more reflective Lennon, who had spent years working on his own issues with jealousy and possessiveness.<\/p> What makes this confession really striking is that John wrote it quickly, almost carelessly, to fill out the Rubber Soul<\/em> album. It was a throwaway track that haunted him for the rest of his life. In his 1970 Rolling Stone <\/em>interview with Jann Wenner, just after the Beatles\u2019 breakup, John admitted he was just \u201cchurning it out\u201d and had no real emotional investment in the song. By 1980, that lack of investment had curdled into genuine shame. 😱<\/p> \u201cI always thought it was a lousy song. The lyrics were abysmal.\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 John Lennon, discussing \u201cIt\u2019s Only Love\u201d<\/p> From the same Rubber Soul<\/em> era came \u201cIt\u2019s Only Love,\u201d <\/strong>and John\u2019s assessment was equally harsh. He told interviewers that the lyrics were \u201cabysmal\u201d and that he never liked the song. The track featured fairly straightforward love song clich\u00e9s\u2014exactly the kind of thing John was trying to move away from by 1965. While George Harrison\u2019s <\/strong>guitar work saved it from being completely forgettable, John clearly wished he\u2019d spent more time on the writing.<\/p> The interesting thing about John\u2019s critique of \u201cIt\u2019s Only Love\u201d is that it reveals his evolving artistic standards. By the time of Rubber Soul<\/em>, he was writing songs like \u201cGirl\u201d and \u201cNorwegian Wood\u201d\u2014complex, layered compositions that explored adult relationships with nuance and wit. \u201cIt\u2019s Only Love\u201d represented the simpler, more innocent Beatles he was trying to leave behind, and he hated being reminded of it. 💔<\/p> \u201c\u2019Good Morning Good Morning\u2019 is a piece of garbage.\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 John Lennon, 1980<\/p> From Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/em> came \u201cGood Morning Good Morning,\u201d <\/strong>another song he called a throwaway. He called it \u201cgarbage,\u201d inspired by a Kellogg\u2019s Corn Flakes TV commercial. The song\u2019s saving grace was the barnyard animal sound effects at the end\u2014arranged so each successive animal could eat the one before it\u2014but John felt the song itself had no real substance.<\/p> What\u2019s fascinating is that John wrote this during the Sgt. Pepper<\/em> sessions, arguably the most creative period of his life. Even surrounded by masterpieces like \u201cA Day in the Life\u201d and \u201cLucy in the Sky with Diamonds,\u201d he could still produce something he considered worthless. It\u2019s a reminder that even geniuses have off days\u2014and that John Lennon was painfully aware when he\u2019d had one. 📺<\/p> \u201cI had all the words… from this old poster.\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 John Lennon, 1980<\/p> While John didn\u2019t express outright hatred for \u201cBeing for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!\u201d<\/strong> from Sgt. Pepper<\/em>, he was dismissive of it because, as he explained to David Sheff, he\u2019d simply copied the lyrics nearly word-for-word from an old Victorian circus poster. He bought the poster at an antique shop and merely rearranged the text into song form. John felt there was no real creative achievement in the song\u2014it was just transcription with a tune.<\/p> This confession reveals something important about John\u2019s artistic standards: he valued originality and emotional authenticity above all else. A song could be technically accomplished and commercially successful, but if John felt he\u2019d taken shortcuts or phoned it in, he couldn\u2019t respect it. \u201cMr. Kite!\u201d was a fascinating sonic experiment (thanks to George Martin\u2019s production wizardry and his playing on piano, harmonium, Hammond organ, Lowrey organ, Wurlitzer organ, and glockenspiel). <\/p> But to John, the song was a cheat. 🎪<\/p> \u201cIt\u2019s one of the best lyrics I\u2019ve written\u2026. It was a lousy track of a great song.\u201d<\/strong> \u2013 John Lennon, 1980<\/p> Here\u2019s where John\u2019s self-criticism gets complicated. He loved the lyrics to \u201cAcross the Universe\u201d<\/strong>\u2014he considered them among his finest\u2014but he absolutely hated every recorded version of the song. The original 1968 recording bothered him. The slowed-down version on the Let It Be<\/em> album, drenched in producer Phil Spector\u2019s strings and choirs, drove him crazy. He felt he\u2019d never captured the song the way he heard it in his head.<\/p> \u201cThe song never came out right,\u201d he lamented.<\/p> This might be the saddest entry on this list because it represents not hatred but profound disappointment. John knew he\u2019d written something beautiful, but he felt the Beatles (and later, Spector) had failed to honor it in the studio. It\u2019s the musical equivalent of writing a perfect poem and then having someone read it poorly at your funeral. 🌌<\/p> OK, we\u2019ve covered the songs John deeply disliked for artistic reasons, now let\u2019s talk about the songs that caused him regret for deeper reasons\u2014songs that represented something he later rejected, or songs where the creative process itself became painful.<\/p> The Beatles never officially released \u201cHow Do You Do It\u201d <\/strong>by Mitch Murray, but they were pressured by George Martin to record it as a potential single in 1962. John and Paul McCartney <\/strong>hated it, recorded it half-heartedly, and successfully convinced Martin to let them release \u201cLove Me Do\u201d instead.. John later called it \u201cgarbage\u201d and said it represented everything wrong with the music industry\u2014songwriters in offices writing calculated hits with no soul or authenticity.<\/p> The Beatles\u2019 refusal to release \u201cHow Do You Do It\u201d was a pivotal moment. Martin gave the song to Gerry and the Pacemakers instead, and it became a #1 hit. But John never regretted the decision. He would rather have failed with \u201cLove Me Do\u201d (which didn\u2019t fail) than succeed with someone else\u2019s calculated pop formula. This wasn\u2019t just about a specific song\u2014it was about artistic integrity. ✊<\/p> While John never explicitly said he hated \u201cThe Ballad of John and Yoko,\u201d<\/strong> by the late 1970s he expressed ambivalence about it. The song documented his 1969 marriage to Yoko Ono and the media circus that followed, and while it was cathartic at the time, John in retrospect felt it too self-indulgent, too focused on his personal drama.<\/p> What bothered John most was that the song contributed to the narrative that Yoko had broken up the Beatles\u2014a narrative he spent years trying to correct. Every time someone played \u201cThe Ballad of John and Yoko,\u201d it reinforced the idea that John had chosen Yoko over the band, when the reality was far more complicated. 💔<\/p> John defended \u201cRevolution 9\u201d<\/strong> throughout his life, but even he occasionally questioned whether the eight-minute sound collage belonged on the White Album. In various interviews, he acknowledged that it was \u201can accident\u201d that grew out of studio experimentation, and that it probably alienated more listeners than it enlightened.<\/p> The interesting thing about John\u2019s ambivalence toward \u201cRevolution 9\u201d is that it wasn\u2019t about the art itself\u2014he remained proud of the experimental work\u2014but about the context. On a double album already bursting with conventional songs, did they really need eight minutes of avant-garde sound collage? McCartney certainly didn\u2019t think so, and by 1980, John seemed to concede the point. 🎨<\/p> John loved the main body of \u201cI Want You (She\u2019s So Heavy)\u201d from Abbey Road<\/em>\u2014the raw, primal blues-rock riff perfectly captured his obsessive love for Yoko. But he had mixed feelings about the extended jam at the end, which goes on for several minutes before abruptly cutting off.<\/p> In his 1980 Playboy interview, John suggested that the extended ending was partly an artistic statement and partly the result of not knowing how else to finish the song. He and the Beatles had argued about how long the ending should be, and the final version was a compromise that left no one entirely happy. John wished they\u2019d either committed fully to a longer experimental piece or found a cleaner ending. The half-measure bothered him. ⚖️<\/p> \u201cDig It\u201d from Let It Be<\/em> was barely a song\u2014just a fragment of a jam session that made it onto the album. John later called it \u201cgarbage\u201d and expressed bewilderment that it was included at all. The Let It Be<\/em> sessions were chaotic and often miserable, and \u201cDig It\u201d represented everything wrong with that period: aimless improvisation, lack of direction, and a band that had lost its sense of purpose.<\/p> What makes \u201cDig It\u201d particularly painful is that it appeared on what would be the Beatles\u2019 final album. Instead of going out on a high note with a polished masterpiece, the album included fragments and outtakes that John felt diminished the Beatles\u2019 legacy. If he could have erased \u201cDig It\u201d from history, he absolutely would have. 😱<\/p> \u201cMean Mr. Mustard.\u201d <\/strong>Even the beloved Abbey Road<\/em> medley wasn\u2019t safe. John dismissed this character sketch as \u201ca bit of crap\u201d he\u2019d written in India that he just had \u201clying around.\u201d<\/p> John Lennon\u2019s willingness to trash his own work wasn\u2019t just refreshing honesty\u2014it was a form of artistic evolution. By publicly acknowledging his failures and regrets, John was rejecting the myth of the infallible genius. He was saying, in effect, that even Beatles songs could be flawed, rushed, or compromised. And by holding himself to impossible standards, he pushed himself to write better, more honest, more meaningful songs.<\/p> The tragedy is that John never got to record definitive new versions of some of these songs. He never got his perfect take of \u201cAcross the Universe.\u201d He never got to rewrite \u201cRun For Your Life\u201d with lyrics he could stand behind. And he never got to explain, in his own words, how his feelings about these songs reflected his growth as an artist and a person.<\/p> But what we do have are his words\u2014blunt, honest, sometimes cruel, but always authentic. And in those words, we see a portrait of an artist who refused to coast on past glories, who couldn\u2019t forgive himself for taking creative shortcuts, and who held himself to standards that even the Beatles couldn\u2019t always meet. Even the songs he hated remain more interesting than almost anyone else\u2019s greatest hits.💎<\/p> From “abysmal” lyrics to studio “crap,” Lennon reveals the tracks he regretted the most<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"amazonpipp_noncename":"","amazon-product-isactive":"","amazon-product-single-asin":"","amazon-product-content-location":"","amazon-product-content-hook-override":"","amazon-product-excerpt-hook-override":"","amazon-product-singular-only":"","amazon-product-amazon-desc":"","amazon-product-show-gallery":"","amazon-product-show-features":"","amazon-product-newwindow":"","amazon-product-show-list-price":"","amazon-product-show-used-price":"","amazon-product-show-saved-amt":"","amazon-product-timestamp":"","amazon-product-new-title":"","amazon-product-use-cartURL":"","amazon_featured_post_meta_key":"","_amazon_featured_alt":"","amazon-product-template":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[33,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2x2Mt-cszWI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weberbooks.com\/kindle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184127396"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weberbooks.com\/kindle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weberbooks.com\/kindle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weberbooks.com\/kindle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weberbooks.com\/kindle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184127396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.weberbooks.com\/kindle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184127396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194564244,"href":"https:\/\/www.weberbooks.com\/kindle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184127396\/revisions\/194564244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weberbooks.com\/kindle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184127396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weberbooks.com\/kindle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184127396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weberbooks.com\/kindle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184127396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Self-Loathing \u2013 The Songs John Couldn\u2019t Stand<\/strong><\/h2>
1. \u201cRun For Your Life\u201d \u2013 The Song He Called His Worst<\/strong><\/h3>
2. \u201cIt\u2019s Only Love\u201d \u2013 \u201cAbysmal\u201d According to John<\/strong><\/h3>
3. \u201cGood Morning Good Morning\u201d \u2013 \u201cA Piece of Garbage\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>
4. \u201cBeing for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!\u201d \u2013 All Stolen<\/strong><\/h3>
5. \u201cAcross the Universe\u201d \u2013 Never Got It Right<\/strong><\/h3>
The Songs John Wished He\u2019d Never Written<\/strong><\/h2>
6. \u201cHow Do You Do It\u201d \u2013 The One They Refused<\/strong><\/h3>
7. \u201cThe Ballad of John and Yoko\u201d \u2013 Too Personal<\/strong><\/h3>
8. \u201cRevolution 9\u201d \u2013 Did It Belong?<\/strong><\/h3>
9. \u201cI Want You (She\u2019s So Heavy)\u201d \u2013 The Endless Ending<\/strong><\/h3>
10. \u201cDig It\u201d \u2013 The Improvised Mess<\/strong><\/h3>
Dishonorable Mention: \u201cMean Mr. Mustard\u201d \u2013 Crap<\/strong><\/h3>
Why John\u2019s Self-Criticism Matters<\/strong><\/h2>
Visit my Beatles Store:<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>
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