The Beatles song John Lennon always regretted writing (2024)

There were plenty of famed songs by The Beatles that John Lennon derided as terrible “throwaway” nonsense when looking back on his career. Lennon was never one to hold back his thoughts and offered damning analysis of his own creations. However, it means there is a significant subsection of his work which could be put under the heading of ‘regrettable’. Nevertheless, on reflection, there seems to be only one song that he truly regreted writing.

Before diving into that track, it’s best to focus on some of the other songs that have felt the wrath of Lennon’s silver tongue. During his famous interview with David Sheff for Playboy in 1980, Lennon was quick to dismiss a huge chunk of The Beatles’ work, describing ‘Let It Be’ as having “nothing to do with The Beatles”, calling ‘When I’m Sixty Four’ granny music, and then going on to call ‘Birthday’ as “abysmal”. However, Lennon’s scathing brutality didn’t stop there; he even pointed the gun at ‘I Am The Walrus’, perhaps his most sincere and defining anthem of psychedelia, as not “a great piece”.

‘Run for Your Life’ isn’t a song that features in the conversation when discussing The Beatles’ greatest efforts. While some devoted Beatles fans will claim the track to be imbued with the influence of Americana and rock ‘n’ roll that the group would implant into most of their early work, the song contains a set of lyrics that, as Lennon grew older and wiser, he soon began to detest.

Primarily written by Lennon, without the aid of his chief co-creator Paul McCartney, ‘Run for Your Life’ was the former Beatle’s least favourite song by the Fab Four and the lyrics were the main reason for the abhorrence he harboured. “‘Run for Your Life’, I always hated, you know,” Lennon told Rolling Stone back in 1970, shortly after the group had disbanded and left millions clutching their pillows in sadness. “I never liked ‘Run For Your Life’ because it was a song I just knocked off”.

This matter seems to be the crux of most of Lennon’s disliked Beatles songs. If those tracks were simply rattled off without much thought, the credibility of those creations would be tarnished forever in Lennon’s mind, who preferred to meticulously consider every facet of the songwriting process.

“I’m not interested in writing about people like that, I like to write about me, because I know me,” Lennon once said of the Beatles’ track’ Lovely Rita’, and it rings true in almost everything he did with the group. A collection of the singer’s favourite songs from the band—’Help!’, ‘Strawberry Fields’ and more—are all rooted in his personal experience.

However, the reason ‘Run For Your Life’ sits at the bottom of this particularly brilliant pile of songs is the lyrics. Continuing to detail his issues with the song, Lennon added: “It was inspired from—this is a very vague connection—from ‘Baby Let’s Play House’. There was a line on it; I used to like specific lines from songs, ‘I’d rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man’—so I wrote it around that, but I didn’t think it was that important”.

The inspiration came from a song written for Elvis Presley, ‘Baby Let’s Play House’, which was, in turn, inspired by a 1951 country and western hit for Eddie Arnold, ‘I Want To Play House With You’. While those tracks are simple in their messaging and forthright in their desire, Lennon subverted these values to create a menacing prospect. It puts Lennon in the role of abuser, which makes for uncomfortable listening, and a significant reason for this is because it’s not completely detached from reality.

Lennon was married to Cynthia Powell for six years before divorcing in 1968 after he met Yoko Ono. Powell later shared details of one violent incident involving the Beatle: “He saw me dancing with his best friend Stuart, my best friend Stuart. That made him see red at that time.”

Elaborating on the traumatic event, Powell added: “But it wasn’t until the following day and he’d been thinking about it all night and he caught me outside the ladies loos in the college basem*nt, and just smacked me one. And I hit my head on the back of the pipes and he just walked off.”

Due to Lennon’s violent past, ‘Run For Your Life’ is marred in unescapable controversy and offers a dark reminder of the singer’s past. However, despite its uncomfortable nature, it still found its way onto the band’s Rubber Soul album.

As ever, perhaps the most pertinent take on the track comes not from Lennon himself but from his friend and co-creator McCartney. “John was always on the run, running for his life,” he told Barry Miles in Many Years From Now. “He was married; whereas none of my songs would have ‘catch you with another man’. It was never a concern of mine, at all, because I had a girlfriend and I would go with other girls; it was a perfectly open relationship so I wasn’t as worried about that as John was. A bit of a macho song.”

If Lennon had been given another opportunity, the singer-songwriter would have thought twice before sharing ‘Run For Your Life’ with the world and preferred that it not be in The Beatles’ back catalogue. Nevertheless, the track does exist in the history books and makes for a particularly troubling listen due to the shocking element of truth it contains.

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