How 1 Christmas Gift to John Lennon’s Ex-wife Was Echoed in a Beatles Song
John Lennon’s ex-wife noticed similarities between a Beatles hit and one Christmas card. Cynthia Lennon wrote about one “romantic” gift from her ex-husband in the 2005 memoir John.
John Lennon wrote and performed songs for The Beatles
John Lennon is one of the songwriters behind “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” “Twist and Shout,” and “Hey Jude.” He appeared in The Beatles along with John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. Some originals shared themes with other aspects of Lennon’s life.
The Beatles’ John Lennon wrote ‘I love you, yes, yes, yes’ in one Christmas card to Cynthia Lennon
Before the Beatles formed, Lennon began his relationship with his college classmate Cynthia Powell. In her 2005 memoir, Cynthia Lennon detailed some of the high points of her relationship. That includes “romantic” gifts and thoughtful notes from the musician.
“For our first Christmas, he drew a card with a picture of me in my new shaggy coat, standing opposite him, our heads together, his hand on my arm. It was covered with kisses and hearts and he wrote, ‘Our first Christmas, I love you, yes, yes, yes,’” Cynthia Lennon wrote.
“A few years later he used the same idea in one of the Beatles’ first hits,” she added, “’She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.'”
“She Loves You,” written by the McCartney-Lennon duo, was released on 1964’s Twist and Shout. This was one of the first albums released by The Beatles, after they officially moved away from The Quarrymen and added Ringo Starr to their lineup.
“On the back of the card, he wrote, ‘I hope it won’t be our last.’ I loved that card and kept it in pride of place in my bedroom,” she wrote. “She Loves You” remains one of the Beatles’ most popular hits, with over 130 million Spotify streams.
“John and I wrote it together,” McCartney said of the track, according to the Beatles’ Wiki. “We were in a van up in Newcastle somewhere, and we’d just gone over to our hotel.”
“I originally got an idea of doing one of those answering songs, where a couple of us sing about ‘she loves you…’ and the other one sort of says the ‘yes, yes’ bit. You know, ‘yeah yeah’ answering whoever is saying it,” he continued. “But we decided that was a crummy idea anyway. But we had the idea to write a song called ‘She Loves You’ then.”
John Lennon and Yoko Ono released the Christmas song ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’
The rock group released one Christmas song in the mid-sixties, “Christmas Time (Is Here Again),” also releasing special Christmas mini-albums annually from 1963 through 1969 and distributed to fan club members. As a solo artist, Lennon released “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” with his partner Yoko Ono. Now, the song has over 370 million Spotify plays.
