John Lennon Made Fun of Paul McCartney’s ‘Another Day’ in ‘How Do You Sleep?’
John Lennon made fun of Paul McCartney‘s “Another Day” in his tune “How Do You Sleep?” He was responding to his former bandmate’s song “Too Many People.”
Paul McCartney wrote ‘Too Many People’ because his former bandmate was ‘firing missiles’
In 1970, The Beatles split. Shortly after, Paul sued the others in London’s High Court of Justice. He sought to dissolve the band’s contractual partnership after his bandmates appointed Allen Klein to preside over The Beatles’ financial affairs.
Paul wanted his father-in-law and brother-in-law, Lee and John Eastman, to be the group’s managers. However, as George Harrison said, he, John, and Ringo Starr weren’t trying to do what was best for Paul’s in-laws.
After Paul opened the lawsuit, John gave a defamatory interview with Rolling Stone. Paul grew sick of all the drama and wrote “Too Many People,” which appeared on 1971’s Ram. In The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote it was a time when “John was firing missiles at me with his songs, and one or two of them were quite cruel. I don’t know what he hoped to gain, other than punching me in the face. The whole thing really annoyed me.”
“I decided to turn my missiles on him too, but I’m not really that kind of a writer, so it was quite veiled. It was the 1970s equivalent of what we might today call a ‘diss track.’ Songs like this, where you’re calling someone out on their behaviour, are quite commonplace now, but back then it was a fairly new ‘genre.'”
Paul explained that the “idea of too many people ‘preaching practices’ was definitely aimed at John telling everyone what they ought to do – telling me, for instance, that I ought to go into business with Allen Klein. I just got fed up with being told what to do, so I wrote this song.”
Lyrics like “You took your lucky break and broke it in two” was Paul saying, “You’ve made this break, so good luck with it.” However, he describes his “diss track” as “mild” and that it “didn’t come out with any savagery.” He thinks it’s “fairly upbeat,” nor does it really sound that “vitriolic.” Without knowing the story, one would miss the anger behind the lyrics.
All Paul was trying to say to John in “Too Many People” was, “Let’s be sensible. We had a lot going for us in The Beatles, and what actually split us up is the business stuff, and that’s pretty pathetic really, so let’s try and be peaceful. Let’s maybe give peace a chance.”
Ultimately, Paul’s “heart wasn’t really in it.” However, John’s heart was entirely in it. Shortly after Paul released “Too Many People,” John wrote “How Do You Sleep?”
John Lennon made fun of Paul, and his songs in ‘How Do You Sleep?’
“Too Many People” angered John. So, he recorded an even more scathing diss track, “How Do You Sleep?” In the lyrics, John calls out some of Paul’s songs.
John sings, “Those freaks was right when they said you was dead.” The lyric refers to fans’ conspiracy theory that Paul died in 1966 and was replaced with a lookalike. He also sings, “The only thing you done was yesterday/ And since you’ve gone you’re just another day.” Here John calls out Paul’s Beatles song “Yesterday” and one of his solo tracks, “Another Day.”
According to Paul, Klein suggested the “The only thing you done was yesterday” line. “I had to work very hard not to take it too seriously, but at the back of my mind I was thinking, ‘Wait a minute, all I ever did was ‘Yesterday’?’
Concerning John’s mention of “Another Day,” Paul called it one of his former bandmate’s “little p*** takes.”
George Harrison was glad John Lennon didn’t direct ‘How Do You Sleep?’ at him
The kicker of John recording “How Do Sleep?” wasn’t that he dissed Paul or his songs. John asked George to play guitar on it, and some of John’s other Imagine tracks. Although George said it was nerve-wracking working with John again, he agreed. Then, it was two Beatles against one, just as it had been during the Klein drama.
During a 1987 interview with Musician Magazine, George said he was glad he wasn’t on the receiving end of “How Do You Sleep?” He said, “I enjoyed ‘How Do You Sleep?’; I liked being on that side of it with Paul [chuckles] rather than on the receiving end,” George said.
Ultimately, Paul stopped his diss track feud with John. He refused to write a rebuttal to “How Do You Sleep?”
He wrote, “A lot of hurt went down during that period in the early 1970s – them feeling hurt, me feeling hurt – but John being John, he was the one who would write a hurtful song. That was his bag.”
