#how do you sleep

[ringosmistress]

#fuck that bitch #-john 1970 #sad day for all the gays #how do you sleep #the day that mclennon cease to exist #sad post today #the beatles #john lennon #paul mccartney #george harrison #ringo starr #beatles #memes #mclennon

[alwaysbeatles]

john lennon, in 1971: imagine all the people living life in peace. except paul. fuck paul.

#paul mccartney #john lennon #the beatles #george harrison #ringo starr #beatles #mclennon #1960s #60s #1970s #70s #how do you sleep #imagine #imagine john lennon #1971 #post beatles #textpost #beatles textpost

[lord-pain]

John:  A pretty face may last a year or two

but pretty soon they'll see what you can do

Paul:

Paul: So i'm pretty

#mclennon #john lennon #paul mccartney #how do you sleep #j/p #save #delulu posts

[unofficial-crow]

#reblog #reblog game #tumblr reblog #tumblr reblog game #tumblr games #reblog chain #tag game #how do you sleep #poll #poll game

[gwengrimm]

#tumblr polls #how do you sleep #rotisserie chicken sleeper here #very scientific

[i-am-the-oyster]

Can we talk about Your School?

Recorded in 1984, never released (except a clip on Oobu Joobu)

We're gonna talk it out someday All that is nearest and dearest I want it, you want it, they want it too And me? I want to love you Come on baby ... what have you've got Tell me that I learned a lot in your school, your school... I never thought [it meant/I'd learn] so much I'm just a poor fool in love, your school... I never felt the gentle touch until ..... I met you Oohhh you better tell me all you know Concerning this situation oohhoohooh I'd like, you'd like it, they always do... Me? I still wanna love you

I can't help but interpret this as Paul desperately wishing for a really deep and public reconciliation with John.

Two lyrics it puts me in mind of:

I never give you my number I only give you my situation And in the middle of investigation I break down

You Never Give Me Your Money

and

You must have learned something in all those years

How Do You Sleep

#tin hats ahoy #mclennon #paul mccartney #your school #you never give me your money #john lennon #how do you sleep #Youtube

[fireintheimpala]

How could John Lennon come out with ONE ALBUM that includes both How Do You Sleep AND Jealous Guy?! How is Paul ever to interpret that shit and how am I ever going to fit that vaguely chronologically into my attempted multi-hour mclennon rock opera playlist? What an asshole.

#really Lennon really #how do YOU sleep #mclennon #I’m still trying to improve these playlists but this isn’t helping

[reflectismo]

Asked about ‘How Do You Sleep?,’ George said, “It doesn’t help at all. I’m glad it wasn’t about me. I said to John as we were recording it, ‘It’s pretty hard on him.’

(Source: “Give Peace a Chance—By George,” Daily Express, October 4, 1971)

#The Beatles #George Harrison #John Lennon #Paul McCartney #1971 #How Do You Sleep #(Y’all these guys tire me out lol) #Daily Express #(“I’m glad it wasn’t about me” I love George)

[foryouwereinmysong]

The JohnandYoko Billard/mask scene is from the 1972 film Imagine. It was re-released in 2020 I think and I actually saw it on telly 😂 I couldn't find it anywhere online though but yes, that's all Tittenhurst Park.

Thank you for the info btw! I also couldn't find the 1972 Imagine movie online, so I just went and bought the Blu-ray with Imagine and Gimme some Truth bc I thought why not! Turns out: In the movie the Billards/mask scene is actually the scene for How do you sleep! Well, and when I saw John taking off the mask in combination with that song my brain went right to Paul's stories about John lowering his glasses during arguments: »That was very John. If you were arguing with him and it got a bit tense, he’d just lower his specs and say, ‘It’s only me,’ and put them back up again, as if the specs were part of a completely different identity.« So. yeah. I won't over-analyse.

in relation to this post:

#john lowering his mask #john lennon #imagine movie #how do you sleep #paul mccartney #john and paul #yoko ono #the beatles #1970s #imagine #gimme some truth

[visionsofelle]

And if I'm dead to you why are you at the wake?

Cursing my name

Wishing I stayed

Look at how my tears ricochet

#mclennon #the beatles #john lennon #paul mccartney #how do you sleep #jealous guy #taylor swift #my tears ricochet #folklore #my text #Spotify #dear friend

[sleeper9]

I was watching this reaction to HDYS and really he understood the most important part ☝🏼

I’ll be real I enjoy listening to how do you sleep… what a wild song … like anyone can just pull up this song and listen to John being crazy …

#even tho it’s so painful for Paul sorry Paul #john lennon #how do you sleep #hdys #Andy and Alex

[odinsblog]

Anyone who’s followed me for a minute knew this would be my first poll

(if you prefer sleeping on one particular side, say so in the notes)

#finally! we can make polls now #polls #tumblr polls #sleeping #how do you sleep #sleep study

[gerardwaygirlmoments]

I'm realizing now that Local God is similar to How Do You Sleep?, the song by John Lennon where he attempts to shit talk Paul McCartney, only for every insulting lyric to apply much better to himself than Paul, something he would later acknowledge. Of course, How Do You Sleep? is a better song.

#I didn't even hate Local God btw #I also just think it's funny that Ryden drama is being brought up. Even just as clickbait #ryden #mclennon #panic! at the disco #the beatles #brendon urie #ryan ross #john lennon #paul mccartney #local god #viva las vengeance #how do you sleep #imagine

[get-back-homeward]

Imagine this

How Do You Sleep that

Have you considered the most interesting song on the Imagine album may be How?

George was right. The song deserves attention.

Tumblr search is zero help on this song because it only picks up How Do You Sleep. But has anyone ever written about it?

Given John’s “How? + Why?” response to Paul’s 12-page letter about dissolving the partnership, I think it’s worth looking at. That exchange is sometime in summer 1970.

Song Origins

The earliest version of How? is a home demo dated as late 1970. This demo only has the “we” part of the song:

How can we go forward When we don’t know which way we're facing? How can we go forward When we don’t know which way to turn? How can we be certain About something we’re not sure of? Oh, no, oh, no

In the final version, this part is the end of the song (the bolded words change slightly). This ending is a shift from the personal “I” used in the rest of the song. So he started with “we” in 1970 and then evolved it into more self-directed reflection over time.

The demo is very rough, he's still searching for the notes. But something about it made me think of Look At Me, which has a similar plaintive tone and features several existential questions to the listener (Who am I supposed to be? and Who are we?). Look at Me originates from India and has an earlier 1968 demo that captures a glimpse of John’s state of mind during this crucial time. The How? demo would be recorded around the same time John is revisiting Look At Me to record formally for the Plastic Ono Band album.

The added self-reflection verses continue the same format of existential questions, moving from feelings to love. It's a blatantly honest look at depression in the wake of a loss, which I think George would have noticed and in some sense seen himself in. It's unclear when these verses are added (John just says “last year” in 1971 for all the verses), but they are probably influenced by John's experience of undergoing Janov's primal scream therapy (April-September 1970?). Possibly the questions left unanswered at the end of those 6 months.

How can I have feeling when I don't know if it's a feeling?

How can I give love when I don't know what it is I'm giving?

All three verses include the idea of uncertainty (I don’t know), which could be its own essay on existentialism vs epistemology in the face of a destabilizing event. But for now, let’s focus on the emotional aspect. Here, two places ascribe blame to drive his uncertainty: his feelings have always been denied and love is something he never had. This seems to go a bit far, but remember depression is a liar and part of Janov's therapy was probably that John’s closest relationships had all been a lie.

John adds the middle eight during Imagine sessions. It balances the bleakness of depression with the will to live:

You know life can be long

And you got to be so strong

And the world is so tough

Sometimes I feel I've had enough

This middle eight repeats twice, and each time, the end fuses to the first word of the questioning verses, without the typical space of a few beats in between. This lack of space suggests a relationship, as if the questions are part of the fight to keep him going past the bleakness of feeling like giving up.

Its first recording is May 26, 1971, nine days after Ram is released. Take 31 and Take 40 (Raw Studio Mix) were released on the Ultimate release of the album but aren't too different from the final lyrics/melody wise.

Supposedly, another version of How? includes a question about home: “how can I go home when home is something I have never had” and it’s not clear which lines replace it. Perhaps “how can I give love when I don’t know what it is I’m giving?” Questions of home would be a result of Janov’s primal scream digging into his childhood and bringing forth old wounds. But in the absence of a physical home, it’s the people around you who become your home. This home line makes me think of that Get Back sessions moment, when John shares with Paul his excitement about getting Apple Studio functional and feeling like home. It's a picture of feelings being denied in action as Paul responds by changing the subject. For whatever reason, this home line gets cut by Take 31.

The placement of How? in the album tracklist is curious too, directly after the angry Paul-directed How Do You Sleep. Its title holds the same question but none of the anger. It’s like an echo of How Do You Sleep, informing the source of its anger and revealing what it masks: fear and indecision about the future.

Song Context

It’s interesting to place this song next to Ram, where the overwhelming theme is the exact opposite: grab life by the horns and move forward to find your own way. Ram sessions started in NYC in October 1970, around the same time as the How? demo. Each song, from Too Many People to Back Seat, reveals Paul’s mental exercise of extricating himself from his former life and moving on with his family in Scotland. Personally and professionally, Paul is building a new home away from John.

The final version of How? is produced more in the vein of The Long and Winding Road, the song at the nexus of the breakup. Its beginning is marked by the same distinct stop-start syncopated beat and the instrumentation builds across the song to make a bleak song more palatable. If Paul didn’t turn off the record the moment he heard John’s diss track, he would have almost certainly picked up How?’s link to TL&WR. That song being his own plaintive moment of fearing the future, considering life without the band that was his world. And the last straw when Spector remixed it without his approval.

In his April 1971 LIFE interview that precedes the Ram release, Paul shares a recent exchange between him and John. John recalls the infamous “bubble bursting” question, and Paul corrects him in the past tense: the bubble has already burst. This is one of several exchanges where Paul’s saying catch up, it’s done, let me go and John’s saying what does that even mean?!

Hearing Paul’s declaration of independence on Ram made John angry. He calls How Do You Sleep “an outburst” in response to Ram and not reflective of how he thinks of Paul all the time. But Ram also gave him a direction forward that McCartney did not. If John thought the album had messages to taunt him, he almost certainly heard the taunt in Monkberry Moon Delight:

Catch up! Cats and kittens Don’t get left behind

I don’t know about you, but hearing that taunt from my ex-partner/BFF/lover/whatever would certainly make me angry, hot enough to ignite my competitive streak and get to work.

It reminds me of the moment Fred Seaman recalls in 1980, when John hears Paul's Coming Up:

John told me that Paul was the only musician who could scare him into writing great songs, and vice versa.

Imagine is hardly my favorite John solo album. I'm not about to dismiss the terrible things John said about Paul or Ram or forget how the bad press buried the album for years. But I think in focusing on the anger, we can miss the simple fact that Ram inspiring John to write anything was actually the biggest compliment he could give. Sometimes, anger is the only fuel available to drive you forward, where anything is preferable to nothing. It’s not ideal or fair, and it’s up to you to pick up the mess of your storm later, but it’s something. Like a basic survival instinct kicking in in the midst of drowning. Any fight that pushing you back to the surface is preferable over laying down and dying.

In that way, I think John was being honest when he later admitted that How Do You Sleep was about himself. Not in the exact lines specific to Paul but in the action, to write (or accept), record, and release them. How? as an echo to this anger shows the before and after, how John used Paul as a punching bag in response. That action was all about John himself.

#song wars #john and paul #diss track #how do you sleep #and its plaintive echo #how? #i know that tags gonna be useless so #how #the breakup #1971 #1970 #jp letters #imagine album #my text #john solo era #tumblr ate my edits boo #this new editor is the pits #idk where i was going with this #im not satisfied with it but its been in my drafts all week so posting just to keep track of it #they really just misunderstood what game they were playing i think was my point #idk if either really wanted to play each others game and yet its all they know and in the indecision its the default they turn to #john responds to HDYS criticism initially like if pauls angry i’ll know and then a month later he’s panicking bc all he’s heard is silence

[oneinchbarrier]

"I used my resentment against Paul that I have, as a kind of sibling rivalry resentment, to create a song, and I was actually in a few little messages that Paul sent to me on Ram, you see, only I publish my lyrics, he doesn't. Artistically and musically, it's a good song. You listen to it, it's a beautiful song. Paul personally doesn't feel as though I insulted him or anything, because I had dinner with him last week. So it's not about Paul, it's about me."

#john and yoko #above us only sky #imagine #john lennon #paul mccartney #how do you sleep

[thestarsarecool]

“A funny story is that one of the first times I ever got to hang out with Paul when I was young — I think I was 12 or 13 — one of the first times I ever actually spoke to him for more than just a hi or a handshake … I was very precocious as some teenagers can be. I really regret saying this, but I said something like, “What do you think of ‘How Do You Sleep?'” With this crazy, maniacal grin, because I’d always loved that song musically. And still to this day, it blows my mind. It’s funky, it’s groovy, it’s sexy. George Harrison’s solo is incredible. I just regret saying that. I was like, “The lyrics might have been mean, or whatever, but isn’t it musically a great song?” And looking back, I just feel like, “Why did you say that?” It was, like, the one thing you shouldn’t say. But he was very nice about it. I still worry about talking about this song because I don’t want him to think that I’m trying to be provocative. I don’t know what their personal disagreement was exactly.”

— Sean Ono Lennon, 2020, Rolling Stone (source).

#the beatles #sean ono lennon #sean lennon #paul mccartney #john lennon #how do you sleep #george harrison #my quotes