Released 9 September 1971 Genre Rock, hard rock Label Apple | Recorded 23 June–5 July 1971 Length 5:36 Writer(s) John Lennon | |
"How Do You Sleep?" is a song by English musician John Lennon from his 1971 album Imagine. The song makes angry and scathing remarks aimed at his former Beatles bandmate and songwriting partner, Paul McCartney. Lennon wrote the song in response to what he perceived as personal slights by McCartney on the latter's Ram album. The track includes a slide guitar solo played by George Harrison, also a former member of the Beatles.
Contents
Composition and lyrics
Following the release of McCartney's album Ram in May 1971, Lennon felt attacked by McCartney, who later admitted that lines in the song "Too Many People" were intended as digs at Lennon. Lennon thought that other songs on the album, such as "3 Legs", contained similar attacks. The back cover of Ram, showing two beetles fornicating, has been described by McCartney as indicative of how he felt treated by the other members of the Beatles.
The lyrics of "How Do You Sleep?" refer to the "Paul is dead" rumour ("Those freaks was right when they said you was dead"). The song begins with the line "So Sgt. Pepper took you by surprise", referring to the Beatles' landmark 1967 album. Preceding this first line are ambient sounds evocative of those heard at the beginning of the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
The lyrics "The only thing you done was yesterday / And since you've gone you're just another day" are directed at McCartney, the first lyric being a reference to the Beatles' 1965 song "Yesterday". The second lyric is a reference to McCartney's hit single "Another Day", released in February 1971. Lennon initially penned the lyrics "You probably pinched that bitch anyway", as a reference to the many times McCartney had made claims that he was not sure if he "nicked" "Yesterday", having asked Lennon, Harrison, George Martin and others if they had heard that melody before. Although Lennon receives the sole writing credit for "How Do You Sleep?", several reports indicate that Yoko Ono, as well as Allen Klein, Lennon's manager, also contributed lyrics.
Soon after the album was released, Lennon explained in an interview that the song "was an answer to Ram, except that Paul didn't print his lyrics. There's really no feud between me and Paul. It's all good, clean fun. No doubt there will be an answer to 'Sleep' on his next album, but I don't feel that way about him at. It works as a complete song with no relation to Paul. It works as a piece of music. I started writing it in 1969, and the line `So Sergeant Pepper Took You By Surprise . . .' was written about two years before anything happened. There was always a musical difference between me an Paul — it didn't just happen last year. But we've always had a lot in common, and we still do. The thing that made The Beatles what they were was the fact that I could do my rock 'n roll, and Paul could do the pretty stuff. I'll never give up rock 'n roll — that's with me forever. But hardly a week goes by when I don't see, and/or hear from one of them."
Recording
Lennon recorded "How Do You Sleep?" during the sessions for his Imagine album. The song features a slide guitar part played by George Harrison. Aside from Lennon on rhythm guitar and vocals, the track also includes contributions from Klaus Voormann on bass, Alan White on drums, acoustic guitar played by Ted Turner, Rod Linton and Andy Davis, as well as additional piano parts by Nicky Hopkins and John Tout.
In the Imagine documentary film, as Harrison plays alongside him, Lennon sings, "How do you sleep ya cunt?" before he asks the engineer to stop the recording. Ringo Starr visited the studio during the recording of the song and was reportedly upset, saying: "That's enough, John." The final mix version as released on the album is in mono rather than stereo, unlike all the other tracks.
Reception and aftermath
In a contemporary review of Imagine, Ben Gerson of Rolling Stone highlighted "How Do You Sleep?" among the album's three "really worthy, musically effective numbers" but found it "horrifying and indefensible" as a song that "lay waste to Paul's character, family and career". Gerson concluded: "The motives for 'Sleep' are baffling. Partly it is the traditional bohemian contempt for the bourgeois; partly it is the souring of John's long-standing competitive relationship with Paul." Writing in the NME, Alan Smith said of the track: "Musically, it's tremendous – open, big, powerful, thundering, dramatic – but this is a song which will be remembered for its lyrics …" As its ultimate putdown of McCartney, Smith identified the couplet "The sound you make is muzak to my ears / You must've learned something in all those years." In Melody Maker, Roy Hollingworth lauded Imagine as the best work that Lennon had ever done and described "How Do You Sleep?" as "the unnerving slash at McCartney … a slow funk with Commanche or maybe Sioux flavoured strings".
Lennon softened his stance in the mid 1970s and said that he had written the song about himself. He stated in 1980: "I used my resentment against Paul … to create a song … not a terrible vicious horrible vendetta … I used my resentment and withdrawing from Paul and The Beatles, and the relationship with Paul, to write 'How Do You Sleep'. I don't really go 'round with those thoughts in my head all the time".
Roger Glover wrote the riff for the song "Maybe I'm A Leo", recorded by Deep Purple in 1971, after hearing this riff, inspired by the fact that the riff did not start on the down beat. The Magnificent Bastards, a side project of Stone Temple Pilots lead singer Scott Weiland, recorded a cover version in 1995 for the tribute album Working Class Hero: A Tribute to John Lennon. Replicants, featuring members of Failure and Tool, covered the song on their self-titled debut.
A demo version of the song appears on John Lennon Anthology, released in 1998. In the DVD special documentary on Ram, Paul McCartney said that on first hearing "How Do You Sleep?", he had considered writing a song called "Quite Well, Thank You".