Flaunt Weeekly
The Beatles were driven forwards by the partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartneytwo souls were often in sync, but could sometimes drive each other crazy. Take ‘Across The Universe’ – often lauded as one of the band’s finest moments, it’s beatific paean was given an arrangement that sparked John Lennon to call it “subconscious sabotage”.
The lyric itself is one of Lennon’s most beautiful. The opening phrase of “words spilling out into a paper cup” was sparked by unease in his marriage, the image itself coming to mind after an uncomfortable conversation with his first wife, Cynthia.
“I was lying next to my first wife in bed, you know, and I was irritated, and I was thinking. She must have been going on and on about something and she’d gone to sleep and I kept hearing these words over and over, flowing like an endless stream. I went downstairs and it turned into a sort of cosmic song rather than an irritated song… [The words] were purely inspirational and were given to me asboom!I don’t own it you know; it came through like that.”
The song was first recorded at Abbey Road in 1968, with the high notes famously being sung by two fans retrieved from outside the studio gates. A hazy, wistful piece of music, it remained unreleased as The Beatles attempted to focus on the many songs they had penned during that year’s visit to India.
‘Across The Universe’ retained a special place in John Lennon’s imagination, however, and the Spike Milligan – a personal hero of the Beatles – visited the studio, they eagerly donated the recording to a benefit album for the World Wildlife Fund.
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Returning to ‘Across The Universe’ for the proposed ‘Let It Be’ sessions, John Lennon can be set – both in Let It Be and Get Back – strumming through variations of the arrangement. Brought to final realisation by Phil Spectorthe released version never quite lived up to what Lennon had envisaged.
Speaking to Playboy in a 1980 interview, John Lennon had some harsh words for Paul McCartney. “Paul would … sort of subconsciously try and destroy a great song … usually we’d spend hours doing little detailed cleaning-ups of Paul’s songs; when it came to mine … somehow this atmosphere of looseness and casualness and experimentation would creep in. Subconscious sabotage.”
Did he truly mean it? For his part, Paul McCartney also had great affection for the song – and cited Phil Spector’s arrangement as a key drawback. Removing the strings for ‘Let It Be… Naked’ it’s clear that Paul McCartney had no intention of sabotaging Lennon’s work – subconsciously, or otherwise.
Perhaps John Lennon’s accusation came from a deep frustration at the song not quite living up to his preconceptions. Speaking to Rolling Stone in 1970he labelled it one of his all-time best:
“It’s one of the best lyrics I’ve written. In fact, it could be the best. It’s good poetry, or whatever you call it, without chewin’ it. See, the ones I like are the ones that stand as words, without melody. They don’t have to have any melody, like a poem, you can read them.”
Revisit ‘Across The Universe’ below.
