How Ringo Starr Got John Lennon to Tone Down His Paul McCartney Takedown Track

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

After The Beatles went their separate ways, some bad blood lingered among the former bandmates. And you saw it quickly get heated between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. On top of trading barbs in the music press, the old pals took some cracks at one another on their solo albums.

Paul took the first shot in his Ram (1971) album with a track titled “Too Many People.” With the line, “You took your lucky break and broke it in too,” he was making a clear reference to John’s relationship with Yoko Ono. And Paul did the same with the line “too many people preaching practices.”

John wasn’t going to let those statements go unanswered. And when writing songs for Imagine (1971) he saved a few haymakers for his lifelong friend. John put them all into “How Do You Sleep?,” a track which featured none other than George Harrison on slide guitar.

Source: cheatsheet.com