A song which features the “best lyrics” from John Lennon can be found on Let It Be, fans believe.
The Beatles‘ final album release may have angered McCartney, but the album features some of his and the rest of the band’s best works. Fans of the band took to the r/Beatles subreddit and came to an agreement on what they believe are the best lyrics in The Beatles’ history. Listeners are spoilt for choice when deciding on which song holds the best writing from Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and McCartney, but a Let It Be track won out. A post to the page asked fans to vote on what they believe to be the best lyrics from any of The Beatles’ albums, and it seems Let It Be was the firm favourite.
A fan wrote: “Across the Universe.” Dozens of users of the forum were in agreement with the user, with one saying it “has to be it” for the best lyrics from the band. One reply reads: “This has to be it. Of all the Beatles John’s message’ has been the strongest post breakup. I’m not saying his songs are the best of the four but his ‘peace’ mantra was consistent and in a lot of his songs in my opinion.
“The song across the universes lyric ‘nothing’s gonna change my world’ was true for John. The lyrics make me hopeful and hopeless at the same time. John was good at that. Never giving you solid ground, but also saying that’s ok. That’s how life is.”
Another agreed with this assessment of Across the Universe, adding: “Even John was very proud of the lyrics. It’s such a beautiful song. I could listen to this song all day. It’s my all-time favourite song by anybody.”
A third shared: “Galactic psychedelic poetry. This song is an acid trip through the Milky Way.”
Lennon would share the origins of the song in an interview where he shared the “irritated” origins of the “cosmic” spectacle. He said: “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, rather than a ‘Why are you always mouthing off at me?’ [The words] were purely inspirational and were given to me as boom! I don’t own it, you know; it came through like that.”
The song was later selected by NASA for an Interstellar Message delivered in February 2008. This was done to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the song’s recording, a song which for many fans of The Beatles, is their very best writing.
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