About writing the song, John said: “I used my resentment against Paul”
Paul McCartney playing a Hofner 500/1 violin bass guitar and John Lennon playing a Gibson J-160E acoustic guitar(Image: David Redfern/Redferns)
John Lennon and Paul McCartney were an unrivalled song-writing partnership but their relationship soured in the late 1960s. Tensions within The Beatles simmered in the second half of the decade, affecting recording sessions for ‘The White Album’, ‘Let it Be’ and ‘Abbey Road’.
Creative differences and the presence of Yoko Ono in the studio caused arguments, pushing John and Paul away from each other. The band’s final recording sessions – for ‘The End’ which featured on ‘Abbey Road’ – took place in August 1969 and, a month later, John informed his fellow members that he was leaving the band, asking for a ‘divorce’ from The Beatles.
This led a saddened Paul to retreat to his home and record what would become his first solo album ‘McCartney’. In April 1970, Paul issued a press release alongside that album, announcing he would no longer be working with The Beatles.
The final Beatles album ‘Let it Be’ then hit shelves in May 1970, nearly a month after the official break up. ‘Let it Be’ was made up of recordings dating between February 1968 and April 1970 and its release caused further disagreements between Paul, John, Ringo Starr and George Harrison.
An ongoing row about Allan Klein becoming the band’s new manager had simmered throughout 1969 and caused the four stress about what would happen to their money and the future of their music. That row developed as the release of ‘McCartney’ was set to clash with the planned May release of ‘Let It Be’.
Paul has said he told his bandmates in advance that he would release ‘McCartney’ alongside his press release announcing his departure from The Beatles in April 1970. But with record label Apple wanting to avoid a clash and Paul not wanting to speak to Apple due to his disapproval of Allan Klein, Ringo went to his home with a letter from himself, John and George asking him to move his release date.
Ringo Starr, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison of The Beatles(Image: PA/PA Wire)
Paul refused and threw Ringo out of his house. Relations would not improve in the immediate time after the split.
After ‘Let it Be’ and ‘McCartney’ had both been released, Paul filed a High Court lawsuit in December 1970 to dissolve the band’s contractual agreement. The court ruled in his favour in March 1971.
In May 1971, Paul released his second solo album ‘Ram’. It included the track ‘Too Many People’, which he later said in interviews contained a dig at John. In a 1984 Playboy interview, Paul said: “I remember there was one tiny little reference to John in the whole thing.
“He’d been doing a lot of preaching, and it got up my nose a little bit. In one song, I wrote, “Too many people preaching practices”, I think is the line.
“I mean, that was a little dig at John and Yoko. There wasn’t anything else on it that was about them. Oh, there was “You took your lucky break and broke it in two”.
John would fire back at this with a track on his September 1971 album ‘Imagine’ – the pointedly-titled ‘How Do You Sleep?’. The song begins: “So Sgt Pepper took you by surprise. You better see right through that mother’s eye. Those freaks was right when they said you was dead.”
The song was written by John in the aftermath of Paul’s success at the High Court. His dislike of ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, which was Paul’s brainchild, is evident in the lyrics and he also appeared to refer to the conspiracy theory that Paul died in 1966 – a year before ‘Sgt Pepper’ was released to universal acclaim.
The song continues: “The only thing you done was yesterday and since you’ve gone you’re just another day”. ‘Yesterday’ was written by Paul and released by The Beatles in 1965 and ‘Another Day’ was released by Paul as a solo track in February 1971.
About the song and its criticisms of Paul, John told Playboy in a 1980 interview just before his death: “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”.
The feud did not dominate Paul and John’s relationship, however. Paul continues to pay tribute to his former song-writing partner at his live shows and harmonised with an on-screen recording of John for ‘I’ve Got a Feeling’ on his recent ‘Got Back’ tour.