“How Do You Sleep?” – John Lennon (1971 )

“‘How Do You Sleep?’ is a song by English rock 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 and was co-produced by Lennon, Phil Spector and Yoko Ono. John Lennon wrote ‘How Do You Sleep?’ in the aftermath of Paul McCartney’s successful suit in the London High Court to dissolve the Beatles as a legal partnership. This ruling had followed the publication of Lennon’s defamatory remarks about the Beatles in a December 1970 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, and McCartney and his wife, Linda, taking full-page advertisements in the music press, in which, as an act of mockery towards Lennon and Yoko Ono, they were shown wearing clown costumes and wrapped up in a bag. 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.^[4] Lennon thought that other songs on the album, such as ‘3 Legs’, contained similar attacks although McCartney denied it. 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 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 1980, Lennon stated: ‘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”. …”
Wikipedia
YouTube: How Do You Sleep? (Takes 5 & 6, Raw Studio Mix Out-take)