Member-only story
John Lennon’s Best Guitar Contributions As A Beatle
John’s role in the Lennon/McCartney songwriting team that penned an historic 20 No1 Billboard hits and 34 Top 10 hits spanning their 8 year career is mind-blowing. Using their UK studio album output as another gauge of their greatness, 11 of their 12 albums reached No1. As I have written previously, they were arguably the most impactful musicians in history. You can read my article here.
He clearly excelled in his songwriting role, but he was a fine musician as well. Maybe even underestimated as an instrumentalist. I’ve written previously about his often repeated use of the harmonica in their 1962–1964 period, and it was last found useful for McCartney’s “Rocky Raccoon” in 1968. You can read that article here.
He also contributed the keyboard part in 28 songs including “A Day in the Life”, “All You Need Is Love”, “The Night Before”, “Baby You’re A Rich Man”, “I Am The Walrus”, “Hey Bulldog” and “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!”. He was primarily a chord player and reportedly didn’t work at it as much as he did his guitar playing.
He also provided bass guitar support on No1 hit songs like “Long and Winding Road” and “Let It Be”, but his primary instrumental role were his rhythm and lead guitar contributions. Here are some of his best examples his talent.
