The Beatles song that John Lennon found “embarrassing”

That’s not to say it didn’t have its drawbacks, though. Although Lennon was a far cry from John Popper on the harmonica, it was easy to tell when he took it slow, like on the breakdown of “Little Child,” where he just blows along without rhyme or reason. That may have been intended to cover up an otherwise weak song, but a mediocre harmonica part in the bridge doesn’t automatically make it good.

In Rolling Stone, Lennon eventually said he couldn’t stand that sound anymore. “The first gimmick was the harmonica. We started using it on ‘Love Me Do’, just for the arrangement, because we used to work out arrangements. And then we used it on ‘Please Please Me’ and then on ‘From Me To You’, like that. It just went on and on, it became a gimmick, and we dropped it. It got embarrassing.”

Then again, any musician looking to evolve would probably be a little unsettled by that too. Having become known with “Love Me Do,” they made people who had never heard them before seem like a one-hit pony when they heard “From Me To You” straight after, which used the exact same formula.

This kind of slapstick got even worse on the actual album. Although not every song on the record featured a bluesy harmonica, listening to the hits and then hearing them cover a song like “Chains” with the same vocals could have sounded like a cheap version of a bar band if they hadn’t taken more risks on songs like “Ask Me Why” or “A Taste of Honey.”

Although Lennon did not have as much time to play harmonica in his later years, it still occurred occasionally. Since Paul McCartney had written “Rocky Raccoon” as an Americanized folk tune, Lennon’s performance was much more suited to the moment, and when he heard it at the end of his album, Introduce on “Oh Yoko!” it feels more like an emotional outlet than something noticeable.

But perhaps Lennon already realised the usefulness of the harmonica by this point. It’s understandable that he wanted to get as far away from the instrument as possible at first, but if you deliberately limit your choice of instruments, it will inevitably affect the sound of the song after a while.