The song John Lennon hated to write

It’s not unusual for an artist, even at Lennon’s level, to be given a songwriting commission. It’s pretty normal for even the biggest artists in the world to write songs either for other artists, as Prince did with “Manic Monday,” or for a specific purpose, be it an advertisement, a film, a business, or, in Lennon’s case, a cause.

In this case, the perpetrator was John Sinclair, a writer, activist and former manager of the MC5. During the drug war, especially in counter-cultural circles, Sinclair became a target. Sinclair was followed by two undercover drug agents. After offering them a joint, he was sentenced to ten years in prison for this offense.

The conviction sparked outrage in the music and counter-culture scene. Both establishment critics and musicians gathered for Ten For Two, a protest rally in support of Sinclair. Every good protest needs a good protest song, and so Lennon was given the task.

“They wanted a song about John Sinclair. So I wrote it,” he said of the track “John Sinclair.” It seems Lennon wasn’t particularly interested in the subject or the song, but the project was a good opportunity to prove what a capable songwriter he was, since he was being paid to play. It was a way to show off his skills, since he could seemingly write a song about anything at any given moment.

“That’s the craft part of me. If someone asks me to do something, I can do it. I can write anything musically. You name it,” he said. “If you want a style and you want something for Julie Harris or Julie London, I can write it.”

This was a proven skill. When the Stones asked Lennon and McCartney for a song in 1963, they famously retreated into a corner and wrote it on the spot. “We came back, and that’s how Mick and Keith were inspired to write, because, ‘Jesus Christ, look at this. They just went into the corner, wrote it and came back!'” Lennon recalled, crediting Jagger and Richards for stepping up as songwriters. “Right in front of them, we did it. So we gave it to them.”

But even though Lennon could, he didn’t want to, making no secret of his dislike for the song and the way he worked on it. “I don’t enjoy that kind of work. I like to do inspirational work,” he said. For him, the songs he wrote on his own initiative and according to his own ideas were art. Songs like “John Sinclair,” on the other hand, were just work.

“I would never write a song like that today,” he said in 1980, when the song was quickly forgotten because the man it was about was released fairly soon after its release.