John Lennon was never one to shy away from casting a critical eye on his work with The Beatles. Both during and after his time with the group, Lennon made sure his voice was heard—and in his view, it was often the only voice that mattered when it came to The Beatles.
While his contributions to the band are rightly seen as some of the finest pop songs ever written, Lennon himself wasn’t particularly impressed by much of their output. “I feel I could make every fucking one of them better,” he once told interviewer David Sheff in a typically cutting remark. Despite his role in creating the Beatles’ legacy, Lennon had no problem knocking the band down a few notches.
More than sixty years after the band formed, people still talk endlessly about John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. From Please Please Me to Let It Be, the four friends from Liverpool experienced massive fame and success in a remarkably short period. But even with all their triumphs, the group also dealt with personal tensions and chaotic tours.
It was a difficult time for critics to be objective—but since many of them were dazzled by the Fab Four’s charm and talent, it often fell to Lennon to be their harshest critic. And he didn’t hold back. He frequently reserved his sharpest critiques for his own songs, calling some of them “throwaways” or even “rubbish.” But there was one song in particular that he admitted to “really hating.”
There aren’t many Beatles songs that people truly dislike. Even the most loyal Rolling Stones fan during their infamous rivalry would probably struggle to say they hated a Beatles tune. But Lennon had no such hesitation when it came to his past work with McCartney, Harrison, and Starr.
He often dismissed the band’s earlier music—especially the songs written before their Bob Dylan-inspired evolution and the Rubber Soul era—as shallow. One song stood out to him as especially weak. Originally titled “That’s A Nice Hat,” it ended up on the Help! album. Looking back in a 1980 interview with David Sheff for Playboy, Lennon cringed at its overly sentimental lyrics.
“‘It’s Only Love’ is mine,” he said. “I always thought it was a lousy song. The lyrics were abysmal. I always hated that song.” It was a scathing opinion—and one that’s not hard to understand after reading the lyrics.
Paul McCartney, who co-wrote the track, also acknowledged its shortcomings. “Sometimes we didn’t fight it,” he said, referring to the song’s clichéd lines. “[If it] came out rather bland on some of those filler songs like ‘It’s Only Love’. If a lyric was really bad we’d edit it, but we weren’t that fussy about it, because it’s only a rock ’n’ roll song. I mean, this is not literature.” That attitude reflected where the band was at that stage—pop stars first, not yet the artistic pioneers they would become.
As a result, many of their albums included one or two filler tracks—songs recorded to round out a record or fit a soundtrack, not necessarily crafted with care or depth. There’s also a case to be made that the band’s momentum was beginning to slow down, and McCartney’s flair for music hall-style songs had started to influence Lennon. Soon, however, Lennon would break away from that trend and head down a more introspective and personal creative path.
Though the band’s greatest artistic strides were just around the corner, this song is proof that in 1965, The Beatles hadn’t yet made the full leap from chart-topping pop stars to cultural icons.
And clearly, John Lennon knew it.
