I don’t think any musician ever got into the arts to slander their idols. Undoubtedly there idols were north stars whom they followed into the creative breaches to better understand the style they wanted to adopt.
But somewhere along the line, egos and narratives collide to a point where musicians once idolised become irritants. Pandora’s Box of fame has been opened, and what some musicians find inside is nothing more than underwhelming toxicity. Petty feuds unfold as regularly as playground squabbles, and rhyming quips of “I know you are, you said you are, but what am I?” develop into intensely crafted songs that cut peers down at their very core.
‘How Do You Sleep’ – John Lennon
After standing in solidarity with his old mate Paul McCartney, in the face of Bob Dylan’s scathing criticism, Lennon decided it was time to turn friend into foe. The late 1960s had turned this otherwise prolific and bulletproof songwriting partnership into a crumbling marriage, and artistic liberation finally gave them license to let rip.
After initially refuting it was actually about Macca, Lennon retrospectively admitted: “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”.
It was an almost sibling-like rivalry that spilt over into the sort of diatribe that happens away from the precious ears of your mother. A spiky game of tit-for-tat that was indeed loaded, but ultimately derived from endless circumstances of pressure and expectation.