Written by: Lennon
Recorded: c.20-28 May 1971
Producers: John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Phil Spector
Released: 8 October 1971 (UK), 9 September 1971 (US)
John Lennon: vocals, electric guitar
George Harrison: dobro
Nicky Hopkins: piano
Ted Turner: acoustic guitar
Rod Linton: acoustic guitar
John Tout: acoustic guitar
Klaus Voormann: bass guitar
Steve Brendell: upright bass
Alan White: drums
Available on:
Imagine
The second song on John Lennon's Imagine album, Crippled Inside married the soul-searching themes of his earlier John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band to a rockabilly musical style.
The song acts as a bridge between the album's stately title track and the introspective Jealous Guy. By varying the mood with an upbeat country rock number, Lennon revealed that Imagine was more musically varied than its predecessor.
Crippled Inside contained one of Lennon's bleakest lyrics, but the delivery suggests he may have been parodying his earlier work. The song also contains a reported dig at his former bandmate Paul McCartney in the line "You can live a lie until you die".
Crippled Inside was partly inspired by the folk song Black Dog, as performed by Koerner, Ray & Glover. That song was also played by The Beatles during the Let It Be sessions on 31 January 1969. There are considerable melodic and lyrical similarities between the two songs.
In the studio
Crippled Inside was recorded at Ascot Sound Studios, the eight-track facility Lennon had installed at his English home, Tittenhurst Park. The version on the Imagine album was take 17.
Lennon recorded a guide vocal along with the rhythm track, which helped give Crippled Inside a suitably live feel. He later described the sound as "very corny country and western".
Key to the song's sound were Nicky Hopkins' jaunty piano work and George Harrison's dobro. Klaus Voormann played a bass guitar, and the rock ‘n' roll spirit was further enhanced by an upright bass part by Steve Brendell.
An alternative mix of take 17, with an alternative solo by Harrison, has circulated on bootleg recordings.
“You can live a lie until you die”
I would bet my life this line was about John AND Paul.
“Living is easy with eyes closed; misunderstanding all you see”
“I told you about the walrus and me-man, you know that we’re as close as can be-man, well here’s another clue for you all, the Walrus was Paul”
I wonder if John would still feel the Beatles were a “lie” if he were alive today, given how popular they still are. Somehow I think not.
‘Crippled Inside’ is pretty clearly a re-write of McCartney’s ‘When I’m Sixty-four’, as another gratuitous dig at him.
It may have developed in Lennon’s perception into corny C&W, but it surely started as a pastiche of what Lennon considered as McCartney’s “grannie songs”, missing the point that McCartney very effectively made a pastiche of Music Hall an interesting element of the Beatles’ rejigging the basis of contemporary pop.
To say this is a bit rich of Lennon is to put it mildly. Lennon became an LSD burn-out and then a heroin junkie, obliging McCartney to take the reins. Both Lennon and Harrison were way off-mark in criticising McCartney. They were in fact ‘projecting’ their own shortcomings.
Harrison and Starr also complained about Paul’s granny songs. The best example was that the other three Beatles were fed-up to the teeth with the numerous takes for Paul’s ” Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da” and “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”.
As for Lennon being an LSD and then heroin user it is true but from Revolver onwards, John still wrote some great songs for the Beatles. In fact Paul’s favourite song on the white album was “Happiness Is A Warm Gun”, which is a heroin related song.
Lennon, Harrison and Starr all quit the Beatles because of one of Paul’s main shortcomings—Paul was the last one to realize that the Beatles were through.
Major business differences as well contributed to another example of three against one.
Your remarks seem to imply that McCartney was above criticism and all of the blame for the break-up belongs to Lennon and Harrison.
Paul and George also complained about Yoko. Hell everyone complained about her. And are we forgetting how pissed everyone was about Revolution 9 being included on the album? There were hundreds of takes for a lot of songs, not just those. All the Beatles had instances of being irritated and resentful toward each other, but this narrative that Paul was the only Beatle to make mistakes or cause dissent is so tired, and frankly, incorrect. One need only examine the evidence. Forget the Let It Be movie which is cut with an agenda to up drama and listen to the Get Back audio tapes, for instance.
3 v 1 means nothing and proves nothing. The majority isn’t always right. And you’re wrong about why Harrison and Lennon quit… Lennon quit because he wanted to self-destruct the group. Harrison quit because Lennon kept letting Yoko talk for him and they got into a ‘row.’
If you were somehow to cross/hybridize ‘Black Dog’ with the ubiquitous (for the time) song ‘San Francisco Bay Blues’ you would definitely come up with Crippled Inside. Or perhaps JL said to the band in the studio, ‘ok, let’s do a cross between BD and SFBB fellas,’ and off they went. Really. Go listen to Eric Clapton’s unplugged 1992 version of SFBB and you’ll see what I mean. Lennon’s disarming lyrics belie the honky tonk tone though.
Lennon was a genuis who wrote some of the greatest songs in history. He was also a pussy whipped asshole with major mommy issues. Paul was more talented than him, which provoked jealousy, especially since Paul could easily churn out the pop hits that made them all money. They all hated him until they cashed their checks. George became a weirdo with his Hare Krishna crap that even began to wear on Ringo after the split. Plus Harrison and Lennon were the druggies of the group, and you know how druggies like to hang together and think they’re more evolved and cool than those who don’t indulge. Look how Lennon treated Julian once he went off with Yoko. Saying things like many children are both from a bottle of whiskey. Real nice John….They were pissed at Paul at the end because he was the only one with business sense who didn’t want the thief Allen Klein managing their money. He was right about that too. Bottom line: it was absolute magic for 6 years. Had they stayed together their art and their legacy would have suffered. They had a few good post Beatle years early on, but they were all got progressively worse the further they got away from the breakup…