John Lennon’s Breakup Letter To Paul McCartney Is Up For Auction

The signed and hand-annotated copy of John Lennon’s letter, which he wrote in 1971 to Paul McCartney after splitting with him, went up for auction recently via Gotta Have Rock And Roll.

The Beatles rapidly became the forerunners in recording and songwriting, leading to a revolution in the music industry. The band was led by its primary songwriters, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and the Beatles’ reputation spread worldwide primarily thanks to the songwriting partnership the two established.

However, McCartney and Lennon weren’t always getting along with each other. The two decided to split from the band in 1970, resulting in the Beatles’ disbandment. After that, each Beatle focused on their solo careers. In 1971, McCartney gave an interview to Melody Maker and described ‘Imagine’ as not political, sparking a feud between him and Lennon.

Upon hearing this, John Lennon decided to respond to McCartney. In his letter, he slammed McCartney for calling his ‘Imagine’ album not political and called him a conservative who didn’t understand working class struggles. He also criticized Macca for not seeing through his lyrics, especially the vicious song he wrote in response to McCartney’s ‘Too Many People,’ titled ‘How Do You Sleep?’

Recently, it was reported that a signed copy of Lennon’s letter went up for auction via the Gotta Have Rock And Roll auction site. The three-pages-long letter has notes on the pages written by Lennon himself, and its current bid is $33,000, with a total of 7 bids placed.

As reported by AV Club, a noteworthy excerpt from John Lennon’s letter read:

So you think ‘Imagine’ isn’t political, it’s ‘working class here’ with sugar on it for conservatives like yourself! You obviously didn’t dig the words. Imagine! You took ‘How Do You Sleep’ so literally.”

Below, you can see the letter John Lennon wrote to Paul McCartney.

Photo Credit: Gotta Have Rock And Roll