“Come Together” by The Beatles

John Lennon got the inspiration to write The Beatles’ classic hit “Come Together” from a psychologist/politician named Timothy Leary (1920-1996) whom he was associated with. Leary was running for Governor of California under the campaign slogan “Come Together, Join the Party”. And he asked Lennon to pen a track for him based on this phrase for campaigning purposes, of which “Come Together” is the result.

Due to a number of factors, what Lennon came up with was unusable by Timothy Leary. Perhaps the primary reason is that the song does not actually make any sense. And this is no insult against the songwriting genius of Lennon. In fact if anything it is a testament of it, as a tune he personally described as “gobbledygook” that still managed to top the Billboard Hot 100.

But being that it is indeed a classic, people are going to continue to look for deeper meaning in the lyrics of “Come Together” than what is actually there. And yes, there may be references to real people, places and things, such as a shoutout to John’s wife, Yoko “Ono”, as well as the crew namedropping “Coca-Cola” and other particular references.

Does this song really have no meaning?

No! And in trying to derive too much meaning from the track, a listener once again runs the risk of applying interpretations that do not really exist. Rather this is a song which Lennon loosely framed around another (“You Can’t Catch Me” by Chuck Berry). Moreover it was written with a specific goal in mind which it never fulfilled and was likely influenced by the drug culture that both Lennon and Leary were a part of.  But that being said, considered that it was handled by a talented crew during the era of their creative peak, “Come Together” still came out being one of the most endeared tracks in American music history.

Who wrote “Come Together”?

Officially, this track was written by two of the Beatles, John Lennon (1940-1980) and Paul McCartney. That being said, it’s important to note that Lennon actually wrote this song himself. However, its writing was credited to both him and McCartney.

And the song was produced by one of their regular collaborators, the “Fifth Beatle” George Martin.

Accolades

This song proved to be a hit for the group. It topped America’s Hot 100 and went on to hit number 4 in Britain (the UK Singles Chart).

A likely reason “Come Together” didn’t reach number one in the Beatles’ native United Kingdom is because the BBC refused to play the track due to the namedropping of Coca-Cola. In other words, they interpreted this reference as an advertisement of the product.

“Come Together” has also been placed on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”, coming in at number 205.

Covers of “Come Together”

Amongst the many artists who have covered this song, notable renditions include those by the following:

• Ike & Tina Turner (1970)
• Aerosmith (1978)
• Michael Jackson (1988)
• Elton John (2000)
• The Arctic Monkeys (2012)

Court Case

In 1973, John Lennon was sued by a music publisher named Morris Levy who claimed that Lennon plagiarized certain sections of “Come Together”. According to Levy, Lennon “stole” a significant part of music legend Chuck Berry’s 1956 song entitled “You Can’t Catch Me”.  Lennon was suffering from what has been described as courtroom fatigue at the time and decided to settle with Levy. Part of the agreement was that he had to cover other songs that Levy owned, which were later featured on the projects “Roots: John Lennon Sings the Great Rock & Roll Hits” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll”, which were both released in 1975.

When did “Come Together” come out?

This Beatles’ classic was officially released by Apple Records on 26 September 1969. It served as the lead single from the iconic group’s final album together, entitled “Abbey Road”.

In fact “Come Together”, being a double A-side along with the song “Something”, was the only single issued from “Abbey Road”.