Just A Young Boy Looking For A Way To Find Love

ladyjaneasher:

it’s an interesting thought, anon. i do disagree, however, for various reasons. let me explain why:

(disclaimer: these are just my thoughts and speculations, i don’t claim they are fact.)

1) the song’s history

jealous guy was originally child of nature. child of nature was written in india. the lyrics had little to do with the ones of jealous guy:

On the road to Rishikesh
I was dreaming more or less
And the dream I had was true
Yes, the dream I had was true

I’m just a child of nature
I don’t need much to set me free
I’m just child of nature
I’m one of nature’s children

Sunlight shining in your eyes
As I face the desert skies
And my thoughts return to home
Yes, my thoughts return to home

I’m just a child of nature
I don’t need much to set me free
I’m just a child of nature
I’m one of nature’s children

Underneath the mountain ranges
Where the wind that never changes
Touch the windows of my soul
Touch the windows of my soul

I’m just a child of nature
I don’t need much to set me free
I’m just a child of nature
I’m one of nature’s children

only the rough melody remained when john began to rewrite the song for imagine and it eventually became jealous guy, the themes changing from a song inspired by a lecture of the maharishi – and perhaps almost similar in a way to mother nature’s son – to jealousy, longing, forgiveness and apolgies.

2) cynthia and john’s relationship

i think that john had already mentally signed out of the marriage well before the india trip, or was in the process of doing so. the rift that had began to manifest throughout the years of their marriage only became even more obvious around that time until it was undeniable to everyone involved, directly and indirectly. 

in her own book john (2005), cynthia repeatedly talks about how she feels john progressively withdrawing from her in ‘67 and ‘68:

 ”Despite my increasingly strong feeling that John was slipping away from me […]”

as well as how she had seen him flirting with other women: 

”I became more and more upset as John flirted with other women, including Patti, who was seductively attired as a belly-dancer.”

and how he’d already been in contact with yoko at that point:

”That letter made it crystal clear that they had been in contact. How well had they got to know one another? I tackled John, who told me she’d written many times, both letters and cards, but said, ‘She’s crackers, just a weirdo artist who wants me to sponsor her. Another nutter wanting money for all that avant-garde bullshit. It’s not important.’ I had no way of knowing whether he was telling me the truth.” 

i think specifically around the time of the india trip, cynthia was already a near-closed chapter of his life, with only cynthia clinging onto the hope that their relationship might be repaired:

“Meanwhile, I was not having the second honeymoon I’d hoped for. John was becoming increasingly cold and aloof towards me. He would get up early and leave our room. He spoke to me very little, and after a week or two he announced that he wanted to move into a separate room to give himself more space. From then on he virtually ignored me, both in private and in public. If the others noticed they didn’t say so.”

and even that hope was waning:

“I felt increasingly afraid and depressed. John and I were back in the same bed, but the warmth and passion we had shared for so long were absent. John seemed barely to notice me. He was little better with Julian and was more likely to snap at him than give him a hug. There was just one moment of real warmth between us and that was, ironically, when John confessed to me that he had been unfaithful. We were in the kitchen when he said, out of the blue, ‘There have been other women, you know, Cyn.‘”

what i’m trying to illustrate is that john’s mind had already moved on from cynthia, in my opinion. it is in direct contrast to his feelings for paul, who remained a fixture in john’s emotional life from the moment he met him to john’s untimely death.

3) paul claiming the song 

it’s very rare that paul claims a song of john’s as he did with jealous guy – the only other example i can think of is nowhere man. additionally, he doesn’t just say that he thinks the song is about him, he explicitly says that john said so:

“It was a weird time. The people who were managing us were whispering in our ears and trying to turn us against each other and it became like a feuding family. In the end, I think John had some tough breaks. He used to say, ‘Everyone is on the McCartney bandwagon.’ He wrote ‘I’m Just A Jealous Guy’ and he said that the song was about me. 

So I think it was just some kind of jealousy. I had to try and forgive John because I sort of knew where he was coming from. I knew that he was trying to get rid of the Beatles in order to say to Yoko, ‘Look, I’ve even given that up for you. I’m ready to devote myself to you and to the avant-garde.’ I don’t know if it’s true. One thing I’m really glad about is that I didn’t answer him back. It’s very difficult to do that when someone is attacking you. But I would have felt sick as a dog now if I had.” 

[source: [x] 

4) scattered thoughts and quotes (in no particular order)

there’s so much more i could say but don’t know how to put in words yet, so have these rather scattered thoughts of mine, complete with an assortment of quotes and ideas that i find interesting and are, hopefully, somewhat related and understandable:

JOHN: My song, melody written in India. The lyrics explain themselves clearly: I was a very jealous, possessive guy. Toward everything. A very insecure male. A guy who wants to put his woman in a little box, lock her up, and just bring her out when he feels like playing with her. She’s not allowed to communicate with the outside world – outside of me – because it makes me feel insecure. [source: all we are saying: the last major interview with john lennon and yoko ono, david sheff]

this quote, coupled with the rather apologetic lyrics of the song that begin with john dreaming of “the past” leading into things that john had done in said past and feels the need to explain, as well as the lyrics echoing other lyrics of songs that one might associate with paul – see i know (i know)’s ‘i never could read your mind’ – make me think it’s rather about paul than cynthia. i could go on to a whole different tangent of john wanting one-ness with his partner in contrast to paul’s mastery of compartmentalisation, but that’s another topic entirely.

we know that john, jealousy and his intense emotional relationships went hand in hand, that he felt a certain “creative jealousy” whenever paul broke their bond to write with someone else (see the whole emotional upheaval around eleanor rigby that he still carried with him years later, again thanks to the lovely and incredibly thorough @amoralto):

August, 1980: In his interview with Playboy writer David Sheff, John’s spurious account of the authorship of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ reveals an insecurity with his partnership with Paul at the time, and its perceived exclusivity.

JOHN: ‘Rigby’’s, um, his first verse, and the rest of the verses are basically mine. But the way he did it was – uh, was he had the song, and he knew he’d got the song. So rather than ask me, “John, do these lyrics—” Because by that period, he didn’t want to say that – to me. Okay? So what he would say was, “Hey, you guys, finish off the lyrics,” while he was sort of fiddling around with the track or something, or – or arranging it, in the other part of the giant studio in EMI.Now, I sat there with Mal Evans, a road manager who was a telephone installer, and Neil Aspinall, who was a not-completed student accountant who became our road manager. And I was insulted and hurt that he’d thrown it out in the air, but I wanted to grab a piece of it, and I wrote it with them sitting at the table. So. There might be a version that they contributed, but there isn’t a line in there that they put in.But that’s how it – [Paul] just sort of— ‘Cause that’s the kind of insensitivity he would have – which made me upset in the later years – because to him, that meant nothing. But that’s the kind of person he is. So he threw ‘em out and said, “Here, finish these up,” like – to anybody, who was around. [By saying that] actually he meant I was to do it, but – you know, Neil and Mal were sitting there, and…

we also know that john felt insecurity around and because of paul, that ocassionally made him lash out at paul and others:

“In time, I began to realize that John’s mood changes seemed to always be preceded by long moments of silence. He’d get a dreamy, far-off look in his eyes and you’d think that he was pondering, ruminating. In fact, that look was probably due more to his poor eyesight then anything else. […] But underneath all the bluff and bluster, John struck me as a very insecure person. I’m not sure what he had to be insecure about, unless it was the songwriting competition he was always engaged in with Paul. Perhaps deep down he thought that Paul was more talented than he was.” [source:  here, there and everywhere: my life recording the music of the beatles, geoff emerick]

there are many more quotes i could post here that tell a similar story. for further reading on this topic – john’s jealousy and possessive over paul and the creative process – i’d recommend you these posts by @amoralto here and here.

then there’s an interesting tidbit on the beatlesbible:

“Although the lyrics appear to be about a relationship, if one reads them as being about McCartney it provides a revealing insight into Lennon’s viewpoint on The Beatles’ breakup, and a counterpoint to Imagine’s How Do You Sleep?, Lennon’s vitriolic attack on his former songwriting partner.”

i think it’s also very interesting for the subject matter that in the post-breakup interviews especially, he rarely – if ever, i can’t recall any at the moment – equated his relationship with yoko with cynthia, but rather, over and over, with the partnership he had with paul, or used the words “marriage”, “love affair” and “fiance” to describe the partnership.

i hope i’ve explained my thoughts well! thank you for question, anon. and a huge thank you to @monkberries for helping me with some of the trivia and background info!

💛