This legal tussle aside, there was no beef between the two. “ You Can’t Catch Me” appears on Lennon’s 1975 album of classic covers, Rock ‘n’ Roll. In an out-of-court settlement, Lennon agreed to record even more of Berry’s tunes. “John acknowledged it was rather close to it,” says Paul, “so I said, ‘Well, anything you can do to get away from that.’” Despite the resulting “swampy” tempo, Berry’s legal team still sued over the lyric “here comes old flat-top,” a direct lift from Berry’s song. McCartney first pointed out the similarities between Lennon’s “Come Together” (originally penned as a campaign song for Timothy Leary’s run against Ronald Reagan for the governorship of California) and Berry’s 1956 “You Can’t Catch Me,” he tells Barry Miles in Many Years From Now. They were fans, he wrote in tribute after Berry’s death, “from the first minute we heard the great guitar intro to ‘Sweet Little Sixteen.’” But it wasn’t only Berry’s playing that hooked them: “His stories were more like poems than lyrics…. Paul McCartney credits Berry for the Beatles’ very existence. Lennon used it as the opportunity to finally meet, and jam out, with his idol.īerry wasn’t just a major inspiration for the young Lennon “From his songwriting and lyrics, to his guitar playing and stage antics, perhaps nobody else short of Elvis Presley was as influential on the young Beatles as Chuck Berry,” writes Beatles scholar Aaron Krerowicz, listing “at least 15” of Berry’s songs the band covered (as either the Quarrymen or the Beatles). Douglas called it “probably the most memorable week I did in all my 20-something years on air,” Guitar World notes. The year was 1972, and Lennon and Yoko Ono had taken over Douglas’ show for the week, booking such guests as Ralph Nader, Jerry Rubin, and then Surgeon General Dr. The moment was a major highlight of Lennon’s post-Beatles’ career. Goode” (with Lennon’s backing band, Elephant’s Memory, and unwelcome discordant backing vocals from Yoko).
The two perform Berry’s “Memphis, Tennessee” and “Johnny B.
“If you had tried to give rock and roll another name, you would call it Chuck Berry,” says John Lennon by way of introduction to his hero in the clip above from The Mike Douglas Show.
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