Songfacts®:

• In this angry and bitter song Lennon attacks a number of falsehoods such as the idolatry of the Beatles and how he is the focus for many of those involved in the peace movement.
• This song includes the line: "The freaks on the phone won't leave me alone, so don't give me that brother, brother." Lennon explained the lyric to the January edition of Rolling Stone. He said: "I'm sick of all these aggressive hippies or whatever they are, the "Now Generation," being very up-tight with me. Either on the street or anywhere, or on the phone, demanding my attention, as if I owed them something."
• Ringo Starr played drums on this track. After the break-up of the Beatles, Lennon continued to have a good relationship with Ringo. He explained why to Rolling Stone: "In spite of all the things, the Beatles could really play music together when they weren't uptight, and if I get a thing going, Ringo knows where to go, just like that, and he does well. We've played together so long, that it fits. That's the only thing I sometimes miss is just being able to sort of blink or make a certain noise and I know they'll all know where we are going on an ad lib thing. But I don't miss it that much."
• The Red Hot Chili Peppers covered this on Working Class Hero.