page_title: In My Life
section_title: Lyrics
hierarchical_section_title: In My Life / Lyrics
caption_attribution_description: English: John Lennon's original handwritten lyrics to the song "In my life", as displayed at the British Library's 2012 exhibition "Writing Britain: from wastelands to wonderlands". A different version of the lyrics features in the final song.
context_page_description: "In My Life" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1965 album Rubber Soul. It was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who later disagreed over the extent of their respective contributions to the song. Lennon credited the harmony and bridge to McCartney, while McCartney claimed the entire musical structure. George Martin contributed the piano solo bridge, which was sped up to sound like a harpsichord.
  According to Lennon, "In My Life" was his "first real major piece of work" because it was the first time he penned personal lyrics about his own life. The original version of the lyrics was based on a bus route he used to take in Liverpool, naming various sites seen along the way, including Penny Lane and Strawberry Field. Lennon discarded this lyrical idea in favour of a more generalized meditation on his past. He and McCartney later revisited those original references with their respective songs "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane".
  "In My Life" inspired more pop music producers to use harpsichords in their arrangements.
context_section_description: In a 1980 interview, Lennon referred to this song as his "first real major piece of work" because it was the first time he penned personal lyrics about his own life. According to Lennon, the song's origins can be traced to when the English journalist Kenneth Allsop made a remark that Lennon should write songs about his childhood. Afterwards, Lennon wrote a song in the form of a long poem reminiscing on his childhood years. The original version of the lyrics was based on a bus route he used to take in Liverpool, naming various sites seen along the way, including Penny Lane and Strawberry Field.
  
  Lennon later thought the original lyrics were "ridiculous", calling it "the most boring sort of 'What I Did On My Holidays Bus Trip' song". He reworked the words and replaced the specific memories with a generalized meditation on his past. "Very few lines" of the original version remained in the finished song. According to Lennon's friend and biographer Peter Shotton, the lines "Some [friends] are dead and some are living/In my life I've loved them all" referred to himself and Stuart Sutcliffe (who died in 1962).
caption: Original hand-written lyrics to "In My Life"
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