Across The Universe

Notes:  © 1968 Northern Songs. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

John Lennon authored and carried the lead vocal for “Across the Universe” with backing vocals sung by Paul McCartney and George Harrison. Like most Beatle songs it is credited to Lennon/McCartney.  The song first appeared on a charity release album No One’s Gonna Change Our World  in December 1969.  The song was subsequently contained on the album Let It Be in the US.

The well-known background story of the song was that one night in 1967 John Lennon’s first wife Cynthia had been nagging him over and over about something.  John was so irritated that even after she went to sleep the line “Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup” kept going over and over in his head until he got out of bed and went downstairs to write it down.  It then turned into a sort of comic song rather than an irritated song. Once John had written down the lyrics he was able to go back to bed and forget about it.

The next morning John took the lyrics to his piano and began to play chords and find the pitches that matched the words.  His mantra Jai guru deva om was influenced by the Beatles Transcendental Meditation period of 1967-1968 when the song was written. The phrase has many possible meanings but one commonly used by the Beatles Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is “Glory to Guru Deva” followed by the sound of “om,” which is the sound used by monks during meditation to represent the cosmic sound of the universe.  

In a 1970 interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, John called the song the best, most poetic lyric he ever wrote.


 

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