{"id":786762,"date":"2026-02-24T22:45:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T22:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/786762\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T22:45:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T22:45:19","slug":"the-song-john-lennon-compared-to-a-bob-dylan-elvis-and-roy-orbison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/786762\/","title":{"rendered":"The song John Lennon compared to a Bob Dylan, Elvis and Roy Orbison"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"John<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n

Tue 24 February 2026 15:18, UK <\/p>\n

In an ironic twist of fate, the final single that John Lennon<\/a> released in his lifetime before his tragic murder in 1980 would be \u2018(Just Like) Starting Over\u2019, a rockabilly send-up with a message of renewal and revitalisation. Lennon was coming into a new decade and had a new lease on life following a two-month trip to Bermuda, where he finished writing the material that would eventually appear on Double Fantasy.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Starting Over\u2019 and \u2018Cleanup Time\u2019 were sorta written on the run after I\u2019d finished all the other work of writing the other ones,\u201d Lennon told David Sheff in 1980. \u201cThey just sort of came. They were like the fun after the work is finished. I was still in Bermuda.\u201d<\/p>\n

A bouncy and lighthearted track, \u2018(Just Like) Starting Over\u2019 featured Lennon, affecting an old-school rock and roll vocal cadence throughout the song. The rollicking shuffle was Lennon\u2019s tip of the cap to some of his influences. Dylan has always been a part of Lennon\u2019s best work. The singer-songwriter had a huge hand in helping Lennon realise that his best course of action for writing great music was allowing his own thoughts and feelings to come to the fore. <\/p>\n

Dylan was the man behind a lot of the earliest moments of Lennon\u2019s best work. But, for the most part, it was Dylan\u2019s early work that grabbed him. This time, while explaining the song\u2019s genesis, Lennon compared it to what Bob Dylan did on his 1969 country music album Nashville Skyline<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll through the taping of \u2018Starting Over\u2019, I was calling what I was doing \u2018Elvis Orbison\u2019. It\u2019s like Dylan doing\u00a0Nashville Skyline, except I don\u2019t have any Nashville, being from Liverpool,\u201d Lennon explained. But it wasn;t just Dylan who inspired the singer, it was a couple of other icons who had direct inspiration on the sound of the track. He explained, \u201cSo I go back to the records I know \u2013 Elvis and Roy Orbison and Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"John<\/a>(Credits: Far Out \/ Tony Barnard \/ Los Angeles Times \/ UCLA Library)<\/p>\n

The latter two names are ever-present in the list of Lennon\u2019s inspiration, but the majority of this track was born out of Dylan, Orbison and Elvis. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really called \u2018Starting Over\u2019 but, while we\u2019re making it, people kept putting things out with the same title,\u201d Lennon told Addy Peebles in 1980. \u201cYou know, there\u2019s a country and western hit [by Tammy Wynette] called \u2018Starting Over\u2019, so I added \u2018Just Like\u2019 at the last minute. And to me, it was like going back to 15 and singing \u00e0 la Presley. All the time I was referring to John [Smith], the engineer, here in the room, I was referring to Elvis Orbison. It\u2019s kinda like\u2026 \u2018Only The Lonely\u2019, you know\u2026 a kind of parody but not really parody.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d done that music and identified with it \u2013 that was my period \u2013 but I\u2019d never written a song that sounded like that period,\u201d he told Sheff. \u201cSo I just thought, Why the hell not? In the Beatles days, that would have been taken as a joke. One avoided clich\u00e9s. Course now clich\u00e9s are not clich\u00e9s anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clich\u00e9s were one thing, but Lennon was a bit self-conscious of another part of the song. During the chorus, Lennon sings, \u201cIt\u2019s time to spread our wings and fly.\u201d Not wanting to make any direct allusions to Paul McCartney\u2019s band under the same name, Lennon nearly changed the phrase before deciding to leave it in. \u201cI nearly took the word \u2018wings\u2019 out because I thought, \u2018Oh, God!\u2019 They\u2019ll all be saying, \u2018What\u2019s this about Wings?\u2019 It has nothin\u2019 to do with Wings,\u201d Lennon confirmed.<\/p>\n

John Lennon has always been a sincere songwriter and not just in his words but in appreciating his influences too. While many have pointed to the star\u2019s ego as a huge driver of his creative endeavours, he rarely held back in sharing appreciation for the men who shaped his style. On this song, he was just a little bit more explicit than most. <\/p>\n

Check out \u2018(Just Like) Starting Over\u2019 down below.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Far Out Bob Dylan Newsletter<\/p>\n

All the latest stories about Bob Dylan from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy) Tue 24 February 2026 15:18, UK In an ironic twist of fate, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3936],"tags":[39538,77,8345,269,16,15],"class_list":["post-786762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-bob-dylan","tag-entertainment","tag-john-lennon","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116128037468063922","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}