Nowhere Man

"Nowhere Man" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. It was released in December 1965 on their album Rubber Soul, except in the United States and Canada, where it was first issued as a single A-side in February 1966 before appearing on the album Yesterday and Today. The song was written by John Lennon and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. In the US, the single peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 1 on the chart compiled by Record World magazine, as it did the RPM 100 chart in Canada and in Australia. The song was also released as a single in some countries where it had been included on Rubber Soul, including Australia, where it topped the singles chart. Recorded on 21 and 22 October 1965, "Nowhere Man" describes a man with no direction in his life and with no genuine worldview. It is one of the first Beatles songs to be entirely unrelated to romance or love, and marks a notable example of Lennon's philosophically oriented songwriting. Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison sing the song in three-part harmony. The lead guitar solo was performed in unison by Harrison and Lennon. The pair played identical "sonic blue"-coloured Fender Stratocasters on the track. The song appears in the film Yellow Submarine, where the Beatles sing it about the character Jeremy Hillary Boob after meeting him in the "nowhere land". The song was also played throughout the Beatles' 1966 US tour and their 1966 tour of Germany, Japan and the Philippines. Background Towards the end of the production for Rubber Soul, John Lennon had difficulties in coming up with a new song. He spent over five hours trying to come up with another song, and eventually decided to "lay down". During his idling, Lennon suddenly thought of himself as being a "Nowhere Man—sitting in his nowhere land". Lennon then shared the lyrics he had written with McCartney. McCartney said that Lennon wrote the song for himself, personally interpreting it to be about his marriage and described it as an "anti-John song". Lennon had written the song in the third-person, deciding to end the song with the lyric "Isn't he a bit like you and me?" The song is generally credited as being among the first Beatles' songs not pertaining to themes of romance or love. Lennon reflected in a 1980 Playboy interview that: McCartney said of the song: