“Cold Turkey,” a song with a few different interpretations, was originally recorded by John Lennon with the help of longtime musicians. Eric Clapton, confidant of the Beatles and would later be released by the Plastic Ono Band. The track would become a defining iconographic piece for Lennon and was his second solo single, although it could easily have also been another Beatles release.

The song is, according to Lennon himself, an unapologetic look at the horrible extremes one must go through to get off heroin. Lennon and Yoko Ono both picked up the nasty habit during a particularly difficult time for the couple: “It just wasn’t too much fun. I never injected it or anything. We sniffled a little when we were really in pain. I mean, we just couldn’t – people were giving us so much trouble,” Lennon to Jann Wenner in 1970.

“I’ve had so much crap thrown at me and especially at Yoko,” Lennon continued. “People like Peter Brown in our office, he comes down and shakes my hand and doesn’t even say hello. Now this happens all the time. And we are suffering so much that we have to do something. And that’s what happened to us. We took H because of what the Beatles and their friends were doing to us. And we got through it. They didn’t plan to do it, but things came out of that period. And I don’t forget.

1969 will be a difficult year for the Beatles. The group had suffered a great loss with the death of Brian Epstein a few years prior and their interpersonal relationships had reached a breaking point. As the courts and dissolution beckoned, Lennon responded by occasionally losing himself in heroin. This largely explains his ambivalence during the recording of Let it be so and also his growing disinterest in anything except his own determinations. But by the end of the year, Ono and Lennon chose to abandon the habit and go through the process known as “cold turkey”, which was enough to spark the idea for the song in the Liverpudlian.

“’Cold Turkey’ is explicit,” Lennon began when discussing the song with David Sheff in 1980. “It was banned again on all American radio, so it never took off. They thought I was promoting heroin, but instead… They’re so stupid when it comes to drugs! They always stop smugglers or kids with a few joints in their pocket. They never face reality. They are not looking for the cause of the drug problem. Why does everyone take drugs? To escape what? Is life so terrible? Are we living in a situation so terrible that we can’t do anything about it without the reinforcement of alcohol, tobacco or sleeping pills?

“I’m not preaching about them. I’m just saying a drug is a drug, you know,” Lennon concluded with some progressive thoughts on narcotics. “It’s important why we take them, not who sells them to whom on the street corner.” In early September 1969, Lennon began writing the first notes for his new track and called on a special friend to help him as well, Eric Clapton.

Lennon and Clapton’s friendship was well known and the duo were always just a few degrees away from starting their own band. The battle even suggested that Clapton replace George Harrison one night after the guitarist decided to leave the band, if only for a few hours. “Let’s bring Eric in,” Lennon noted.

But in September 1969, Lennon was still a Beatle and so there was a certain amount of dues to pay. The singer recorded three takes of the song, one as a simple passage with Lennon and an acoustic, one with Eric Clapton laying down a guitar line and the final recording featured Yoko Ono on vocals. Lennon took them to see the band’s other main songwriter, Paul McCartney, to see what to do next.

Lennon suggested the song could be recorded as the Beatles’ next single with a sincere glint in his eye. The frontman knew full well that it would be too risky for the band to release a song about heroin withdrawal, but that didn’t stop him from paying McCartney a lip service offer. Macca refused the song and Lennon’s plan went into action: he would release the song under his own name without McCartney’s writing credit attached. At the time, it was a huge gesture to signify Lennon’s intention to leave the band.

After finally nailing the song, and even welcoming Ringo Starr into the studios to lay down the drums after the Plastic Ono Band debuted the song in Torontothe song was released on October 20, 1969. It came with a label that read “PLAY LOUD” in large, bold letters. That’s exactly what we’re going to do and listen to the inner workings of John Lennon’s soul through his song “Cold Turkey.”

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