Nowhere Man (song)

Nowhere Man is a song by the legendary '60s British rock group The Beatles, on their album Rubber Soul. Though the song-writing credit is Lennon/McCartney, it was written by only John Lennon and recorded on October 21 and 22, 1965. It is the first Beatles song not about love and marks the beginning of Lennon's philosophical ramblings in his music.

The song is either about an actual person or an member of a rigid, straight-laced society whose life in reality had no purpose. Julia Phillips, in her expose You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again, said the song was written about a businessman named Michael Brown. Lennon, however, claimed that he himself was the subject of song. He wrote it after wracking his brain in desperation for five hours, trying to come up with another song for Rubber Soul. "I'd actually stopped trying to think of something," he said. "Then I thought of myself as Nowhere Man -- sitting in his nowhere land."

References

Turner, Steve. A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song, Harper, New York: 1994, ISBN 006095065X