THE SONG JOHN LENNON WROTE FOR THE BEATLES INSPIRED BY BREAKFAST CEREAL

John Lennon has never been shy about chastising his own work within The Beatles. John was a fierce critic of his work inwardly. Seemingly, when he looked back at some of the Fab Four’s songs in 1980 during an interview with Playboy’s David Sheff, he eviscerated some of his and Paul McCartney’s songs with an untethered disdain. One such song, which had been inspired by breakfast cereal, Lennon labelled “garbage” and a “throwaway”.

Though most bands would have been proud to call any of The Beatles tunes their own, Lennon was always happy to aim his own writing. Usually, the songs that faced the harshest critique from Lennon were the earlier tunes, the pop ditties that he and McCartney wrote “eyeball to eyeball” in the band’s early days. But this song, ‘Good Morning Good Morning’, was a piece of one of their most celebrated albums, and widely considered one of the best LPs of all time — Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

“Good morning, good morning
The best to you each morning
Sunshine breakfast, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes
Crisp and full of sun…
Sunshine breakfast, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes
Best for everyone”

– Kellogg’s commercial, 1967

Their style had drastically changed in a few short years, and the pop idols of old had vanished, leaving behind an experimental rock group who were equal parts enticing and perplexing. That said, they were still expected to create albums and songs at an alarming rate. It will come as a shock then, to fans who don’t know, that the band were just as happy to phone it in when needed to fulfil their quota. ‘Good Morning, Good Morning’ was one such song.

“‘Good Morning’ is mine,” Lennon told Sheff in 1980. “It’s a throwaway, a piece of garbage, I always thought.” During the conversation, Lennon also shared that the original inspiration for the song came from a commercial for a breakfast cereal. “The ‘Good morning, good morning’ was from a Kellogg’s cereal commercial. I always had the TV on very low in the background when I was writing and it came over and then I wrote the song.”