The Meaning Behind “Watching the Wheels” by John Lennon
“Watching the Wheels” will go down as one of the loveliest songs in John Lennon’s catalog. His mind clear and the restlessness of previous years largely cooled, he wrote a playful, tender ode to the joys of dropping out of the rat race to be with family. It’s a bitter irony that fate would take that all away from him and lend “Watching the Wheels” an entirely unintended context. Let’s take a look back at the meaning behind “Watching the Wheels” by John Lennon—how this amazing song came to be, starting with where Lennon was in his life at the time that he wrote it.It’s nothing these days for even the hottest musicians to take several years between major album releases. But that kind of thing just wasn’t done that often in the ‘70s. Rock stars were expected to churn out product on the regular. John Lennon was arguably the most famous musician in the world at that time. Yet he maintained radio silence for the entire second half of the decade.
Source: Jim Beviglia/americansongwriter.com
