Crippled Inside

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"Crippled Inside"

Song by John Lennon
from the album Imagine
Released	September 9, 1971 (US) October 8, 1971 (UK)
Recorded	1971
Genre	Rock
Length	3:47
Label	Apple/EMI
Writer(s)	John Lennon
Producer(s)	John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Phil Spector
Imagine track listing
Imagine (1)	"Crippled Inside" (2)	Jealous Guy (3)

"Crippled Inside" is a song written and performed by John Lennon from his 1971 album Imagine.

The song's lyrics detail examples of false pretenses in human behavior, as well as common hypocrisy. Lennon especially attacks religion, which he did not believe in, as a prime source of hypocrisy, saying, "You can go to church and sing a hymn" and that "You can live a lie until you die, but one thing you can't hide, is when you're crippled inside."

Lennon also incorporates the myth about a cat having nine lives into the song, and compares it to a dog's one: "Well, you know that your cat has nine lives, babe, but you only got one, and a dog's life ain't fun." This could be interpreted as a veiled criticism of reincarnation, advising listeners to instead focus on the one life that they do have.

The song combines the bleak lyrical content of Lennon's prior solo recording, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, with the more upbeat musical arrangements typical to the rest of Imagine. Lennon would later express his displeasure with the more commercial sound of the album, even going so far as to say that the title track was "an anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic song, but because it's sugar-coated, it's accepted."^[1] The song is also noticeably influenced by country music, becoming Lennon's own spin on country rock, which he dabbled in both as a Beatle and later in his solo career.

[edit] Trivia

John Lennon's fellow former Beatle George Harrison plays dobro on the song, with Klaus Voormann (a longtime friend of the Beatles and designer of the cover for their Revolver album) on upright bass.