While “Don’t Let Me Down” by the Beatles may not be the most lyrically intricate song that the iconic quartet produced, the song did emerge from a complex set of emotions. A chorus of four Don’t let me downs surrounds each verse as Lennon begs his second wife, Yoko Ono, to make their love a lasting love.
I’m in love for the first time / Don’t you know it’s gonna last / It’s a love that lasts forever / It’s a love that had no past, Lennon sings in the second verse.
“It was a very tense period,” McCartney told biographer Barry Miles for Many Years From Now (1997). “John was with Yoko and had escalated to heroin and all the accompanying paranoias and he was putting himself out on a limb.
I think that as much as it excited and amused him, and [at] the same time it secretly terrified him. So ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ was a genuine plea… It was saying to Yoko, ‘I’m really stepping out of line on this one. I’m really letting my vulnerability be seen, so you must not let me down.’ I think it was a genuine cry for help. It was a good song.”
