John's Love Songs | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

If we look at John’s Beatle love songs, especially those before Yoko, insecurity, heartbreak, jealousy, vulnerability are some recurrent themes. The few I can think of are This Boy , Yes it is, Not A Second Time , You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away , I’ll Cry Instead , Run For Your Life , You can’t do that, and so on..
If we look at John’s relationships at that point, his leading lady was Cynthia whose love for him was strong, and stood by his side, although the jealousy might’ve been influenced by her, and Paul says as much. But, who was causing him all the heartbreak?
There is an interesting point in Tune In where Lewisohn says John reserved his songs for his mother. Does John’s relationship with Julia , and his heartbreak over her death give us a more clear insight into his songs at that point? In Tune In, most of the statements there have said that John’s relationship with Julia was a cause of lot of confusion in for him. He loved her as his mother definitely, but also as a woman she was pretty unusual for her time – lively, bohemian, pretty, funny, etc. Very much like him.
On the other side, some of his other love songs like Ask me why, Anytime at all are just a pure expression of love. And also “coming home” theme was used more than once.
I thought of this because the personal nature of the early songs is usually ignored, and John as a songwriter definitely brought a part of himself (or whole of himself) into the songwriting even then.