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A long-standing mystery surrounding The Beatles has finally been unraveled. For years, the authorship of the 1965 track “In My Life” was disputed—Paul McCartney asserted he composed the melody, while John Lennon insisted McCartney’s contribution was minimal.
Recent academic research employing statistical analysis has shed light on the song’s true origins. As NPR highlights, the findings reveal that both musicians’ recollections were inaccurate. A study presented at a prominent statistics conference concludes that Lennon was the sole creator of the song.
Lennon and McCartney shared equal credit for their collaborative works, a practice rooted in a pact they made during their teenage years. Jason Brown, a mathematics professor at Dalhousie University in Canada, dedicated over a decade to solving the enigma of who truly penned “In My Life.”
Although the two artists undoubtedly influenced each other creatively during their years together, they maintained distinct musical preferences that can be measured and analyzed. Brown and his team—comprising a mathematician and an engineering professor—examined individual notes, chords, and other elements across numerous Beatles songs to identify patterns in the Lennon-McCartney catalog. They pinpointed 149 unique musical transitions within the Beatles' body of work, each reflecting the distinct style of the individual songwriter.
“By quantifying the unique musical elements, the probability that McCartney composed ["In My Life"] was .018—essentially zero,” Stanford mathematician Keith Devlin, who was not part of the study, told NPR. “This leaves no doubt. The music was entirely Lennon’s creation.”
While some may question the reduction of creativity to numbers, Devlin argues that this approach is “far more reliable than human memory,” particularly given The Beatles’ “frequently altered mental states” during the 1960s. This isn’t the only study of its kind; a 2014 analysis [PDF] also used lyrics and algorithms to distinguish between McCartney’s and Lennon’s songwriting styles.
This isn’t Brown’s first foray into decoding The Beatles’ creative process. In 2008, he employed sound-wave analysis to uncover the composition of the iconic opening chord in “A Hard Day’s Night,” concluding it was a blend of guitar, bass, and piano.
Lennon once revealed in an interview that the inspiration for “In My Life” came after a journalist encouraged him to draw more from his personal experiences. He later described the song as his first significant and meaningful work, stating, “Before that, everything had been superficial and fleeting.”
