As Lennon told the reporter in the aforementioned Rolling Stone interview, “What I realized when I read [several interviews he’d done in the past] was that I’m always complaining about how hard it is to write or how much I suffer when I’m writing — that almost every song I’ve ever written has been absolute torture.”

As Lennon elaborates, it becomes clear that at least some of the time, he suffered from Imposter Syndrome (in the parlance of our times), in which even the most successful of artists fears deep down that they’re a fraud who doesn’t know what they’re doing. He said (per Rolling Stone), “I always think there’s nothing there, it’s s***, it’s no good, it’s not coming out, this is garbage … and even if it does come out, I think, ‘What the hell is it anyway?'”

And he didn’t candy-coat the process or give himself much credit even after a song proved that it resonated with people, and went on to success. Lennon said, “I just think, ‘That was tough. Jesus, I was in a bad way then’ [laughs] … except for the 10 or so songs the gods give you and that come out of nowhere.”

As most any artist of any sort can confirm, that feeling is common; that even one of the most significant songwriters of the twentieth century felt that way about his own work is mindblowing.