By 1966, the Beatles' rivalry with the Beach Boys had become a serious issue. That year, the Beatles released Revolver in a punchdrunk effort to counter the strikes landed by the ample Pet Sounds. The album would deliver some serious body blows, with a Sgt. Pepper haymaker burgeoning to follow up.
An excellent jab of a song from Revolver, "I'm Only Sleeping" took the strength of the Beach Boys - vocal harmonies - and made it work so well for the boys from Liverpool. That must've cooked Brian Wilson's second breakfast. Then George Harrison tacked on a reversed guitar solo, the world's first reverse tape effect on a pop recording, just to spit in the American band's eye.
Pop music back then was a bloodsport. Just ask Brian Jones.
The song, written by John Lennon, is about laziness and perceptions that he was exceedingly lazy, the "lazy Beatle." Next to Paul McCartney I think about anyone would look lazy, but John did apparently love essentially living in his bed for long stretches when the Beatles weren't on tour or some other project. The song tries to counter our culture's stigma of laziness the way that John's "Rain" tries to counter the stigma of "bad" weather. These are really just learned values, after all. It wasn't the first time he stood up our world's busybodies - "Girl" on Rubber Soul scoffed at the preconception that "a man must break his back to earn his day of leisure."
On that subject, I will just point out that, from a technological and population standpoint, humanity inarguably possesses the means to permanently retire as a species.
The best poetic justice I can see for John's "laziness ethic" is that he is currently dominating Paul in songs I've written about for this list. "I'm Only Sleeping" is a beautiful, warm, highly original and imaginative slow number without a clear genre. Instead of being a genre, it's an expression of its point in the form of sound. Chalk it up to a well-rested brain or maybe a talent that flourished with a certain amount of allowed inefficiency, but it turns out that he was by far the more revolutionary Beatle in his songwriting and life trajectory. He may have been lazy; he was not ineffective. Sometimes when they rush you, they want to shrink your flame; they see no benefit in its heat. Know what you require to reach your best end result and beware anyone who only views their template as superior. Those people are everyday fascists. You will meet them. Like John, you may need to state your manifesto.