Beatles, The - Something / Come Together

In 1969 Timothy Leary intended to run for governor of Califorina against a B-movie actor named Ronald Reagan. One of Leary's battle cries was "Come together," and he asked his friend John Lennon to write a song based on it for the campaign. By the time Lennon got around to it, Leary's campaign was dead (he had to drop out when he was convicted of marijuana possession).
Lennon liked the phrase, though, and decieded to build a song around it anyway. He loosely based it on the old Chuck Berry tune, "You Can't Catch Me." He even left the line, "Here come old flattop." Other than that, it's nothing like the Berry song, but because Lennon admitted to borrowing the line, Berry's publisher sued him. The settlement: Lennon agreed to record two Chuck Berry songs on his 1975 solo album, Rock N Roll. Written and recorded in a single session at the studio, "Come Together" was one of Lennon's favorites.