lennon played the guitar, and later learned to play the piano. most of the songs the beatles recorded were written by lennon and mccartney. their songs were always credited as by "lennon/mccartney" on beatles records, but in fact they usually wrote their songs on their own. the two men often helped to make each other's songs better, so they liked to share writing credit. famous songs written by lennon for the beatles are "a hard day's night", "help!", "strawberry fields forever", "a day in the life" and many others.