Justin Timberlake says John Lennon inspired new single and he wrote 100 songs for upcoming record

Justin Timberlake has revealed that his new single ‘Selfish’ was inspired by John Lennon.

• READ MORE: Justin Timberlake – ‘Man Of The Woods’ review

The artist announced his comeback single earlier this week alongside news of his new album ‘Everything I Thought It Was’, which will drop on March 15 via RCA.

Timberlake recently spoke to Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 about his new music, which is his first since 2018’s ‘Man Of The Woods’, and revealed that ‘Selfish’ came about after he sang a cover of Lennon’s ‘Jealous Guy’ on a night out.

“A friend of mine, who’s also my music director, who’s probably a friend of the whole family over there, Adam Blackstone, he was doing these small jazz nights at a place in LA,” Timberlake began. “And he invited me to come down and he said, ‘Hey, man.’ He was like, ‘You want to come up and sing something?’ And I randomly threw out, “Oh, yeah, let’s do Donny Hathaway’s cover of ‘Jealous Guy’ by Lennon.’ And by the way, if you’re a Gen-Zer right now, you have no idea who I’m talking about!

“So we were talking about the song itself and just breaking down the idea that you just don’t hear that from men often, that they would express an emotion that makes them vulnerable. And then growing up the way I grew up, you’re taught not to do that,” he continued.

“But I don’t know, it just felt like a really honest song. The lyrics just started to come out honestly. And when I listened to the whole album, I felt like it’s probably, of all the songs on the album, production-wise, probably the most straightforward, and I don’t want to say simple because it’s complex within its simplicity to me.”

Timberlake also said he had written 100 songs for ‘Everything I Thought It Was’. “I worked for a long time on this album and I ended up with 100 songs. So narrowing them down to 18 was a thing, and then, yeah, I’m really excited about this album. I think every artist probably says this, but it is my best work,” he said.

The singer will also perform as Saturday Night Live‘s musical guest this week on January 27. He will star in the episode alongside guest host Dakota Johnson.

It will be the second episode of the show this season following on from this week’s episode which saw Saltburn’s Jacob Elordi host and Reneé Rapp appear as the musical guest.

Timberlake has also announced his first live shows in the US in half a decade.

The string of live shows will kick off at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver on April 29. From there, Timberlake will make stops in major cities including Seattle, San Jose, Las Vegas, Inglewood, Phoenix, San Antonio, Austin, Atlanta, Tampa, Miami, Chicago, Boston, New York, Baltimore, Hersey and Cleveland. The US leg of tour will wrap up at the Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky on July 9. UK and European tour dates will be announced at a later date.

General ticket sale will commence on Friday, February 2 at 10am Local time. Visit here to purchase tickets.

Meanwhile, Britney Spears fans have hit back at Timberlake by getting her song ‘Selfish’ into the charts following the release of his new single.