Sir Paul McCartney has claimed he wrote 'A Day in the Life'

in new book 'The Lyrics' - which is written with Paul Muldoon and McCartney has described as being "as close to an autobiography" as he will ever write - the musician wrote of Browne: “I wrote about him in A Day in the Life. ‘He blew his mind in a car/he didn’t notice that the lights had changed.”

But Lennon, who was shot dead in 1980, had previously said Browne's crash "was in my mind when I was writing that verse."

And in a 1997 biography, 'Many Years from Now', McCartney had given a very different account of the song's inspiration.

He said: "[The lyrics have] been attributed to Tara Browne, the Guinness heir, which I don’t believe is the case. In my head I was imagining a politician bombed out on drugs who’d stopped at some traffic lights and didn’t notice that the lights had changed.”

Earlier this month, McCartney insisted it was Lennon who "instigated" The Beatles' split in 1970.

He said: “I didn’t instigate the split. That was our Johnny.

“This was my band, this was my job, this was my life, so I wanted it to continue.”

On the speculation that was rife at the time that their demise was his doing, the 79-year-old music legend insisted: “I had to live with that because that was what people saw. All I could do is say, ‘no’.”

“I am not the person who instigated the split.

“Oh no, no, no. John walked into a room one day and said I am leaving the Beatles. Is that instigating the split, or not?”

Lennon had told the rest of the band that he wanted to leave the group.

And McCartney suggested the other members - including drummer Ringo Starr, 81, and the late George Harrison, who died aged 58 in 2001 - had all reached the same point in their lives when it was time to move on, even if they didn't realise it at the time.

The 'Penny Lane' star previously said: "There was a meeting where John came in and said, 'I'm leaving the group.' And looking back on it, he'd reached that stage in his life. We all had."