In the summer of 1974 McCartney’s single Band on the Run reached number 1. In October ’74 it was Lennon’s turn. Finally. A number 1. All his own. Kind of.
While there’s no question that Whatever Gets You Thru the Night is a great, toe-tapping pop song just waiting to be cranked as high as your speakers can handle the raucous saxophone, it’s hard to tell it’s a song by John Lennon. Unlike most of Lennon’s singles (and songs in general), lyrically Whatever Gets You Thru the Night is pretty innocuous, and, while musically the song barrels along at full-steam ahead (propelled by that sax. Oh, and the bass!), Whatever Gets You Thru the Night stands out as being the least sounding like John Lennon single in Lennon’s canon. And it reached number one.
Lennon’s “Lost Weekend” album, Walls and Bridges, is his best since Imagine, but lacks the focus and intensity of both Imagine and Plastic Ono Band. The odd blend of songs, begging forgiveness from Yoko with love songs to May Pang, contributes to the overall confusion of the album. Yet it’s hard to resist when Lennon gets his snark on and his funk groove a-happenin’.
“Got to get down, down on my knees” is the hard opening to the album’s first track, Going Down on Love. While the overt and frankly schoolboy innuendo of the chorus contradict the self-pitying sentiment in the verses, essentially the song is Lennon taking a hard look at what his long weekend has cost and he’s literally begging for help.
Old Dirt Road meanders aimlessly and leads nowhere. Overlong, it’s Jesse Ed Davies’ country-style guitar licks that make the song even remotely interesting.
Old Dirt Road finally fades with Lennon’s repeated “Keep on keepin’ on..” and we the listener are blindside by the balls-to-the-wall funk that is What You Got. The sentiment is basically the same as Going Down on Love, but Lennon’s vocal-chord tearing “Oh baby, baby, baby give me one more chance…” rivals that of young Lennon’s Twist and Shout. While he’s not saying anything new, the pure pleading for forgiveness is raw, intense, and rock and roll.
From the fun/rock of What You Got, Lennon next offers the electric piano-laden ballad Bless You. The melody is nice, as are the sentiments, again addressed to Yoko. But the heavy use of electric piano dates the song, and not in a good way. But Lennon’s vocal is pure magic.
A wolf’s howl opens Scared, and the ominous chords and lead guitar usher us into one of Lennon’s best songs. Lyrically as open and honest as anything on Plastic One Band, the song’s relentless pulse, coupled with Davis’ baleful guitar licks are hard to forget. In fact, on LP, where the song is the last song on side one, the fade-out lingers as one flips the album and is comforted by the lush guitar opening of side two’s #9 Dream.
#9 Dream is a perfect song. Not a whole lot more to say about it. Lennon’s writing, singing, performing and especially production is simply spot-on. No other song about dreams, and there are plenty, capture that state between sleeping and waking so accurately, and Lennon’s vocal floats along, some of his best lyrics in years, providing ethereal imagery. Perfect.
It came as quite a surprise (surprise!) that Surprise, Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradise) was a love song written not for Yoko, but rather May Pang. It’s a terrific song, filled with Lennon’s own doubts and insecurities, which, apparently, May’s love was able to help him to forget. It’s just strange that on an album with Bless You, What You Got and Going Down on Love, songs imploring Yoko’s forgiveness and hope of reconciliation, that Lennon would include a song boldly declaring “I need, need, need, need” as well as “I love, love, love, love…her” with the “her” in question being May Pang. Whoever the inspiration, the song is great.
Lennon once again sharpens his acerbic tongue for the sequel to How Do You Sleep?, Steel and Glass. But while there was no mistaking who How Do You Sleep? was directed at, the target of Steel and Glass is somewhat more ambiguous. Lennon even taunts us with the song’s opening: “This is a story about your friend and mine. Who is it? Who is it? Who is it?” Who it is is likely Allen Klein, the former business manager of the Fab three, the one that McCartney had to sue, along with the other three, to dissolve the Beatles. But Lennon was still a friend of Klein during the writing and recording of the song, so if it is about Klein, it explains why Lennon’s lyrics were more generic than specific, as they had been in his jab at Paul. In any event, the song is good, and his reusing the How Do You Sleep? riff for another pointed song is interesting.
The riff-heavy instrumental Beef Jerky is some good ol’ funky, toe-tapping filler.
Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down and Out) depressed the hell out of me when I first heard it and for years after. It felt directed right at me, hitting me right between the eyes. While the song could be directed at his critics, it really seems aimed at us, the fans, and we are summarily dismissed by “All I can say, it’s all show biz…”
The song became even harder to bear after Lennon’s murder. The last line, the prophetic one, still haunts me: “Everybody loves you when you’re six foot in the ground.”
This is Lennon at his most raw. There’s anger, self-pity, anguish, depression, isolation, and resentment. The kind of song written in the middle of a sleepless night, probably a drunken sleepless night, but one Lennon obviously felt was true even in the cold light of day. Lennon’s sarcastic whistling at the song’s fade is the capper on what has to be his most depressing song. After listening to it, I feel obliged to say, “I’m sorry.” And I am.
While it was placed on the album to meet a contractual obligation (which didn’t work), the snippet of John and son Julien playing Ya Ya eases the heartbreak of Down and Out a little. It’s Julien’s drumming that can’t help but make one smile.
As with Mind Games, I wound up listening to both the 2005 Remastered and the Lennon Masters CD versions of Walls and Bridges, and as with Mind Games, there is more to hear in the ’05 Remastered editions. The mix brings more separation and clarity to the various instruments and especially to the vocals. This is most pronounced in Whatever Gets You Thru the Night. In the Lennon Masters mix, the dominate voice seems to be more John, he of the Elton persuasion, rather than Lennon’s. It’s for this reason, among others, that the song doesn’t sound like a Lennon song. The 2005 mix brings Lennon’s vocal a bit more to the front, and the better separation of the two voices, on the ’05 mix, helps to distinguish between the two.
Finally, the album cover, of the actual LP, with it’s funky flaps that fold over to create various faces for Lennon… Wonderful! It adds a sense of humor and lightness that perhaps belies some of the songs on the album, but does perfectly reflect others. Inside the LP is also a wonderful 8-page booklet with the lyrics, performers, pictures of John as well as some of his drawings. Plenty to look at and read while listening and listening again.
Nearly a year since he released Band on the Run, McCartney and Wings released the single Junior’s Farm. For a song recorded in Nashville, Junior’s Farm is a flat out rocker. Paul’s pounding bass and especially new lead guitarist Jimmy McCulloch’s scintillating solo and fills (“take me down, Jimmy”), Junior’s Farm picks up right where Band on the Run left off.
Flipping the single over we discover Sally G, a song greatly influenced by it’s Nashville birthplace. The story-song is bone fide country-western, complete with fiddle and steel guitar. And it’s terrific. When it comes to music styles, McCartney is a chameleon. What better way to show that off than on a single-only rocker paired with a pure, down-home country song?
As with his previous album, the best song on Ringo’s Goodnight Vienna is the first track on side one written by Lennon. Opening with Lennon’s jaunty “One and a two and a one, two three, four!” (It’s All Down to) Goodnight Vienna is a terrific little rocker perfectly suited to Ringo’s vocals. Billy Preston’s clarinet pulses along with Lennon’s pounding piano and the song is just plain fun.
You’ll be singing, or at the very least humming Occapella for weeks after hearing it. I don’t know if that’s good or not, but the song works and is just long enough to not overstay its welcome.
Oo-Wee is over-produced, with too many background vocals, horns and the like. It’s a fairly innocuous song with a big lyrical plus for name-checking Jean Harlow.
The album crashes to a halt with Husbands and Wives. Such an out-of-place snooze, a dreadful song dreadfully sung by Starr, simply stops the album dead. Dead.
Another jaunty count-in, this time by Elton John, Snookeroo erases the aura created by the previous song (dreadful) and is a toe-tapping faux-Ringo-bio tune. Cool guitar solo and licks by The Bands’ Robbie Robertson are highlight.
Ringo co-wrote side-two’s opening All By Myself. Not much to the song, really. The horn solo sounds a bit like the theme from The Dating Game. That’s something.
Ringo was the sole author of Call Me. Not much to this song either. Lyrically and musically bland, with not even an interesting solo, game-show inspired or otherwise, to help shuffle it along.
The No No Song got a lot, and I do mean a lot of radio play when I was growing up. And I never tired of it, and found it funny every time I heard it. Given Starr’s substance abuse, perhaps the song isn’t quite that funny after all, and it clearly wouldn’t fly today, but really, the song is simply hard to resist. Harry Nilsson’s backing vocals are fun.
Ringo has a breathy quality to his singing on Only You, and at first it’s hard to tell it’s him at all. Good choice for a cover, but the production is just too perfect. Lennon’s dynamic acoustic guitar strumming at the open is the only place where the song has an edge.
Over-over-over produced, Harry Nilsson’s Easy For Me is another album stopper.
Fortunately the album doesn’t stop, and we get the reprise of Lennon’s opening song, this time introduced with Lennon saying “Okay, with gusto boys! With gusto!” At just over a minute, Goodnight Vienna (Reprise) is a nice bookend and it’s clear that everyone on the recording is having a good time.
While it has its moments, Ringo’s Goodnight Vienna is definitely a let down when compared with the previous album, Ringo. Like Ringo, Goodnight Vienna has plenty of guest star talent, but obviously missing are Ringo’s two other former band mates, McCartney and Harrison. It’s a bit surprising that McCartney didn’t even have a song to offer, but it’s really Harrison, who was so prevalent on Ringo, whose absence is most felt.
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