Authors: Ken Bielen Ben Urich
“Nine!” Lennon’s multitracked and warped voice says as an invocation
as the song opens, citing the number he believed had mystical meaning and
significance for him. The song drifts pleasantly along as a steel guitar gives it
an alternately South Seas and then country and western ambiance. A strong
female vocal chorus lends substance and auditory depth to the recording, as
Lennon’s soft vocals dreamily glide through the song.
A rehearsal take of “You Are Here” on the
John Lennon Anthology
is missing
the steel guitar and vocal chorus, throwing the emphasis to the shimmering
mellotron and giving the song a more ethereal quality. The rehearsal record-
ing also has an additional verse not included in the final version—a shame,
because Lennon sings of the wonder of the unity encompassing the “mystical
to magical,” which would have been a nice addition to the song. Further, he
sings the more provocative “Love has opened up my mind” and “blown right
through” instead of “opened up my eyes,” as he sings on the finished track.
“Meat City,” a rave up number, ends the inconsistent album with a gleefully
tongue-in-cheek romp. The song has no deep meaning but demonstrates
that Lennon could still fashion a perfectly fine rocker if he wanted. Lennon
wails a drawn out “well!” in classic rockabilly style, thus starting the song
with a solid punch, but the track has an aggressively funky riff and does not
attempt a rockabilly style as “Tight A$” had. Lennon invents his own amus-
ing street vernacular in the lyrics with his characteristic playfulness, singing
at one point about “chickensuckin’ mothertruckin’ meat city shookdown
U.S.A.” with whatever meaning there is being derived from the attitude of
his delivery.
Lennon employs a little backward recording technique on the album,
something he had used sporadically since The Beatles’ “Rain” in 1966. The
first usage comes about 30 seconds into the song after Lennon sings, “Just
54 The Words and Music of John Lennon
gotta get me some rock and roll.” A squeaky vocal sound is heard that when
played backward sounds like “fuck a pig.” At the time, “pig” was a common
derogatory term for the police. Because nothing else in the song has anything
to do with law enforcement or figures of authority, the phrase is likely just
Lennon simultaneously exercising his freedom to be both vulgar and non-
sensical. The next time he sings the “just gotta get me some rock and roll”
line it is followed by backward instrumentals and no vocals. The third time
through, the listener encounters a buzzing guitar that could be either back-
ward or not.
The 2002 CD reissue of the
Mind Games
album includes a composing
demo of Lennon working on “Meat City.” Two minutes into it, repeating
the start-stop staccato riff that so solidly propels the song, Lennon begins a
wordless vocal melody, repeating it. It would turn up as a countermelody in
“Steel and Glass” on the following year’s
Walls and Bridges
album.
Mind Games
is a frustrating album because the more intriguing efforts do
not sustain themselves. Good tracks musically or in production either make no
attempt at lyrical substance or fall into the vacuous or the mundane. And the
more prosaic music numbers have moments of lyrical cleverness or insight. And
yet there are a few tracks where it all comes together and works. Lennon was
entering a period of personal distress, but with an increase in both productivity
and artistic accomplishment.
Mind Games,
because of its hit-or-miss content
on the whole, would continue to be viewed as second-tier Lennon.
CollaboRationS i
The first few months of Lennon’s “lost weekend” may have been spo-
radically productive at best, but at least the core of the future
Rock ’N’ Roll
album was created, as well as the groundwork for some of the
Walls and
Bridges
album. Most interesting, however, was the burst of collaborations
Lennon engaged in once Spector was all but out of the picture and Lennon
started work in earnest. The recording sessions for
Walls and Bridges
were
sandwiched in between these collaborations. Most of Lennon’s previous
post-Beatles work in supporting roles or collaborations had been in service
to Yoko Ono’s recordings, and they include some of his most innovative cre-
ations. His efforts with David Peel and The Elephant’s Memory Band from
1972 stand out as being the notable exceptions. All of his collaborations,
with Ono and otherwise, are intriguing in their own right. But the ones from
this time period also indicate a regrettably underdeveloped and potentially
fruitful aspect of Lennon’s professional career.
Johnny Winter: “Rock and Roll People”
During the
Mind Games
sessions, Lennon had produced a simple, straight-
ahead rocker, complete with a light dose of his rambling wordplay, called
“Rock and Roll People,” but he decided it did not fit the album. Lennon
What You Got, 1973–1975 55
shared the work with rockin’ bluesman Johnny Winter, and a version of the
song turned up on Winter’s album
John Dawson Winter III,
released late in
1974. As might be expected, Winter makes the most of the hard-driving beat
to crank out some solid bluesy guitar lines and infuses the less-than-stellar
lyrics with a more sincere interpretation than they may warrant. In short,
he manages to spin, if not gold, at least something solid and shiny out of
Lennon’s high-grade straw. Lennon’s version was finally released on the post-
humous
Menlove Ave.
album and is discussed in chapter 6.
Mick Jagger: “Too Many Cooks”
Late in 1973, the erratic
Oldies but Goldies
recording sessions helmed by
Phil Spector (that eventually formed the basis of Lennon’s 1975 album
Rock
’N’ Roll
) were unraveling in a haze of confusion and alcohol. At that time,
“Too Many Cooks,” a cover of a rhythm and blues/soul tune, was recorded
with Lennon producing in Spector’s absence. In addition to Mick Jagger’s
lead vocals, the all-star band reportedly includes Lennon, Ringo Starr, John
Entwistle, Keith Moon, Harry Nilsson, and the session musicians who were
already working with Lennon. At times the Spectorish wall of sound can be
a bit overbearing, but the cut has a rollicking feel and manages to find its
groove early on, and then proceeds to make the most of it. Lennon broadcast
the recording when he appeared on a radio show in San Francisco in October
1974. The song title has proven to be somewhat ironic because the record-
ing has never been legally released (as of 2007), reputedly due to trouble in
working through contract legalities regarding the artists involved. Had the
song been released at the time, it would have been Jagger’s first recorded lead
vocal away from The Rolling Stones, a feat he did not attempt successfully
until a dozen years later in 1985.
Harry Nilsson: Pussy Cats
With the
Oldies but Goldies
sessions having collapsed from the combined
assault of Lennon’s drunken indifference and Spector’s escalating eccentricities,
Lennon and Harry Nilsson decided to make an album together. It would be
Nilsson’s album, with Lennon producing, and would eventually be released
as
Pussy Cats.
Lennon assembled an all-star group to support Nilsson, including such
luminaries as Ringo Starr, Keith Moon, Bobby Keyes, and an array of noted
session musicians, several of whom supported Lennon on his
Walls and
Bridges
album recorded soon after
Pussy Cats.
Lennon and Nilsson both
had a hand in arrangements, and one Lennon song, “Mucho Mungo,” was
blended into a medley with “Mt. Elga.” Somewhat surprisingly, Lennon
is not credited with performing vocally or instrumentally on any of the
numbers. The album did not produce a hit single despite four attempts
and, as a result, charted no higher than a disappointing number 60 on the
U.S. charts.
56 The Words and Music of John Lennon
The Spector influence on Lennon is quite evident on some of the songs’
arrangements and production, and perhaps in the choice of the cover material
attempted as well. The album opens with a too-slowly-paced “Many Rivers
to Cross,” featuring clever vocals from Nilsson that must be an homage to,
or a friendly parody of, his producer. In fact, Lennon recorded a home demo
of it a couple of years later. The orchestration has some nice low string work,
but the part the high strings are playing Lennon would take and adapt into
“#9 Dream” on his next album.
“Save the Last Dance for Me” also suffers from a ponderous pace that
attempts to give weight to a song that does not really warrant it and is a misfire
as a result despite a grand and emotional vocal reading by Nilsson. Lennon’s
composition “Mucho Mungo” is pleasant enough, though slight and possi-
bly unfinished, and, outside of rehearsal demos, he never recorded it himself.
It is fused into a medley with a Nilsson arrangement of “Mt. Elga.” “Loop
de Loop” falters, and “Rock Around the Clock” tries for a party atmosphere,
much like Lennon’s Spector-produced “Since My Baby Left Me,” recorded
before the beginning of the
Pussy Cats
sessions but not released until 1986’s
Menlove Ave.
Also, similar to Lennon’s effort, the engaging vocals carry it,
but it does not quite capture any genuine celebratory feel.
The other cuts are decidedly better, playing more to Nilsson’s strengths.
The album lacks any substantial unity but does have some superior moments,
notably “Old Forgotten Soldier” and “Black Sails.” In “Black Sails,” Nilsson
makes a vocal quote from Carly Simon’s 1972 hit “You’re So Vain.” This is of
interest because on Lennon’s next project, which immediately followed
Pussy
Cats,
Lennon utilizes quotes both musical and lyrical from his previous works
and those of others. Lennon was on the verge of restoring his pop music
Midas touch, finding hits in collaboration with Elton John, David Bowie,
Ringo Starr, and on his own. Sadly, it did not work here, and the album
remains a near-miss despite some shining moments.
WallS and bRidgeS
Spurred by his work with Harry Nilsson, Lennon turned his efforts to
an album of his own, using some of the musicians he and Nilsson had been
working with as the core of his band.6 With Nilsson and Elton John as guest
stars, the album went to number one and produced two top-10 hits, includ-
ing Lennon’s only post-Beatles number one during his life time.
The distraught emotions present in the album likely stem from his
separation from Ono and concerns about the status of his career future as well.
The recording evidences Lennon’s multiple talents as a singer-songwriter,
producer-arranger, and musician in full force. The album is lush and roman-
tic when it needs to be, edgy and snarling when it wants to be, and evocative
and wistful when it wishes to be. Best of all, Lennon’s humor comes through
playfully as he references his and others’ past works musically and lyrically to
some degree in every track.
What You Got, 1973–1975 57
Those who want to see Lennon as a boundary-obliterating pop artist prefer
his
Plastic Ono Band
for its angst, honesty, and numerous profundities grow-
ing out of stark simplicities. Others who are put off by the grating, often
bleak, harshness of
John Lennon
/
Plastic Ono Band
will name the
Imagine
album as Lennon’s supreme statement, easily the equal of his achievements
with The Beatles. Yet
Walls and Bridges
has gained its proponents over the
years. The crispness of the production, the successful application of a wide
range of musical styles, and the intelligence and humor of the lyrics all mark
the album as a significant effort. It could be that in this, of all his post-Beatles
album-length efforts, Lennon came closest to sustaining the magical balance
of creating adventurous popular music that worked not only in form but in
content, while communicating to his audience in ways both intellectual and
emotional, as well as immediate and lasting.
The album begins with a languid, funky number, “Going Down on
Love.” The song expresses a defiant sort of helplessness, as Lennon sings
about a love “precious and rare” that “disappears in thin air.” The singer
will “pay the price” for past abuses by suffering through the rejection and
loneliness of the present. The title refers to the emotional abyss that sinks
the loser, “going down” means “giving up.” Yet Lennon’s playful humor
surfaces when he sings, “Got to get down” to a funky beat as if feeling the
rhythm at a spiritual level, before adding “down on my knees” as if to plead
his case. In fact, the phrase, in the context of the title, has another level of