Authors: Ken Bielen Ben Urich
George Harrison’s gliding guitar as in the first.
Lennon spitefully mocks his target by asking, “how does it feel to be off the
wall?” “You can’t pull strings if your hands are tied,” he sneers, before saying
that Klein leaves his smell “like an alley cat.” The song may have made Lennon
feel better, but aside from showing that getting on Lennon’s bad side was still
a dangerous place to be if you were concerned about your public image, the
song is only of interest for its similarity to the McCartney attack and as part of
Lennon’s personal history. Lennon’s only clever insult is to say “your mind is
capped.” One of his more inexplicable corporate insults did not make it to the
final version, but exists in the rehearsal on
Menlove Ave.
Lennon berates Klein
for standing there with his “Mickey Duck” and his “Donald Fuck.”
Discounting the posthumously released and fragmentary composition
demo of “It’s Real,” “Beef Jerky” is the only Lennon instrumental from his
post-Beatle years. The basic riff came from Lennon’s composing variations
on
Mind Games
’ “Tight A$” and “Meat City,” as a rehearsal tape broadcast
on
The Lost Lennon Tapes
demonstrated. The track acknowledges that it is
inspired by soul music and rhythm and blues by being credited to “Booker
Table and the Maitre D’s,” a telling homage to the group Booker T. and
the MG’s. The track is a brass-laden rocker that moves through rhythmic
variations and distinctive horn riffs with aplomb and ease. Lennon and Jesse
“Ed” Davis have the lead focus on guitars, but the horn section is equally
predominant. The cut is fine in and of itself but is even better in an album
sequence, where it provides a palette cleanser after the previous venom of
“Steel and Glass” and in preparation for the next tune—the sullen “Nobody
Loves You (When You’re Down and Out).”
62 The Words and Music of John Lennon
Lennon was likely joking when he said “Nobody Loves You (When You’re
Down and Out)” was a prefabricated arrangement for Frank Sinatra, but Sinatra
might have done a fine version nonetheless. The song captures the essence of
a three o’clock in the morning, bleary-eyed, self-pitying, booze-drenched inte-
rior monologue. There’s a certain bravado and grandeur here that makes the
weary emptiness of the verses and the impotent rage of the refrains eloquent and
poignant despite the patchy string of variant familiar phrases.
For the second time in the album, we are given a clichéd phrase to examine
in the title, and again listeners confront emotional pain and despair that words
fail to describe; the vacuous cliché must suffice because nothing else remains.
Lennon’s voice is hoarse and the slight echo has a hollow tone, giving a distanced
and alienated ambiance to his lethargic (but not dull) vocal performance. Strings
and horns are heavy and descend onto notes with a weighty thud, imparting the
song with a thick musical overcast that is not dispelled by the guitar solo that
almost sounds like the howling wolf from “Scared” has returned.
The singer laments that “it’s all showbiz” as a cynical response to being
asked whether he loves someone. He claims he has revealed it all and has
nothing to hide; yet it apparently was not enough. The world-weary singer
has “been across the water now, so many times” yet still has not found the
answers to life’s questions: “Everytime I put my finger on it, it slips away.”
The statements maintain their cynical self-pity with “I’ll scratch your back
and you knife mine,” along with “everybody loves you when you’re six foot
in the ground.” The observation is left to stand as Lennon follows it up
with the emotionless whistle of a short countermelody as the song fades out,
leaving a bleak and desolate aftertaste.
Certainly Lennon had done songs of despair and desperation before, but
nothing quite like this. This is a defeated perspective, a near surrender after
trying everything and running out of ideas and options. The little sparks
of humor are quite bitter, and the riling up during refrains are shouts of
frustration, not defiance. In context, the final whistle is a dirge.
Unlike his
Plastic Ono Band,
however, the album does not end on a bleak
note. The last track on
Walls and Bridges,
“Ya Ya,” is a throwaway track
consisting of a few seconds of Lennon busking his way through a section of
the rock and roll classic with his son Julian accompanying him perfunctorily
on drums. It has been speculated that perhaps Lennon hoped its inclusion
would satisfy the legal demands from his suit over plagiarizing Chuck Berry
since the same company owned the copyright for this song. The number,
however, feels tacked on as an odd afterthought, even less justifiable as a
coda than “Her Majesty” from The Beatles’
Abbey Road
or “Maggie Mae”
from
Let It Be.
Comparing it with the integral and summarizing nature of
“My Mummy’s Dead” from his
Plastic Ono Band
album highlights just how
different the albums are and how ranging Lennon’s artistic predilections had
become. Of marginal interest is that a version of the song from the early
1960s recorded in Hamburg by Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers was
What You Got, 1973–1975 63
often included on album collections of the recordings Sheridan had done
with The Beatles as his backing group. Sometimes The Beatles were credited
as The Beat Brothers, and there was originally confusion as to which tracks
they, as a group or as individuals, may have played on. None of them con-
tributed to Sheridan’s version of “Ya Ya,” however. Lennon redid the song
properly for his
Rock ’N’ Roll
album.
CollaboRationS ii
With the
Walls and Bridges
sessions over, Lennon continued his productive
and creative streak with more collaborative efforts. He then returned to the
Oldies but Goldies
project before finishing another collaboration, this one
with David Bowie.
In the 16 months of his “lost weekend,” Lennon created his most
commercially successful album, which was his only number-one album
without The Beatles during his life time, and included a number-one single
and another top-10 hit. And another album he recorded during this time pro-
duced a top-20 hit. He also helped both Elton John and David Bowie with
two tracks each, with John and Bowie each getting a number-one hit for his
and their efforts. He assisted Ringo Starr on three tracks, providing Starr with
a top-10 hit. In addition, he produced an entire album with Harry Nilsson
and tangentially guided Johnny Winter and Keith Moon through one track
each. Lennon may have felt lost and spiritually desolate, but he was at or near
the top of his game in both sheer volume of creativity, and in terms of high
quality as well. That combination marks a phase in his career comparable only
to his artistic output at the height of Beatlemania.
Keith Moon: “Move over Ms. L”
A situation similar to what had occurred with Lennon’s “Rock and Roll
People” and Johnny Winter during the
Mind Games
sessions repeated itself
with Keith Moon, the drummer for The Who, during the
Walls and Bridges
sessions, with the fast-paced nonsensical number “Move over Ms. L.” Lennon
worked on the song and eventually considered it for inclusion on
Walls and
Bridges,
but he was not satisfied with the results and it did not make the cut.
Keith Moon was in attendance for some of the
Oldies but Goldies
and
Pussy
Cats
sessions and picked up the song, performing a version on his
Two Sides
of the Moon
album, released early in 1975. (He also took the opportunity to
perform an interesting cover of Lennon’s Beatles track “In My Life.”)
In Moon’s version of “Move over Ms. L,” the horn section riffs are a
little different than in Lennon’s, but the overall arrangement is much the
same. The recording makes the most musically of Moon’s limited vocal
abilities. At the time of Moon’s recording of the song, Lennon had not
released his version, but he eventually did so as the B-side to “Stand by
Me” in March 1975.
64 The Words and Music of John Lennon
Ringo Starr: “Goodnight Vienna,” “Only You,” and
“All by Myself”
Upon completion of his work on
Walls and Bridges,
Lennon sat in on three
numbers for Ringo Starr’s upcoming album, one of them being Lennon’s own
composition, “Goodnight Vienna,” a nonsensical Liverpool slang expression
for bemused surprise that became the title of Starr’s album as well.
The most interesting musical aspects of the piece are the chorus breaks,
partly made up of brief sections where there is a shift in the back beat for
a few measures creating a mixed-meter feel before resuming the original
rhythm. The lyrics are yet another quasi–stream-of-consciousness flow of dis-
connected images and free-flying similes (“felt like an Arab who was dancing
through Zion”) that have no real meaning, finally resolving in the phrase
“it’s all got down to Goodnight Vienna” before the chorus break and the
ambiguously exhorted phrase of “Get it up!”
As previously with “I’m the Greatest,” Lennon rehearsed the band and
provided Starr with a guide vocal, and his performance seems good enough,
given the nature of the song, to have been released on its own. Like the
earlier collaboration, Lennon’s version was included on the
John Lennon
Anthology.
“Only You” was a relaxed cover of the often-recorded ballad popularized
most successfully by The Platters. Lennon thought it a good idea for Starr to
attempt such numbers in general, but especially in view of Starr’s earlier hit
with a remake of “You’re Sixteen.” Perhaps Lennon’s temporarily abandoned
Oldies but Goldies
project was in his thoughts as well. In any event, Lennon
proved correct, and the recording became a top-10 hit for Starr. Hearing
Lennon’s studio guide recording (
John Lennon Anthology
again, though,
surprisingly, a slightly clearer mix was on
The Lost Lennon Tapes
radio series)
makes his rhythm guitar work on the song more noticeable and demonstrates
that Lennon used almost the exact same guitar rhythm line for his remake of
“Stand by Me,” recorded two months later. With “Only You” having done
better on the charts than “Stand by Me,” perhaps Lennon should have kept
the idea for himself.
“All by Myself” is not the American standard by Irving Berlin, nor is it
the rock power ballad of Eric Carmen, but a composition of Vini Poncia and
Starr’s on which Lennon plays guitar with Alvin Robinson. The recording is a
pleasant mid-paced rocker, with nothing distinct, notable, or even particularly
noticeable about Lennon’s contribution. The only evidence he is on the track
comes from his credit in the album’s liner notes.
Elton John: “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”
and “One Day (At a Time)”
Returning the favor of Elton’s John’s guest work on
Walls and Bridges,
Lennon worked on Elton John
’
s nonalbum single of two of Lennon
’
s
What You Got, 1973–1975 65
compositions, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and “One Day (At a Time).”
The single became a huge hit, making it to number one early in 1975. The
version is not a strict duplication of the original but still manages to capture
its mood, though more dreamy than psychedelic this time. Lennon plays
guitar and also appears vocally on the chorus, rasping out the song’s title in
an aggressive manner.
Several times in later interviews, Lennon noted his love of reggae and his
attempts from early Beatles’ tunes to his post-Beatles career to attempt to slip
reggae sections into his recordings. A bouncy countermelody takes center
stage at one point before returning to the verse and then a chorus break that
must have been suggested by Lennon, since the chorus turns into a reggae
shuffle for several bars. The song goes on too long, as in the complete ver-
sion the ending cranks up a bit and takes about a minute and 40 seconds to
fade, running a total of six minutes. However, since Lennon so infrequently
revisited his Beatle-era works, it remains an intriguing example of his refusal
to see his previous work as sacrosanct, at least in terms of remakes.
The version of “One Day (At a Time)” is a fairly close arrangement to
Lennon’s original from the
Mind Games
album. But Elton John’s perfor-
mance emphasizes the saccharine qualities of the song, and it comes across
as annoyingly cloy when it is not bland. Or he could be joking, but it is not
possible to tell for sure. Lennon is on the track as well but, like the previously
mentioned Starr track “All by Myself,” cannot really be picked out vocally or