(The Praeger Singer-Songwriter Collection) Ben Urish, Ken Bielen-The Words and Music of John Lennon-Praeger (2007) (17 page)

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