(The Praeger Singer-Songwriter Collection) Ben Urish, Ken Bielen-The Words and Music of John Lennon-Praeger (2007) (21 page)

by Lennon’s Beatle band mate Paul McCartney, who was inspired to write

“Hey Jude” for the young Julian Lennon.

Breaking the alternating sequencing by not moving into what sounds

like Ono’s response song “Beautiful Boys,” the centerpiece of the album

opens side two of the original disc. “Watching the Wheels” begins with a

quiet, elegant piano figure. The lyrical premise of the song complements an

open letter that the Lennons published as full-page advertisements in 1979

in newspapers in New York, London, and Tokyo. In the letter, the couple

attempted to justify their activities outside the media spotlight.8 Lennon’s

lyrics to “Watching the Wheels” offer similar sentiments. The song’s narrator

is content observing “shadows on the wall.” He offers the quizzical concern

of those the Lennons tried to address with their open letter by singing their

question, “Don’t you miss the big time?”

In the chorus, Lennon uses the image of a merry-go-round as an alle-

gory for the life of the celebrity superstar he experienced. Beatlemania and

the pressures of recording obligations with the group and in his solo career

had the artist going around in circles. The backing musicians create a sound

akin to a carousel pump organ to complement the chorus’s underscoring

lyrics and it is also reminiscent of the backing sounds to “Mind Games” and

“Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite.”

“Watching the Wheels” was the third single release from
Double Fantasy.

It reached number 10 in the United States and was the first single by Lennon

that was not selected by him. With the strength of the performance and its

location at the head of an album side, it would be difficult to imagine that

Lennon would not have picked the track as a single had he lived.

Cleanup Time, 1975–1980 79

Ono’s “I’m Your Angel” turns the clock back to the big bands of the

1930s and 1940s with a dominant clarinet in the mix. Ono plays the big

band vocalist, even singing lyrics from the “moon-June-spoon” school: “I’m

in your pocket, you’re in my locket.” Lennon contributes several lines of

whistling the melody to the song, adding an informal, carefree touch to the

bandstand arrangement and vocal styling. It is as if the traditional pop styling

works to underscore the traditional aspects of romantic love with a slightly-

embarrassed-at-it-all ironic twist. Ono faced a lawsuit due to the similarities

between this work and the 1920s Eddie Cantor hit that became a standard,

“Making Whoopee.”9

The opening guitar chords of “Woman” announce Lennon’s ballad of

love. In form, the track hearkens back to Lennon’s White Album–era ballads,

such as “Julia” and “Dear Prudence.” In fact, in later interviews Lennon

sometimes called it “the Beatles’ track.”10 Though more polished than those

White Album tracks (such as in the added background vocals), “Woman” has

a similar feel in its structure and lead vocal. In the lyric, Lennon writes of the

“little child inside the man.” This is interesting because John Lennon often

referred to Yoko Ono as “Mother.” The printed lyrics on the inner sleeve also

note one line as “I never mean(t) to cause you sorrow or pain.” Even when

Lennon sings “meant” in the recorded performance, suggesting that the

problems are in the past, the printed lyric more realistically notes that roman-

tic relationships always present further unseen challenges that will arise.

Like Otis Redding (“[Sittin’ On] The Dock of the Bay”) and Sam Cooke

(“A Change Is Gonna Come”) before him, artists who had best-sellers with

ballads shortly after suffering untimely deaths, Lennon had a hit record with

“Woman,” released a month after his death. The single, the last track Lennon

handpicked to be a single release, was number two on the
Billboard
charts

for three weeks.

Lennon’s masterful track is followed by one of Ono’s most unsettling,

“Beautiful Boys,” which is a companion piece to both previous Lennon

tracks. The opening verses are directed at her son (“don’t be afraid to cry”)

and then at her husband (“your mind has changed the world”) directly, just

as Lennon’s track had been directed to Sean. She then directs the chorus to

all men as “Woman” has been directed to all women. Backward noises and

other sounds create an uneasy atmosphere as Ono encourages men not to be

afraid to “go to hell and back” in their life’s journey. Where Lennon’s songs

had been songs of reassurance and acceptance, Ono’s response is a challenge

to accept that a well-lived life will have heartbreak and danger.

Taking a musical cue from Buddy Holly’s recording of “Rave On” for

the opening and maintaining a Holly-like vocal style throughout, Lennon’s

response to Ono’s admonitions is to express his joy at her mere presence in

“Dear Yoko.” Full of the lighthearted giddiness of “Oh Yoko!” from the

Imagine
album nine years earlier but without the manic quality, the track

uses Caribbean rhythms to create the playful mood, a clue to Lennon’s

80 The Words and Music of John Lennon

environment during its composition. The song bounces along with

occasionally fresh-sounding lyrics such as Lennon’s observation that “there’s

a hole where you’re supposed to be” when Ono is absent. In a demonstra-

tion recording, Lennon sings “the gods have really smiled upon our love,”

but, on the album, perhaps as a nod to Ono’s influence in broadening his

outlook, he sounds as though he sings “the goddess really smiled upon our

love”—though it could be “gods ’ve” after all.

Ono’s response to Lennon’s praise is a vaguely sinister-sounding number

called “Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him.” The tune has something

of a reggae feel and talks about the preordained nature of soul mates but says

that one may not find his or her soul mate “in this lifetime.” There is also

some hesitancy expressed in acquiescing to the inevitability of the relationship

as Ono sings, “Why do I run, when I know you’re the one?” Lennon sings a

backing lead on this; four years after his death, a version of him singing lead

and Ono backing was released and it is discussed later. In 2004, Ono had a

dance-mix hit with a remixed version of the song with lyrical alterations to

allow for same-sex unions.

The album ends with Ono’s gospel-tinged ballad that declares “Hard Times

Are Over.” Lennon sings along, with the couple joined by a chorus that swells

with pounding piano and wailing sax. It gives the song a sweeping majestic,

but maintains a loose feel. This feel complements the lyrics that declare that

hard times are over, but then add that they are only over “for a while.”

The twentieth anniversary CD reissue of
Double Fantasy
from 2000

included a snippet of the dialogue called “Central Park Stroll” culled from

a longer piece used in the introduction to Yoko Ono’s 1981 version of “It

Happened.” The A-side of that release, Ono’s masterwork “Walking on Thin

Ice” (discussed later), was also included. Most welcome, however, was the

inclusion of a home demonstration recording of Lennon performing a song

he composed called “Help Me To Help Myself” previously only heard on a

Lost Lennon Tapes
broadcast.

The demo is very clear sounding and of much better quality than other

demo releases by Lennon. He plays piano in a 1950s gospel-influenced ballad

style after first commenting about the sticky pedals of the piano. The piece

has a vague musical semblance to his song “I Know (I Know)” from the

Mind Games
album. He sings of trying hard to stay alive despite the “angel

of destruction” hounding him. He sings of how “deep inside” he was “never

satisfied,” and finally he prays, “Help me now, help me Lord.” His request

has some self-reliance though, since he only asks for help in order to help

himself.

When he hits a wrong-sounding chord, Lennon asks in a mocking voice,

“I say, I say! That’s how you’re going to do it, is it? OK” and then plays the

chords to a proper ending. The song is short and needs something more, but

what is there is quite good, and, again, the potential for a captivating spiritual

is present.

Cleanup Time, 1975–1980 81

Bootleg versions abound of Lennon alone and with his Beatle band mates,

and an interesting one exists from the
Double Fantasy
sessions of August 18,

1980.11 Lennon’s flowing sense of the ridiculous is seen to good advantage

during a rehearsal of “(Just Like) Starting Over.” Lennon jokes around with

his lyrics explaining how easy it will be to renew the couple’s love by singing

“Just take your clothes off honey, and stick your nose in money.” When he

gets to the point where he should ask, “Why don’t we take off, alone?” he

instead queries “Why don’t we do it in the road?” and laughs at his reference

to Paul McCartney’s song from The Beatles’ White Album. The best joke,

however, is when he sings that the private getaway will consist of “just you,

me, and the cook, and the servants too.” Lennon then stops the number,

saying the performance takes “too much energy!”

The same rehearsal session includes Lennon and the band running through

several 1950s-era rock oldies, including a couple that Lennon had performed

on his
Rock ’N’ Roll
album. The band keeps slipping into McCartney’s Beatle

track “She’s a Woman” and Lennon plays along with more parody lyrics

(“My love don’t buy me pickles”), but he reminds the musicians that the

1950s are his era.

Most of the numbers attempted are fragmentary and not taken as a serious

performance. The band is just unwinding and having fun. The exception is

a medley of “Dream Lover” and “Stay.” The band is on course and Lennon

delivers a rousing vocal. He does make a small but noteworthy change in the

song, however. He alters the lyrics of his answer to “Dream lover, where are

you?” from the standard well-known response to the censorable “up my ass and

in my flue” or “up my ass and in the stew” each time the refrain comes up.

Double Fantasy
was the number-one album on
Billboard
’s charts for

eight weeks and remained in the Top 200 album charts for a year and a

half. No one knows whether the album would have been as successful if

the tragedy of Lennon’s killing had not occurred. Reviews were mixed

when the album arrived on the shelves and Lennon was still alive. Critics

and fans had not expected most of Lennon’s output to consist of composi-

tions extolling the virtues of domesticity. And those who had ignored Ono’s

musical development—and that would have been the majority—were not

prepared for her edgy authority. With his murder, the album and its songs

took on a whole new meaning. Lennon’s musical peers also honored him

with a Grammy Award for his and Ono’s return to recording as a team. The

National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences voted
Double Fantasy
the

Album of the Year for 1981.

6

I Don’t Wanna Face It,

1981–1988

Posthumous Releases, 1981–1984

Lennon had planned on releasing “Woman” as his next single, so it was no

surprise when it came out as his first posthumous release early in 1981.1 Nor

was it surprising that in the first few years after his murder there were issued

several tribute songs dedicated to Lennon as well as the release of some first-

rate recordings of live and studio Lennon tracks. In a horrible irony, Lennon

was a more active public figure in the four years following his killing than he

was in the four years that preceded it.

“Walking on Thin Ice”

This is the song Lennon was working on in the last hours of his life, and it

ended up being a dance-track hit single for Ono. It is a wonderful showcase

for Ono musically and lyrically, notably her oblique but disturbing poetic

imagery such as “when our hearts return to ashes, we’ll be just a story.” A

middle narrated section tells of a woman who tried to walk across a suppos-

edly frozen lake that was “as big as the ocean” and is sandwiched between

Ono’s barking and vibrating vocals. At one point she sounds as though she is

vomiting, which then segues into casual humming. Lennon opens the song

with a backward guitar screech and is in rare form, banging out jarring chords

and providing his ultimate minimalist solo to perfection as well as other eerie

and seemingly random and sometimes backward tones. The end result is one

of their best collaborations.

The record was released as a special single two months after Lennon’s

killing, with a snippet of the couple talking as they strolled through Central

84 The Words and Music of John Lennon

Park introducing one of Ono’s mid-1970s songs, “It Happened,” on the

flip side. An even briefer snippet was included as an extra on a CD reissue of

Double Fantasy.