(The Praeger Singer-Songwriter Collection) Ben Urish, Ken Bielen-The Words and Music of John Lennon-Praeger (2007) (26 page)

slip in next. The Music Hall classic “I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside” is

a good connection to the opening shanty, and both this song and skiffle king

Lonnie Donegan’s remake of “My Old Man’s a Dustman” get a nod before

two of George Formby’s biggest hits, “Chinese Laundry Blues” and “Lean-

ing on a Lamppost,” are squeezed in. Lennon moves back into the shanty

and seems reluctant to let the traipsing romp end.

Another medley from the series has a decidedly absurdist bent, as Lennon

adopts a faux French accent for a turn at a comic introduction and per-

formance of “Beyond the Sea” and “Blue Moon.” The bit ends with Len-

non shifting into another cartoon accent, this time cockney, for a section of

“Young Love.” The fun of these recordings is not in the musical mastery

on display, by any means, but in Lennon’s playful cleverness as he presents

them.

One episode broadcast Lennon charging through a none-too-shabby ver-

sion of “Rock Island Line,” Donegan’s biggest hit and a skiffle standard.

Lennon flubs some of the lyrics but does not seem to mind at all since what

he wants to do is get to the chorus and relive the liberating explosion that

skiffle had in common with rockabilly. The recording has Ono audibly get-

ting a phone call in the background and having trouble hearing the caller, but

such was Lennon’s delight that his spirited performance continued regard-

less. A similar version of “John Henry” was also broadcast.

The bluesy side of rock’s roots was also a point of self-amusement for

Lennon. In a home recording of “I’m a Man,” Lennon once again opts for a

comic take, performing most of the piece in an exaggerated Mississippi Delta

drawl, with solid guitar accompaniment. The lyrics slip into a surreal parody

of the macho bluesman, as Lennon gleefully sings about erectile dysfunction

and not being able to find his feet! Before picking up the pace for the finale,

Lennon drops the drawl and uses posh British inflection. That seems a com-

ment, perhaps unconscious, on the influence of African American music on

I Don’t Wanna Face It, 1981–1988 101

Lennon’s home country and his own eventual artistic drives, if not the entire

British Blues movement.

Fifties rock and roll, though, remained Lennon’s favorite music, and it

comes as no surprise that he should parade his way through that era’s musical

product. Buddy Holly was always a big favorite and influence, and a nice, short

but complete acoustic performance of Holly’s “Maybe Baby” was included

in one broadcast of the show. Lennon sounds relaxed and assured, and on

the vocal refrain he jokes around during the lyricless passage and encourages

himself or any listeners to join him with a reassuring “come on!” before slip-

ping into a quick Holly impersonation. On another tape played during the

series’ run, Lennon starts an exhilarating version of Holly’s “Peggy Sue” that

is cut short by a phone call, much to Lennon’s emphatic exasperation and

likely the listener’s as well.

During studio recording sessions, Lennon liked to both unwind and

loosen up his musicians with off-the-cuff renditions of rock and roll classics.

A handful of such attempts exist from the combined
Plastic Ono Band
ses-

sions, including a version the
Lost Lennon Tapes
provided of Carl Perkins’s

“Matchbox.” The song was a regular of the live performance repertoire of

The Beatles, with Ringo Starr singing lead. In this recording, Lennon treads

his way through the vocals (possibly trying to save his voice) with a few alter-

nate lyrics and provides a sputtering, then ringing guitar solo before cutting

things off with a quickly dismissive “ok, ok.”

Preparing for the One to One concerts with Elephant’s Memory required

rehearsals and they, too, were recorded. A few performances from these were

included in the radio series with Chuck Berry’s “Roll over Beethoven” being

one of the better examples. A fractured instrumental introduction is played,

far enough off that Lennon laughingly feels the need to tell the band what it

was, and then asks eagerly, “do you remember it?” Not waiting for an answer,

he begins singing and the band does remember it, giving a raucous but more

than passable recital of the piece, with Lennon keeping his vocals on track

and cueing the band’s guitarist with a hearty “hit it, Tex!”

Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” also gets a going over

with saxophonist Stan Bronstein carrying the instrumental break and Lennon

responding with a throaty cry of “Stan, the blues man, all right!” These pre-

sentations are sometimes rough, but, after all, they are rehearsals or private

performances, never meant for public consumption. Still, Lennon’s joy and

energy are tangible, a feeling not always captured on his
Rock
’
N
’
Roll
album

recordings.

The Lost Lennon Tapes
spent much of its air time tracing the composi-

tional development of Lennon’s music, and it was clearly the show’s high-

light. Assorted versions of songs in a variety of stages of completion from his

Beatles years on were heard. It was fascinating and insightful listening. All

the more interesting, though, were recordings of songs Lennon either never

102 The Words and Music of John Lennon

completed composing, never took to a professional studio, or decided against

releasing.

One of the more complete and assumed to be finished songs also had

one of the longer gestations of any of Lennon’s works. Begun in 1970 and

reworked in 1976, “Sally and Billy” is an ironic third-person narrative about

two of the “beautiful people” who seem to be living successful lives but are

empty inside. Sally is a modern, artistically inclined socialite, and Billy is a

band singer. The separate verses emphasize the song’s theme of disconnec-

tion from the essentials of life’s experiences. The narration has some fine

passages, and the tone is woven from simultaneous stances of condescension,

sympathy, and sardonic detachment. The sarcasm is obvious, as in such lines

as the one saying that Sally is “independent and beautiful—oh how beauti-

ful!” The same tone is taken regarding Billy, who spends all his time “playing

games with his mind,” essentially fooling himself; yet he is seen by others as

being a “lucky guy,” even though in reality his heart is “running dry” (one of

the better images in the song).

Both characters dream of “what might have been, hoping that Jesus will

intervene,” an event the narrator seems to imply is unlikely to occur. The

narrator then presents them as not understanding what life is all about, and

therefore missing out on what is truly important because it is “too late now”

for them. Both characters cry in frustration over the awareness that their lives

are hollow, but have no idea what to do about it, other than keep up the false

hope that some outside force will save them. The song ends with the narrator

urging them not to cry, despite just having proclaimed they have wasted their

lives with no hope of redemption.

It is a singular piece in Lennon’s post-Beatles output, its melodic and

tuneful music undercutting the dark, third-person narrative from a chastis-

ing, yet basically disinterested, narrator. If it were not so well developed and

executed, it would seem as if Lennon were parodying such songs rather than

seriously creating one.

Also finished, and in the third person, is “She’s a Friend of Dorothy,” a

song Lennon tweaked occasionally from 1976 until 1980. When, in 1978

and after, Lennon and Ono considered creating a musical based on their

lives, this was one of the songs he thought of using for it. The phrase “a

friend of Dorothy” was coded slang for being homosexual; little in the song

makes that explicit if listeners did not already know the meaning.

The song is structured as if the narrator is convincing someone that the

subject is indeed gay by listing her supposed characteristics, with a chorus of

simple self-evident proclamations such as “she shows it ... the way that she,

the way that she is.” The song’s verses are litanies of the title character’s traits.

Some are quite witty, such as an early couplet “art deco decadent, TV dinner

elegant” and “French jeans and sly boots” in the second verse. The song ends

with Lennon as narrator comically spelling out “Dorothy” as if in a grade

school primer with the letter “t” being for
Tea and Sympathy,
a well-known

I Don’t Wanna Face It, 1981–1988 103

play and film partially concerned with homosexuality. Mid-paced, slightly

wistful, and even mournful at times, yet quite melodic, the song remains one

of the more fascinating of Lennon’s home demo works.

Similar in mood and tone is the song “Tennessee” from 1975–1976.

Not dedicated to the state, but to author Tennessee Williams, Lennon puts

Williams in the limited category of real people he wrote about directly by

name. This list included such people as his mother Julia, Mia Farrow’s sister

Prudence, Yoko Ono, Angela Davis, and John Sinclair. The song began as a

statement of praise and acknowledgment of Williams’s impact with the pro-

saic line “Tennessee, oh Tennessee, oh what you mean to me,” and then

presented the names of Williams’s plays but did little else.

Part of the song evolved into a piece called “Memories,” the title word

replacing “Tennessee,” and the rest of the song omitting the references to the

play titles, thereby creating an odd cousin to one of his Beatle masterpieces,

“In My Life.” Some of “Memories,” coupled with another developing song

called “I’m Crazy,” morphed into the nexus of “Watching the Wheels” and

“Tennessee,” as such, was long forgotten.8

One fragmentary composing effort is called “Pill” and was begun and

abandoned in 1972. The work was never developed very far, but the jaunty

guitar line and Lennon’s breezy lyrical approach seem set to counter the

more grave statement of, “you need a special pill to keep you on the line.”

Lennon must have decided the promising sound was little more than just

that, and there is no evidence that he continued his efforts on the work.

Starting off with a similar chord structure to parts of the also unfinished

“Grow Old with Me” is a song from 1977 called “Mirror, Mirror (On the

Wall).” The opus is a decidedly morose self-investigation both musically

and lyrically. Lennon’s vocal performance is of questioning resignation as he

intones that he looks “in the mirror and nobody’s there,” a line he would

more or less repeat with a startled delivery in “I Don’t Wanna Face It” from

the posthumous
Milk and Honey
album. He sings that he keeps on “staring

and staring” and finally asks, “can it be?” and “is it me?” repeatedly, followed

by the droning but impassioned piano for over a minute before the song

ends. Even in its undeveloped form, or perhaps because of its undeveloped

form, the fragment creates a viable feeling of unease and distress.

Another fragment from the radio show was one of the last songs Lennon

was working on at the time of his murder, a composition called “Gone from

This Place.” A lively guitar riff with a hint of melancholy underscores the few

lyrical lines that are mostly variations on, “well I won’t be satisfied ’til I’m

gone from this place.” Lennon whistles the melody contentedly and later

hums his way through it before abruptly stopping. In this early form, there is

no way of telling whether the song would have enhanced the irony implied

in the lyrics when contrasted with the music or whether it would have solidi-

fied its outlook to one perspective or the other, turned into something totally

different—or perhaps abandoned entirely. Like similar works of Lennon, it

104 The Words and Music of John Lennon

becomes a snapshot of the artist in process—tantalizing, but forever on the

verge.

The Lost Lennon Tapes
presented these songs and many more examples of

how Lennon’s creative processes worked. Among them were the harrow-

ing “You Saved My Soul,” and another third-person effort called “Whatever

Became Of...?” In addition, there were “Emotional Wreck,” “I Watch Your

Face,” and “One of the Boys,” to name a few. Despite the wealth of Lennon

material that has been legally released since the series went off the air in

1992, there remains a treasure trove of Lennon’s creative legacy from the

series and other sources that could, and in most cases probably should, be

made available to the public.9

7

Gone from This Place:

The Continuing Legacy

More than a decade had passed since Lennon’s murder and
The Lost Lennon

Tapes
radio series was starting its third year and entering a phase of markedly

diminishing returns. The series had exposed a wealth of material previously

unheard by the general public, but it looked like there was little left to be