(The Praeger Singer-Songwriter Collection) Ben Urish, Ken Bielen-The Words and Music of John Lennon-Praeger (2007) (9 page)

because his singing is vaguely affected as if he is hinting at a Southern U.S.

accent without wanting to really do one. The lyrics contain clichés (“a cat has

nine lives”), the music is light and bouncy, and all the while he is happily sing-

ing about the pervasiveness of emotional disability and the ultimate futility of

trying to ignore it. To Lennon, putting on a happy face does not do anything

except make one a hypocrite.

While the first verse certainly sets up the song’s denunciation of trying to

hide one’s true self with trappings of success, false piety, or lashing out at

others, it may also contain a reference to Lennon’s former Beatle band mate

Paul McCartney. He addresses someone who “wear[s] a suit,” “look[s] quite

cute,” and “hide[s] ... behind a smile.” These descriptions can easily apply to

Lennon’s characterizations of McCartney as seen in a later track, “How Do

You Sleep?” from
Imagine.

His description of the false person in the suit who, in the second verse, also

“wear[s] a collar and tie” complements the premise of the mid-1950s popu-

lar film
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.
People conform to an appearance,

but inside they harbor emotions that stifle their potential as well as hurt oth-

ers. It does not work, Lennon says, because being “crippled inside” is “One

thing you can’t hide.”

Paralleling his earlier attacks on religious hypocrisy, Lennon speaks of

churchgoers singing from the hymnal while they are actually crippled inside.

He also notes how people compensate for their insecurities by transferring

their issues to others through racism and prejudice. For Lennon, there are

many methods of masking inner pain, but none of them really work. The

song’s real strength lies in the humorous approach and performance.

Except for a slightly altered line about dreaming, the confessional ballad

“Jealous Guy” had a whole different set of lyrics when Lennon composed

it as “Child of Nature” for The Beatles’ White Album three years earlier.

“Child of Nature” exists in demonstration form, offering some rather dreary

and mundane lyrics—such as “I’m just a child of nature, I’m one of nature’s

children”—that may account for its never being finished as a Beatles track.

Turning the song into “Jealous Guy” was not the only legacy of the music,

since it matches up very closely with the opening of Lennon’s later hit “What-

ever Gets You through the Night.” The Beatles’ opportunity lost became

Lennon’s positive gain.

Gimme Some Truth, 1970–1973 29

Ethereal strings sweep the song along, making it sound more languidly

paced than it really is. A piano that combines rhythmic accompaniment with

countermelody provides an interesting bridge between the vocals and the

strings. Lennon sings both a confessional and an apology about the pain his

jealous actions have caused, eventually psychoanalyzing himself by saying he

was “swallowing my pain.”

The relaxed nature of the piece reaches its apex when Lennon breez-

ily whistles the melody before playfully intoning the warnings of “Watch

out” and “Look out,” reminding the beloved that he is still “just a jealous

guy.” This part seems out of place in a song where the narrator is “shivering

inside” with a combination of emotional distress and guilt, but perhaps it is

meant to be a false bravado in the face of the naked truth being confessed.

Another explanation for the whistle, though mere conjecture, may be the

influence of Bing Crosby, of whom Lennon was reputedly a fan.6 Even the word-

play of The Beatles’ second hit, “Please Please Me,” had been partly inspired by

the lyrics of Crosby’s 1932 recording “Please,” which played on the auditory

sameness of the words “please” and “pleas.” Imagining an early to mid-1930s

Crosby-styled performance of “Jealous Guy” in the mind’s ear reveals a striking

fit, even down to the patented Crosby whistle so caricatured at the time. Len-

non could have been amusing himself by having a clever in-joke on his audience,

who perhaps were not as well versed in Crosbyisms as he was.

The band Roxy Music had a hit with their cover version of the song early

in 1981 after Lennon’s killing, possibly prompting the release of Lennon’s

original as a single in 1985 in Great Britain, where it reached number 65. In

1988, “Jealous Guy” was released in the United States to promote the
Imag-

ine: John Lennon
soundtrack album and it reached number 80, thereby earn-

ing the distinction of being Lennon’s last solo top-100 single in the United

States for the remainder of the century.

“It’s So Hard” is a rumbling funky blues that complains in an oddly cheer-

ful manner about how tough it is to just get by day to day. Lennon’s slightly

detached-sounding voice provides a litany of common concerns and basic

goals from “You gotta love” to “You gotta eat,” but he comments that it can

be so difficult that he sometimes wants to quit trying. His only salvation lies

in the connection he has with his lover. Lennon may be half-punning here, if

such a thing is possible, using the phrase “going down” to first mean “giving

up” and later as a reference to oral sex.

The legendary saxophonist King Curtis provides a characteristic growling

sax counterpoint, later augmented by guitar and strings. The track is enjoy-

able enough, and makes its simple point quickly without belaboring it.

There are a number of vocations and situations Lennon desires to avoid

in “I Don’t Want to Be a Soldier.” It is not solely an antiwar song—yet that

idea should be given the primary emphasis, because, of the many things his

narrator does not want to be, soldier is what Lennon chose to incorporate in

the title. And, knowing of the Lennons’ peace campaign and the heat of the

30 The Words and Music of John Lennon

battles going on in Southeast Asia at the time of the song’s composition, it is

understandable that the song’s antiwar components are in the fore.

Lennon’s narrator does not want to be a lawyer nor a churchman, in another

of his swings at organized formal religions. He uses couplets that do not

match—for example, “sailor” and “fly”—and couplets that do—for example,

“lawyer” and “lie” (in the stereotypical perception of the occupation). Likely

inspired by a traditional and well-known nursery rhyme, he rejects the desire

to be “rich” or “poor” or a “thief” or a “failure.” The “failure” may relate to

the prolonged war in Southeast Asia or any number of other activities.

Lyrically recalling a simple list, the song builds tension as Lennon’s voice

rises and falls with each item on the list. The simplicity and repetition of the

words could be taken as a panicky interior monologue, with the anxiety rising

as the list is contemplated. Or, because the early lines refer to “Mama,” it is

as if a child is pleading with its mother. The production thickens the sound

of the song with some solid work from the band, including George Harrison,

King Curtis, and Tom Evans and Joey Molland from Badfinger.

A gem of the album, full of clever wordplay, is “Give Me Some Truth,”

another song Lennon more or less composed while still a Beatle. Over the

years, the song has become contemporary again anytime the credibility gap

between citizens and governments grows. Written while U.S. forces were mired

in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, the song attacks “hypocritics” and “pig-headed

politicians” for holding back the truth. The lyric is prophetic in that it was

written prior to the Watergate break-in and prior to Lennon’s personal, and

underhanded, harassment from the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Lennon’s narrator will no longer accept lies from a “son of tricky Dicky.”

Richard M. Nixon was the president of the United States at the time the lyr-

ics were composed. A critical nickname bestowed on him was “tricky Dick,”

so Lennon’s phrase is a direct reference to the Nixon administration. The

offspring of “tricky Dicky” that Lennon sings of is “short-haired” (implying

establishment-oriented) and “yellow-bellied.” Lennon asserts that confor-

mity is a by-product of cowardice, chauvinism, and paranoia.

Lennon refuses the government’s selling of the war. The country’s leaders

are not going to “mother Hubbard soft soap” him. It is interesting that he

uses the image of soap. Lennon also refers to a “pocketful of soap” in the

lyrics. When the Lennons explained to the media why they were campaigning

for peace with bed-ins and billboards, they stated that they chose to utilize

the same effective advertising tools to sell peace that a manufacturer would

employ to sell soap.7

Even though performed with contempt and rage, Lennon’s wordplay in

“Give Me Some Truth” is akin to his vocal delivery on “Give Peace a Chance.”

He similarly mashes images together in this
Imagine
track: “schizophrenic,

ego-centric, paranoiac, prima-donnas” as if spewing them out in anger. A

prominent, broiling guitar approximates the seething character of the lyrics.

After a brief guitar break from George Harrison that bites and barks the notes,

Gimme Some Truth, 1970–1973 31

and after more ingenious word combinations, Lennon closes the song very

simply by demanding the truth over and over again.

“Oh My Love” is a love song written by Lennon and Ono and also dates

from his time with The Beatles. Calming yet simultaneously mournful, Len-

non sings of the clarity that results when one is renewed by romantic love.

There is a clearer view of one’s surroundings and of one’s purpose. There is

self-realization. The song conjures an interesting image of the mind feeling.

How does a mind feel? He goes on to say he feels “sorrow,” which is compre-

hensible, but then he closes the thought with “I feel the dreams.” So, there is

yet another question for the listener to ponder: how does one feel a dream?

The lyrics also talk about seeing the wind. These contributions would

seem more Ono than Lennon, but such was their cross-pollination by then

that this is not a certainty. When Lennon sings that “Everything is clear in

our world” the song momentarily sounds like the lyrical passage, “Nothing’s

gonna change my world,” from his Beatles recording “Across the Universe.”

Once again Lennon has sequenced a gentle song of questioning innocence

between two songs of frustration and pervasive anger.

“How Do You Sleep?” is Lennon’s bald tirade against former songwriting

and artistic partner Paul McCartney. Lennon claimed he was responding to

previous musical salvos from McCartney, especially from McCartney’s second

post-Beatles album
Ram.
8 Lennon saw the album’s song “Too Many People”

as an attack on himself and Ono, with such lyrics as “Too many people preach-

ing practices” referring to the couple’s activism. In the same song, McCartney

sings about someone spoiling their lucky break, which Lennon took to mean

McCartney blamed him for the end of The Beatles.
Ram
’s song “Three Legs”

was interpreted as attacking the trio of Lennon, Harrison, and Starr, claiming

that a dog with three legs cannot run. A photograph on the cover shows two

beetles copulating, and, of course, “getting screwed” in popular slang can

refer to sexual intercourse as well as to being taken advantage of unfairly.

Lennon’s song opens with sounds of the band settling down, a short par-

ody of the beginning of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” also ref-

erenced in the first line of the song. Lennon rasps and hisses the lyrics with

real vitriol. If McCartney’s assaults were veiled, Lennon’s are blunt. Swelling

strings and a bubbling electric piano give the track a festering energy. For all

the talk of Lennon’s anger that the song has generated, few comment that

the song is helped along to no small degree by the aggressive slide guitar of

George Harrison. Lennon was apparently not the only former Beatle peeved

with McCartney at the time.

Lennon attacks McCartney’s character and his profession as a recording art-

ist. The lyrics include a number of specific references to McCartney. Lennon

sings, “The only thing you done was yesterday,” which refers to McCartney’s

early Beatles number-one hit “Yesterday” and also suggests that McCartney’s

best work was in the past. The next line includes the phrase “you’re just

another day.” Again, Lennon asserts that the creative spark has gone from

32 The Words and Music of John Lennon

his old band mate, but the line also refers to McCartney’s easygoing charting

ballad “Another Day.” Lennon describes this song—as well as the remainder

of McCartney’s contemporary output—as “Muzak.” At the time, Muzak was

a purveyor of syrupy, string-heavy, slow and mid-tempo instrumental music.

Office-based businesses and hotels were among the subscribers to the service,

and, as such, it was referred to as insubstantial “elevator music.”

Lennon’s lyrics speak of McCartney’s “pretty face.” From the time The

Beatles arrived on U.S. shores in 1964, McCartney was known as the cute