And with this, all the songs I really, really like from John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band album have been written about. You’ll see no more material from the record on here. It’s been a fun run. Just over half of the album covered, beginning with ‘God’ in 2015. Check out the writing from this dude. I’m gonna say that I would have mentioned in any of those posts that the specific album is one of my favourite solo Beatles albums, if not the favourite. Lennon was going through primal therapy and used it, alongside other traumas, to make some powerful music with good mates Ringo Starr (on drums, obviously) and Klaus Voorman on bass guitar. October 2010 marked the month of what would’ve been Lennon’s 70th birthday, and I think I must have downloaded the album sometime during those four weeks. I’d have to check the old computer to be certain. I was a relatively new Beatles fanatic at that point, and Plastic Ono Band was an instant hit for me. As was ‘Remember’, the sixth song on the album, even if it may be one of the least popular on there. At least that’s what I gather from the Spotify numbers.

I remember (couldn’t avoid it, sorry) being confused by the song’s rhythm for the longest time. Those moments where Lennon goes a half-step down on the piano when he’s stomping away at it during the verses – at least I think it’s a half-step – would throw me off when I would count along to it. It led me to believe that there were bars of 11/4 or 15/4 during those sections. Big tip, there isn’t. It’s all in 4/4. There is a bit of polyrhythm going on in the song’s intro though. Lennon and Voorman play their respective instruments in 3/4 while Ringo’s pounding away in standard time. Then when Lennon starts singing 13 seconds in, Starr does a little correction so that the beat doesn’t end up inverting during the verses. It’s a little moment like that where you gotta appreciate the dude. Also, if you read the song’s Wikipedia article, it states that the track was developed by an unplanned improvised coda that occurred during the recording of the Beatles’ ‘Something’ from Abbey Road. If you never believed it, it’s true. Lennon breaks out into the riff on the piano and the rest of the band join in with him. I even remember that take being on YouTube once upon a time and it being much longer too. But hey, gotta make with what you have.

In terms of the lyrics, ‘Remember’ sees Lennon thinking back on his childhood… Well, he’s telling us to look back on our childhoods, but there’s some self-reflection there too, and think about how things seemed to be so black-and-white during those days. The good guys won, the bad people lost because that’s how it was always shown on TV. How people would be always be so much taller and you couldn’t do anything to them because you were just a kid and pretty much insignificant. Mums and dads were wishing for better lives but maybe not following through on to actually achieve them. That last point is probably more aimed towards himself, seeing as his dad left him and his mother was killed and all. But with all that being said, he’s telling us to remember today, the present, the here and now, because all that matters, and to not have any regrets for how things have gone in so far in your life. So it’s a mirror of emotions going on here, mirrored by the change from a minor key (in the verses) to a major one (for the choruses). I’ve always appreciated the ‘Fifth of November’ nursery rhyme reference right at the end too. The first time I heard the song and Lennon sang ‘Remember’ twice, I was wondering if that’s where he was gonna go. And he did. That capped it off for me.