Tag Archives: john lennon/plastic ono band

#1111: John Lennon – Remember

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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.

#864: John Lennon – Mother

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John Lennon – a complicated individual, I think it can be said. I’m not in the huge wave of people who declare him a monster every time his name is mentioned. But he did go through some shit. His mum was killed outside of his home when he was a teenager, and his dad left the family and only returned when he became famous. Those two things pretty much set him off for life. Those events are enough to mess any kid up. But being thrown into the spotlight as a member of the biggest music group in the world, I’d have to assume he had to put those events behind him somehow. It wasn’t until the Beatles split and he had all the time in the world with Yoko Ono, that his mum and dad came to the forefront of his writing. And fair to say, at that point in time (1970), John was a bit pissed off with everything.

A common thread on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is Lennon’s feelings of being let down by the people he once looked up to when he was younger. And that album begins with the subjects from which most of his pain stemmed from: his parents. ‘Mother’ starts it all off with an ominous funeral bell that tolls slowly. In the middle of the forth toll, Lennon’s voice erupts with a wail accompanied by Ringo Starr’s drums and Klaus Voormann’s bass guitar. The first verse concerns his mother, the second his father, and the third verse sees Lennon warn the listener to not follow in his footsteps. Maybe because he had tried to hide his hurt underneath his wit for all those years, I’m not so sure myself. And god, does he sing every word so honestly. The vocal melody’s sort of all over the place in terms of the scales and leaps from one note to the other. It’s like there’s not one syllable in a word that stays on one note. Such an engaging listen, earnest and so, so real.

Then comes the “Momma, don’t go/Daddy come home” ending, which I have to say actually frightened me a bit when I heard it the first time in 2010 or so. Sounds innocent enough when Lennon first sings that. But as the song continues, that singing gradually turns into guttural screams that properly distort the microphone he’s using. He starts to play lower down on the piano during this coda too which gives the whole track a darker tone and feel. I feel like all of this is a method to make the listener feel as uncomfortable as possible, particularly those in 1970 who still wanted some good old Beatles music. I think he succeeded with this goal. A couple months back, the album was re-released in this huge package with new mixes and demos. A raw mix of the album version that removed its fade out and the echo-effect on Lennon’s vocal’s on there, and I might even like that one better.

#763: John Lennon – Look at Me

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‘Look at Me’ comes at the perfect time in John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band album. The last minute of preceding track ‘Well Well Well’ is him screaming the word ‘well’ until he physically can’t anymore. So when the acoustic guitar and soft electric that play throughout on this one come in, you’ve just got to admire the dynamics.

Lennon does a lot of soul-searching on this album. There’s a lot of pointing out how shit the world actually is on his part too. It’s on ‘Look at Me’ that he brings it all to himself though, asking the listener what they see and what they think of him as if he was standing right in front of them. Though giving it another listen, I think he’s singing to Yoko Ono. She is the only other person he believed in after all.

This is probably the only song that sounds remotely like a Beatles track, and there is good reason. He wrote the song at the same time he wrote many others when he was in India for the group’s meditation retreat. The same guitar picking technique he employed on ‘Dear Prudence’ and ‘Julia’, he uses here. The three note introduction is identical to the beginning of ‘I’m So Tired’. These don’t necessarily make the song better. Just thought some people may want to know. It’s a very meditative track, serene, and very easy to listen to. The melodies from both guitar and Lennon’s vocal never really change and repeat themselves so they’re never very hard to forget. I’m not sure it’s considered a highlight by many from this album, but it is to me.

#646: John Lennon – Isolation

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Completely forgot to do this yesterday, I don’t know what happened. Lapse in concentration I’ll put it down to. Hopefully what I go on to say was worth the grueling wait.

My passion for the Beatles truly came into fruition at the beginning of this decade. Come to think of it, I’ve been a Beatles fan for ten years almost exactly to the day. Though it was 2010 when I began venturing into the members’ solo ventures. John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band was the most shocking out of them to me. Not ‘shocking’ in that it scared me, though those screams at the end of ‘Mother’ made 15-year-old me quite uneasy, but here was John Lennon – the funny guy from the group with the sharpest wit and cheek – full of rage and singing about how much pain he was in….. It’s a great listen though. One of the best albums ever, in my opinion.

I remember ‘Isolation’ being one of the songs that I warmed to straight away. It’s a slow blues-type number with a swing-feel to it. Like the other tracks on the album, the production is very sparse and dry but the instrumentation fills up the soundscape, particularly those climbing notes from the piano. Lennon, who plays the keys, is accompanied only by Klaus Voorman on bass and Ringo Starr on drums.

Just my own thoughts here but I think the song’s greatest strength is its tempo. The rhythm is just so perfectly timed that when the bridge comes in via Lennon’s elongated note, it makes every pound on the piano and cymbal crash hit so much harder. I feel like punching a hole into a desk when the very final chord of the track suddenly brings things to a halt, it’s all very cathartic.

My iPod #534: John Lennon – Hold On

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John Lennon’s solo album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band opens with “Mother”, a five and a half minute track that ends with him screaming his vocals to shreds as he pleads for his parents to come back into his life. For the first song of what was his first album since leaving The Beatles, it is heavy to say the least. “Hold On” follows it to make the listener feel a bit happier about themselves for a short time with Lennon singing about how everything is going to be alright for him, his wife and the whole world.

Featuring only Lennon on tremolo-filtered guitar, Klaus Voormann on bass and Ringo Starr on drums, the song is a relaxing listen – perfect to chill out to on those warm sunny days when everything is in its right place. The laid-back vibes underpin the track’s message of optimism and reassurance. John randomly imitates the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street in it too.

These good feelings only lasts for less than two minutes. John doesn’t get much positive than this for the rest of the album. You have to enjoy it while it lasts.