Happy Birthday

[Worm of Despite]

John Lennon would be 69 today... Ah well. He was just getting back into music, and unlike McCartney, I think he would've produced some stellar stuff in the 80s, 90s and now. Hard to believe almost four years before my birth he existed, and we still live in a time when Beatles are alive. To me it's like living in Beethoven's era, really, but we take it for granted.

Pure songwriting geniuses, and prolific too! We can thank their output for necessitating the long-playing records/albums we are so used to and that every band uses as their main medium now... Before the Beatles singles were the market, but they created such high quality songs and so many that albums began to take the forefront.

So a bit belated... 30 minutes till midnight, but still in time. I suppose the remastering of their catalog also made me think of him.

They say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time
I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy birthday to you.

[Cagliostro]

Right, but if he was alive, do you think Beatles: Rock Band would be around? The Breadheads of the Beatles are still alive, and gave the ok. Don't get me wrong; I don't have the game but I want it. I just wonder how John would have felt about it.

Aside from that, though, I'd like to visit the parallel universe where John was not killed and continued making music. I'd be curious to see what influence it had on the music scene.

[Cail]

Not to be the cynic, but.....

Had Lennon not died, his career in the '80s would have most likely mimicked McCartney's or Dylan's. Or it would have been less influential like Harrison's or Starr's. Say what you want about McCartney, but Wings was huge in the '70s. John all but took the decade off. Listening to Double Fantasy, there's some.....interesting stuff on there, but nothing really earth-shattering.

Their post-Beatles careers (all of them) were (are) a lot like Robert Plant's, Jimmy Page's, and John Paul Jones's....Certainly respectable, but not approaching what they'd accomplished as a group.

[Cagliostro]

Not to be the cynic, but.....

Had Lennon not died, his career in the '80s would have most likely mimicked McCartney's or Dylan's. Or it would have been less influential like Harrison's or Starr's. Say what you want about McCartney, but Wings was huge in the '70s. John all but took the decade off. Listening to Double Fantasy, there's some.....interesting stuff on there, but nothing really earth-shattering.

Their post-Beatles careers (all of them) were (are) a lot like Robert Plant's, Jimmy Page's, and John Paul Jones's....Certainly respectable, but not approaching what they'd accomplished as a group.

To be honest, I'd expect the same thing. But I'm cynical as well. I do think Lennon had the ears and hearts and minds of a lot more people, and while McCartney definitely delivered a lot of the great pop sensibilities, Lennon was a bit more of the explorer. So it's impossible to say for sure that he would have no influence, and it's all hypothetical anyway. But it is true what they say...the pioneers end up with all the arrows. Almost literally in this case.

[Worm of Despite]

Not to be the cynic, but.....

Had Lennon not died, his career in the '80s would have most likely mimicked McCartney's or Dylan's. Or it would have been less influential like Harrison's or Starr's. Say what you want about McCartney, but Wings was huge in the '70s. John all but took the decade off.

I'd trade Ringo's drumstick and all of Paul's 70s work for John's first solo album, Plastic Ono Band. Quality over quantity (Paul may have stayed in the game; Lennon just chose not to, and for me Paul's only good 70s release was Band on the Run).

Who's to know how he'd be in the 80s. He had "Free As A Bird", "Real Love" as demos, classic songs the remaining Beatles re-did for their Anthology; "Now and Then", which sounds amazing on his grand piano but has never been made into a proper song; after he died "Nobody Told Me" and "Borrowed Time" was released on Milk & Honey...

Hell. I'd say right there John beat the shit out of every other Beatles' 80s run, and he was dead before '81. As for getting worse as time goes on; seems to me the rock medium is not kind to age, whereas classical composers seem to get better and better (until the die from some 19th century disease).

[The Dreaming]

John Lennon would be 69 today... Ah well. He was just getting back into music, and unlike McCartney, I think he would've produced some stellar stuff in the 80s, 90s and now. Hard to believe almost four years before my birth he existed, and we still live in a time when Beatles are alive. To me it's like living in Beethoven's era, really, but we take it for granted.

Pure songwriting geniuses, and prolific too! We can thank their output for necessitating the long-playing records/albums we are so used to and that every band uses as their main medium now... Before the Beatles singles were the market, but they created such high quality songs and so many that albums began to take the forefront.

So a bit belated... 30 minutes till midnight, but still in time. I suppose the remastering of their catalog also made me think of him.

They say it's your birthday
We're gonna have a good time
I'm glad it's your birthday
Happy birthday to you.

That or there would have been an abysmal reunion in the 90s. For all we know Lennon could have razed his artistic integrity the way The Stones did. The Beatles catalog as it is stands is a perfect time capsule, free from most of the nastier side effects of aging rock legends. (Paul has admittedly aged pretty gracefully, but he hasn't been the same since Linda Died IMO).

People will be listening to the Beatles in 200 years, of that I am absolutely sure.

More interesting to me is asking what it Hendrix had made it into the 80s?

[matrixman]

I hope Lennon's killer rots in jail for the rest of his life. Thanks, I wanted to get that out of the way.

In the late 80's, after going through all the Beatles CDs, my sis and I listened to Lennon's material, but in reverse, going from the posthumous Milk & Honey back to his 70's stuff. But we never got to Plastic Ono Band. "Nobody Told Me" was already a part of my memories of '83, due to its music video. That and the song's catchiness. It might be my favorite solo Lennon song.

With the exception of individual song favorites, John's 70's albums didn't do much for me, I'm afraid - again, without having heard Plastic Ono Band, which is often cited as his best solo work.

I just finished reading Tim Riley's book, Tell Me Why (first published in 1988), which scrutinizes the Beatles' music rather than their personal lives - as well as it is possible to. It's an excellent analysis of every one of their songs. But Riley goes further and examines their solo work as well. Anyway, after reading his take on Lennon's material, I think it's fair to say that John was working his way through his own cynicism in the 70's. By the time of his comeback in 1980, there was an optimism in his songs, which made his murder that much more tragic.

As a kid in the late 70's I loved Wings, mostly due to their Greatest Hits LP, which I played endlessly. If I had heard John's stark, confessional songs at the time, I'm not sure how well my 8-year old mind would have comprehended them. Meanwhile, Paul's lyrics may have been maudlin, childish or just plain gibberish, but the guy knew how to write a hook. After finally hearing John's music on CD, I did appreciate the more personal nature of his songs compared to Paul's.

Tim Riley does try to offer a balanced view of McCartney and Lennon, although he generally prefers John's raw emotion to Paul's polished craft.

Without McCartney, Lennon's sense of proportion sometimes falters. If Paul rarely sounds risky after the Beatles, John can sound all too risky, in unattractive ways. He can't seem to adopt any pose without taking it to extremes...

...Like McCartney's, Lennon's singles tend to work better than his albums as totalities (except for Plastic Ono Band), but for different reasons. To begin with, he put out fewer of them (McCartney has released over thirty, Lennon has exactly fourteen), and except for the first four ("Give Peace a Chance," "Cold Turkey," "Instant Karma" - his best - and "Power to the People"), he lifted them all from albums instead of making them separate pieces. (McCartney is the only Beatle who continues making singles as separate entities well into the era of the mega-platinum multisingle albums in the eighties). Lennon's growth wasn't as much musical as it was personal, for although he wrote his version of "Hey Jude" in "Instant Karma," he never penned another song that will be as remembered as well as "Imagine"; and even though he got better at expressing his manic mood swings (his last hits, "Woman" and "Nobody Told Me," rank among his best), his partnership with MCartney seems to have provided him with a musical reckoning, the same way he intimidated Paul lyrically.

Riley sums up Lennon's last recordings this way:

These last two records overcome the midlife crisis of Lennon's solo career (Mind Games and Walls and Bridges) - a new partnership is finding its way in the music, sharing experience and a common purpose. The hopeful direction they were pointed in made his death impossibly cruel and canonized him as the kind of pop martyr he never wanted to be. It's clear that by the end he had made a certain peace with himself and his family, and if his mid-seventies efforts sound strained and deliberate, his final recordings return to the uncalculated sense of expression he found so easily with the Beatles. He wasn't creating for other people (the way McCartney can still seem to); he was reclaiming his personal musical language as an artist.

Between Plastic Ono Band's barren and scathing deliverance and Double Fantasy's gentle acceptance, there's an undeniable personal growth that defines Lennon's songwriting. Where Paul conceived his music more and more as craft, and eventually as product, John used his skill to make sense of his feelings. Paul deliberately set out to write hits ("Junior's Farm," "Girls' School," "Goodnight Tonight"); John's commercial success was more a consequence of his musical intuition ("Instant Karma," "Imagine," "Woman"). The distance measures the difference between the ways Paul and John worked and helps explain what they discovered as partners: even at their most incompatible ("A Day in the Life"), they completed one another.

[stonemaybe]

Cag wrote:

Aside from that, though, I'd like to visit the parallel universe where John was not killed and continued making music. I'd be curious to see what influence it had on the music scene.

I'd be interested to see what influence he would've had on society as a whole - think he'd have won the Nobel Peace Prize yet?

[Cail]

That or there would have been an abysmal reunion in the 90s. For all we know Lennon could have razed his artistic integrity the way The Stones did. The Beatles catalog as it is stands is a perfect time capsule, free from most of the nastier side effects of aging rock legends. (Paul has admittedly aged pretty gracefully, but he hasn't been the same since Linda Died IMO).

Yeah, that's a distinct possibility too.

I dunno, I just don't have the reverence for the man that many other people do. He was an awful father to Julian, and (whether you agree with his politics or not) expressed his beliefs like (more often than not) a spoiled child. Too often, that arrogance bled through to his music. I feel that the quality of his music took a backseat to his need to proselytize, and I think that is always a bad thing.

I agree with the author that MM quoted, Lennon & McCartney needed each other. Hell, The Beatles were the Beatles, and I doubt they'd have been half of what they were if any of the four elements were changed.

[Worm of Despite]

I dunno, I just don't have the reverence for the man that many other people do. He was an awful father to Julian, and (whether you agree with his politics or not) expressed his beliefs like (more often than not) a spoiled child. Too often, that arrogance bled through to his music. I feel that the quality of his music took a backseat to his need to proselytize, and I think that is always a bad thing.

Probably why George is my favorite Beatle... His interview on the Dick Cavett show showed a very enlightened, humble individual... Lennon, supposedly, had a very gentle side and also a very insulting one, not to count the irony of his lamenting his "bad" parents while being one to Julian himself. While the effects of being a super-busy Beatle in the early 60s can't be ignored, there's also no excuse for his snapping at Julian like he did (the 8 or so times they met).

His behavior to his first wife is also even more contradictory, accusing her of cheating (which she didn't) with one man, while he had had allegedly thousands of partners (though probably not that much, or how would you ever sleep?). In any case, Lennon reminds me of a lot of eccentric artists in the vein of Beethoven--men who make sensitive things but are usually full of a lot of angry and hostility.

I also think it a bit sad people think a human being is better off dead to preserve a band's discography... Reunion or not, their 60s work would remain key in the development of rock and roll. And yeah, they very well might have reunited for something, because he was anxious to in the 70s (but Yoko cracked the whip and would have none of that). Still--gotta give them more credit in knowing when to end a good thing; at the most, I feel they would have played live and not gone back to the studio.

And you really need to listen to Plastic Ono Band Matrix...up there with All Things Must Pass and Band on the Run for me, except stronger as a whole and much more affecting emotionally. Some songs might sound like throwaways at first, but I think they're all very substantial.

[matrixman]

I'll get to Plastic Ono Band, LF. I sure hope it's better than Band on the Run. I listened to the remastered version of it not long ago: sorry, but its big singles (Jet, Band on the Run) were the only memorable tunes on the album. The rest of the material was filler to my ears. So I honestly don't understand the praise for this album (well, as far as McCartney albums go).

That said, I try not to take the remaining Beatles for granted. If I see Paul or Ringo in the news, I do pinch myself and go: hey, I'm looking at a living legend! Well, they are, just as Elvis would be...er, if he were still alive. (No, don't tell me you saw him at the local Wal-Mart yesterday, I refuse to believe you!)

As for Lennon's personal life, I was never interested in those sensationalistic bios (or maybe it was just that notorious one by Albert Goldman(?) I'm thinking of). Okay, so Lennon was an a-hole to his kid...as was Beethoven to his nephew. But I have little of value to say on those matters, except yes, I think they should've been nicer guys. What's left is their music, which I feel I can more competently talk about.

they very well might have reunited for something, because he was anxious to in the 70s (but Yoko cracked the whip and would have none of that)

Okay, I didn't know that (or forgot).

[Worm of Despite]

I'll get to Plastic Ono Band, LF. I sure hope it's better than Band on the Run. I listened to the remastered version of it not long ago: sorry, but its big singles (Jet, Band on the Run) were the only memorable tunes on the album. The rest of the material was filler to my ears. So I honestly don't understand the praise for this album (well, as far as McCartney albums go).

Strange...I like just about every cut on the album, but yeah, it's not The Beatles. Few songs post-Beatles were Beatle-worthy. Maybe ELO was more Bealte-rific than the ex-Beatles.

[matrixman]

Few songs post-Beatles were Beatle-worthy. Maybe ELO was more Bealte-rific than the ex-Beatles.

Tim Riley said that Jeff Lynne's productions were "bland to the point of distraction." Clearly not an ELO fan. I like ELO myself, but only for a few big songs. I don't lose sleep over not having heard all their stuff. Don't know if this is true or not, but I heard that Lynne basically got the idea for ELO after listening to "I Am The Walrus."

You mentioned the Beatles Anthology earlier, and the song "Free as a Bird." Mr. Riley offered this insight on the song:

The material itself is not just lo-fi (in fact, if Jeff Lynne gets any credit, it should be for the technical cleanup he gives the Lennon demo), the song itself is unfinished. The bridge McCartney writes for it is a conspicuous lift from the Shangri-Las' "Remember (Walkin' in the Sand)," accented by the first three words ("Whatever happened to the boy I once knew/The boy who said he'd be true..."). This direct song lift was widely heard at the time of the single's release, played on National Public Radio, but McCartney has remained mum on the subject. Aside from being an arch reference to an early girl-group staple, the kind the Beatles themselves might have covered (alongside "Chains" or "Please Mr. Postman"), it cheapens the entire effort. To have the remaining partner of the century's greatest and most popular songwriting team finish his dead partner's demo by stealing a bridge from a well-known favorite seems hinky, even for McCartney.

To add irony to the existing acrimony between McCartney and Harrison, the Shangri-Las' echo rubs Harrison's nose in the lawsuit he lost when the Chiffons filed against Harrison for sponging their "He's So Fine" chord sequence in 1970's "My Sweet Lord." That no suit took place in 1995 against "Free as a Bird" was a factor of the increasing sampling in pop culture by hip-hop, which by that point had gone far beyond what any court could keep track of, and evolved into an elaborate aural symbology of homage more than theft. When Coolio samples Stevie Wonder's "Pastime Paradise" (in "Gangsta's Paradise"), or Angie Stone builds a new song from the foundation to the O'Jays's "Back Stabbers" (in "Wish I Didn't Miss You"), the effect is of recontextualization, mining more from the source than simply sticking your name in the author slot. And Harrison's case, being among the earlier conflicts, predates digital sampling and served as a dissuasive benchmark against which future songwriters held as a standard. (When the Rolling Stones discovered they had inadvertently stolen k.d. lang's "Constant Craving," on a song called "Anybody Seen My Baby," they simply added her name to the composer credits.) But there's no way George Harrison didn't hear McCartney commit almost exactly the same crime Harrison had thirty years earlier and get off scot-free.

That kinda puts it into perspective for me.

[dANdeLION]

I sure hope it's better than Band on the Run. I listened to the remastered version of it not long ago: sorry, but its big singles (Jet, Band on the Run) were the only memorable tunes on the album. The rest of the material was filler to my ears. So I honestly don't understand the praise for this album (well, as far as McCartney albums go).

What? Nineteen Hundred And Eighty-Five is the best track on that album!

[Worm of Despite]

The material itself is not just lo-fi (in fact, if Jeff Lynne gets any credit, it should be for the technical cleanup he gives the Lennon demo), the song itself is unfinished. The bridge McCartney writes for it is a conspicuous lift from the Shangri-Las' "Remember (Walkin' in the Sand)," accented by the first three words ("Whatever happened to the boy I once knew/The boy who said he'd be true..."). This direct song lift was widely heard at the time of the single's release, played on National Public Radio, but McCartney has remained mum on the subject. Aside from being an arch reference to an early girl-group staple, the kind the Beatles themselves might have covered (alongside "Chains" or "Please Mr. Postman"), it cheapens the entire effort. To have the remaining partner of the century's greatest and most popular songwriting team finish his dead partner's demo by stealing a bridge from a well-known favorite seems hinky, even for McCartney.

To add irony to the existing acrimony between McCartney and Harrison, the Shangri-Las' echo rubs Harrison's nose in the lawsuit he lost when the Chiffons filed against Harrison for sponging their "He's So Fine" chord sequence in 1970's "My Sweet Lord." That no suit took place in 1995 against "Free as a Bird" was a factor of the increasing sampling in pop culture by hip-hop, which by that point had gone far beyond what any court could keep track of, and evolved into an elaborate aural symbology of homage more than theft. When Coolio samples Stevie Wonder's "Pastime Paradise" (in "Gangsta's Paradise"), or Angie Stone builds a new song from the foundation to the O'Jays's "Back Stabbers" (in "Wish I Didn't Miss You"), the effect is of recontextualization, mining more from the source than simply sticking your name in the author slot. And Harrison's case, being among the earlier conflicts, predates digital sampling and served as a dissuasive benchmark against which future songwriters held as a standard. (When the Rolling Stones discovered they had inadvertently stolen k.d. lang's "Constant Craving," on a song called "Anybody Seen My Baby," they simply added her name to the composer credits.) But there's no way George Harrison didn't hear McCartney commit almost exactly the same crime Harrison had thirty years earlier and get off scot-free.

That kinda puts it into perspective for me.

Here's my perspective: I think the lo-fi vocals are more than just audio quality... When I was 9 years old the Beatles Anthology was hitting TV; I was an Elvis fan, had only heard snippets of the Beatles on TV during commercials. Then "Free As A Bird" came on the radio while I was in my mom's car: those vocals sounded ghostly, trippy, whimsical; the guitar was sliding like nothing I'd heard of Top 40 hits--it felt like some long-incubated beast that smashed up to the surface and waves like some tattered banner against all the stuff I was used to. It opened up the very tip of Beatles myth for me--a strange, exciting land. I think that was true for a lot of people at the time, young and old.

Unfinished song? It was a demo. But a damn good melody. And why not borrow/steal/rip-off/whatever from some song nobody knows for a greater cause? Nothing is really -new- anyway. Similarities are everywhere but not exact. It's not like it isn't happening all the time, either. If you can make up a better bridge to Free As A Bird, have a go. Secondly, the bridge was Lennon's. McCartney just filled in the words. Lord, let's crucify him...

What? Nineteen Hundred And Eighty-Five is the best track on that album!

I have a huge affinity for that one too...Paul is the master of piano rockers!

[dANdeLION]

The bridge McCartney writes for it is a conspicuous lift from the Shangri-Las' "Remember (Walkin' in the Sand)," accented by the first three words ("Whatever happened to the boy I once knew/The boy who said he'd be true..."). .

why not borrow/steal/rip-off/whatever from some song nobody knows for a greater cause?

I know that song, and particularly like the Aerosmith cover of it. While the bridge is a swipe, I do think it's right for the song.