I'm all in favor of John Lennon. He was one of the greatest singers and songwriters in the history of rock music. As a teenager, I particularly idolized him. Hey, John Lennon and the Beatles led me away from Christ, and showed me new worlds.
But even John Lennon couldn't sell me on the 1972 album Some Time in New York City. Even as a Beatle worshiping teenager, you have to know to discount Lennon's contemptuously self-indulgent foolishness on some of those solo albums. A couple of quick listens had me lumping this in the discard pile with the infamous Two Virgins.
Listening to the remastered single disc CD just released on Capitol, it sounds somewhat better than I remembered it a quarter century ago. Then again, that's setting the bar pretty low.
Basically, this album represents very little effort or thought put into the songwriting. Lennon was obviously far more interested here in radical political posturing than in music.
The album cover pretty well says it all, presenting the lyrics formatted as newspaper stories. As you can readily tell by perusing the cover, he's pretty much just regurgitating the current radical laundry list of supposed injustices by The Man. There's precious little in these words showing any unique personal perspective or insight, just dumb posturing. Just makes me want to shoot this John Sinclair guy my damned self.
But worse yet, Lennon put almost no effort into most of these melodies. I'd be surprised if he spent more than five minutes apiece writing most of these generic tunes. They lack hooks, much less development. Hey, he's making important timely statements that people need to hear right NOW, and he doesn't have time to be bothered with writing a stinkin' melody.
The most striking thing about this record is the utterly reactionary nature of this supposedly radical, progressive statement. As a Beatle, he broke the pop music mold with truly progressive music like "A Day in the Life" and "Happiness Is a Warm Gun." By this point, he considered himself to be the avant garde. Yet this album is purely generic throwback 50s "rock and roll." Musically, Some Time in New York City operates on about the same level as the dreaded Sha Na Na.
Article comments
1 - Barry Stoller
You forgot to mention the hot lead guitar on "We're All Water" - Wayne "Tex" Gabriel rips it up. Ono or not, that is Some Time's only progressive cut. BTW, EM's Apple "solo" LP had its moments and Chuck Berry, who met them on the J&Y Mike Douglas week, picked up the band for his swan song album Bio.
2 - Al Barger
Barry, thanks for that info on Chuck Berry, I did not know that.
I was thinking of this show as I was writing this review. I believe it was this show where Uncle Chuck was playing one of his oldies with John et al, when suddenly Yoko just arbitrarily started wailing her typical nonsense screeching over top of him.
It was a beautiful quick passing reaction. Chuck gives a quick shocked "Huh?" look, and then smiles in recognition of the pussy-whipped land, and continues with the song. It was a priceless moment.
That is some pretty fair guitar playing on "We're All Water." I liked even the simple slide guitar on "John Sinclair." Really, there's some good playing by the band all around. It's just too bad they didn't have better songs to work with.
3 - uao
This one is like shooting fish in a barrel; it's one of the most panned albums of all time.
I think evil dominatrix bitch is pretty harsh for Yoko Ono; she's never struck me as evil or a dominatrix (although Lennon, 8 years her junior, certainly was looking for a mama type, having never had a satisfactory relationship with his own mother).
It's a pretty lousy album; Lennon was trying to mingle with the New York radical crowd (Abbie Hoofman, Jerry Rubin, David Peel, et. al.) and being a Brit with a Rolls Royce, he didn't know the issues and had to take a crash course. I'll bet he read more newspapers (radical and otherwise) in 1972 than any other time in his life. Both he and Ono got back on heroin breifly at the time.
As far has Lenono not putting much care into the production, that would've gone against the concept. Newspapers are disposable; they convey an immediate message, and the follwoing day they're good for wrapping fish. That was the concept behind Some Time In New York City.
Also, he wanted songs that could be played live acoustically, or with a band who hadn't rehearsed; the idea was to barnstorm the country playing these songs at rallies.
The barnstorm never happened beyond a few appearances; One to One, Fillmore East, the Apollo, and the John Sinclair Benefit were pretty much all he did.
One reason for that was he fell out with the radicals pretty fast; I knew Peel and Rubin myself; neither one were all that well-adjusted or intelligent. And the streets got the heroin back in his life, and he wanted it out again.
Plus the FBI started their surveillence of him at this time. When the album was panned, and failed to sell, he retreated (ultimately breaking up with Yoko a year later and moving to L.A. for his famed "lost weekend")
You're right about most of it sounding like garbage, although personally, I find "Luck of the Irish" to be so bad it almost offends the Irishman in me, although their hearts were in the right places.
The title cut, "New York City" was a good one, and one this New Yorker can get behind. It rocks, and captures circa 1972 East Village in its lyrics as a good snapshot.
Worth noting that Frank Zappa was incensed by this album, and the fact that Lennon took songwriting credit on "Jamrag" and "Scumbag". He released his own version of Live at Fillmore West" using the inner sleeve of Sometime In NYC as its cover, magic marker ink scratching out the credits and writing in his own.
Elephant's Memory went on to score a few porno flicks in the late 70's.
4 - Barry Stoller
A side note. Around the time J&Y arrived in NY, Chuck Berry sued Lennon for copping a line from "You Can't Catch Me" ("Here come old flat-top," etc.) for the latter's "Come Together." It was "settled out of court" and, shortly after, there is Lennon and Berry on the Mike Douglas Show. Another month or two, Berry would hit number one with "Ding A Ling" so it may be surmised Lennon's price was jump-starting CB's career, a worthy enough cause (too bad about the crappy song).
BTW, Abbie Hoffman was featured on the J&Y Mike Douglas week and, like his politics or not, Hoffman put on one hell of a show.
5 - Dave
Zappa included "Au" on his "Playground Psychotics" album, but gave it his own title: "A Small Eternity With Yoko Ono".
6 - Al Barger
"A Small Eternity With Yoko Ono" Priceless.
Y'all have been coming up with lots of cool backstory and details in these comments. Thanks.
7 - Scott Butki
Great review, Al. Good job.
8 - Al Barger
Thank you for your kind words, Mr Butki.
9 - Eric Berlin
Enjoyed this piece, Al. I have to wonder though: if Lennon used his massive voice and personality to cry out for the tenets of Libertarianism worldwide, would your opinion about this particular album change at all?
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10 - Al Barger
Thank you, Mr Berlin. Yes, I would have taken an equally skeptical view of this album even if I agreed more with the politics. Otherwise, I'd be gushing on about Rush, for example. Their famous interest in Ayn Rand does not change the fact that they're a so-so musical act. I appreciate Ted Nugent's work with the NRA, but I'm just mostly not that big on his music.
But moreover, I tend to be highly skeptical of using music to proselytize ANY kind of cause- even ones I agree with.
11 - Eric Berlin
I get your point, but I was wondering about your take on Lennon specifically i.e. a record that pushes a strong political agenda by an artist you greatly admire.
12 - uao
Just want to add my congrats, Al. I thought it was a fine piece on an underdiscussed period in Lennon's life.
But poor Yoko... ;-)
13 - Scott Butki
I think what Al is trying to say, Eric, is he's not going to be e big fan of Billy Bragg, Anti-Flag or Ani DiFranco anytime soon.
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14 - Al Barger
Eric, it's a question not of an artist I admire, but of someone making a good album. Mostly, I'm pretty skeptical of message music. Propaganda generally makes for weak art, give or take Triumph of the Will.
One of the main reasons for this is that when people are making some political or religious or social statement, that's the main thing they're doing- not making music. This STNYC album in particular represents John Lennon trying to raise awareness. Thus, it was not important that this was some of the laziest crappy tunesmithing he ever did.
As a counterexample though, the debut album from Tracy Chapman was great, even though it had a lot of political stuff. But "Talkin' About a Revolution" was a really good SONG, and even the pinko point of the lyrics was presented in a really interesting artistic manner, what with the whispering in the welfare lines and such.
15 - Mark Saleski
so when have you complained about a conservative making a political point on a record?
c'mon, we'd like to see it.