Lennon Reaches Spotify: 74 If
Lennon On Spotify
The most depressing thing about the newly posted John Lennon catalog is how little of it there is. Between taking a five year sabbatical and being murdered at the unconscionably young age of 40, the Lennon solo career seems to stop in full swing with Double Fantasy, and then of course, the incomplete Milk And Honey. Not everything is here either: the Lennon Anthology is missing , Two Virgins, The Wedding Album and Life With The Lions –you know the weird stuff, is missing, that acoustic compiliation didn’t make it, but the heart of the stuff is here and it is so sad, really.
Sad and perfect. Perfect and sad. Maybe Mind Games or Walls And Bridges, wouldn’t sound so magnificent if there was another 35 years of music on top of it. But there isn’t. So we cherish what we have. “Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down And Out” is a masterpiece any which way but maybe not “Going Down On Love”.
I don’t really enjoy writing about Lennon because however often I wruite about him, it ends up the same ridiculous, pathetic way. I am always in bed with some girl, Johnny Carson is always on TV, there is always a breaking news graphic at the bottom of the screen, I always get dressed and go to the Dakota, and he is always dead by the time I get to the Dakota.
As a fiction writer, I might want to rewrite the ending but then what do I do with him? I feel the same way about my Dad, I once wrote a novel in which instead of dying of a heart attack my Dad lived on, but in the end I could only give him things I don’t know he even wanted.
It isn’t hard to imagine Lennon at the 9-11 gig with McCartney, with a George Harrison not in the final throws of terminal cancer… It isn’t hard…
How about grading the albums proper?
Plastic Ono Band – A+
Imagine – A+
Double Fantasy – A
Rock And Roll – A-
Walls And Bridges – B+
Mind Games – B+
Milk And Honey – B+
Sometime In New York City – B+
I guess that’s it, right? That’s the heart of the matter. Two flat out masterpieces, one masterpiece with backstory, and some gems and not so gems. Plus, a handful of awesome anthems better than anyone else has ever written, “Imagine” and “Give Peace A Chance”. Really, if that was all he had ever ever done, forget the Beatles, and forget Plastic Ono Band, or just being Lennon, if all there ever was was “Imagine” and “Give Peace A Chance” his position would be unassailable, unreachable. McCartney, and I am not a Sir Paul hater or even close to being one, never did that. Those two songs: Dylan didn’t manage it. It is ridiculous. He was murdered. It still sticks in the craw, I don’t know what you can say about it any more. I mean, instant karma? Cmon, guys, this is pathetic. We deserve, he deserved better than this shit.
Like I said, I don’t like writing about Lennon, my feelings get the better of me. I had a favorite Beatle but he was murdered.
Here is a Spotify play list.
