Finals, graduation, introduction to the real world, and subsequent homelessness has made my mind a little more than muddled. Yoko Ono brought me back. Yes, that eccentric little Japanese woman who everyone likes to blame for the break up for the Beatles. Do some research, people. Yoko was and is a fabulous, mad, dizzyingly thought-provoking artist- not a destroyer of bands. Lennon loved her, and I have come to love her after studying Lennon’s life and his relationship with her. She was his muse, and for the purposes of this article, she is mine as well.
In Nylon magazine’s July issue, they did a spread on the women behind the men of rock royalty, and the iconic fashion accessories that made them more than just arm candy on the red carpet. Although I usually could care less about this sort of thing, the magazine tapped right into my love for John and Yoko- the very first page of the spread featured a waiflike, collagen injected, model version of the duo…and Yoko’s signature Carrera sunglasses. I wanted them. Needed them. Had to have them. I wanted nothing more than to run right out and buy them that instant, despite my mounting debt of post-collegedom. A week later, they were mine!!!!
Also…as a side note, the night I bought my beloved Carreras, I went out to see Public Enemies. I don’t know if any of you that have seen it noticed, but all of the men in the movie wore John Lennon’s round sunglasses. They are coming back. Get ready people- the sunglasses of John and Yoko are upon us.
Sunglasses (logically?) brought me back to music. After pondering the meaning of the sunglass phenomenon, I felt it necessary to revisit one of my favorite albums: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. The first album Lennon released as a solo artist, it serves as a landmark of his separation from the Beatles and as a complete embodiment of his own musical style and personal philosophy on life. The album is intimate to such an extreme that it almost makes you feel nervous listening to it, like you’re reading his diary and he could burst in to the room at any second, leading to an awkward moment and eventually an agreement to never speak of it again. From start to finish, it is an audio journal of pain, self doubt, and attempts at reassurance and hope for something better to come.
One of the most notable characteristics of the album is the use of Primal Screaming. Everyone needs a little scream once and a while to let out what they’re feeling, but Lennon records his pain on the album. Plastic Ono Band served as therapy for Lennon, who conceived much of the album during his stay at the radical Primal Institute in Los Angeles. There, he was introduced to the idea of Primal Screaming, which is supposed to tap into the fundamental root of your neuroses and help you release it in a burst of sound. Entirely appropriate for a musician. At times it seems almost too much to bear- listening to a man scream until his vocal chords are most likely burning and torn, but if nothing else it is certainly an effective way to evoke empathy in a listener. He is exposed, completely and utterly just-John, in a way that he never was before as a Beatle.
The album opens with “Mother”, a song serving as resignation, an attempt to come to terms with the death of his mother and the abandonment by his father. It’s sad, like you’re hearing a child’s pleading voice coming out of Lennon, this man, icon, famous figure of such seeming strength of opinion and message. The words he repeats until the end, “Mama don’t go/ Daddy come home” are saturated with emotional distress. He screams at the top of his lungs and the minimal accompaniment of piano, bass, and drums (by Ringo) tries to catch up with him as he drifts off into his complete and utter pain.
From there, the album demonstrates Lennon’s attempt to pass on what he has learned about reality by realizing his pain and stripping away all of the bullshit of life. In his songs “I Found Out” and “Working Class Hero”, he talks about the ills of society; citing religion, drugs, sex, and tv as the tools of the world to keep you doped up and crazy. He tries to warn people not to be sucked into the machine, bringing to mind similar plights by Pink Floyd in “The Wall”. The two songs, especially “Working Class Hero”, are anthems to the common man, the man who suffers his whole life, beaten down into submission yet ordered to succeed and triumph.
Lennon is calling to people to stand up for themselves, and to discover what life is truly about, which from his songs “Love”, “Well Well Well”, and “God” (which contains the central thesis of the whole album) is nothing other than love itself, and being in touch with reality which is knowing yourself and knowing love. In “Love”, Lennon states for the first time on the album exactly what he has discovered: “Love is real…love is feeling…love is touch…love is living”. The song is sweet and sad, sending the message of his complete belief in his love with Yoko, which is perhaps the reason that he left the Beatles and the spotlight to be with her- to live in love and therefore reality.
Finally, “God” is no doubt what Lennon builds to the entire time- a complete smack down on everything that he once believed in and now finds to be false. He starts on religion, calling out Jesus, the Bible, magic, God, tarot, Buddha; then moves on to historical figures like Hitler, Kennedy, and kings; then finally narrows his disbelief onto musicians- Elvis, Dylan, and last but not least The Beatles. What a slap in the face. I mean, I get it, I do, but it is still shocking to hear him sing that he doesn’t believe in Beatles. He lets his audience know that he has found himself: “I was the Walrus/ But now I’m John…The Dream is over”. Take that Beatles fans…man. It’s so sad but so understandable- he’s just a guy like any other who wants to be left alone to love and to simply be.
There are even points on the album when we can see his struggle in taking his own advice to just be real. In songs like the bluesy, piano heavy “Isolation” and “Look at Me”, Lennon is once again stripped down and afraid of facing the world. I love how in “Isolation” he even drags out the “I” and separates it from the rest of the word, further emphasizing his loneliness. Then in “Look at Me” he reflects upon himself, who he is, what he is supposed to be and do and desperately cries for “his love” to look at him and tell him what to do. The only completely reassuring songs on his rollercoaster of suffering and self-doubt are “Hold On” and “Remember”, in which he assures himself, Yoko, and the world that everything will be all right, and not to worry.
Finally, the albums ends right where it began, with a song about his mother. Entitled “My Mummy’s Dead”, the 59 second song is eerie, slow, exasperated, and tired (who wouldn’t be after all that screaming?). Thank god for the remastered edition that was put out in 2000. Supervised by Yoko, the tracks “Power to the People” and “Do the Oz” were added in to create some positivity after such a dreary ending track. “Power to the People” advocates action, revolution, activism and social change, and definitely serves as an appropriate concluding remark to the intimate album of loss and realism that Lennon initially created.
I am in love with this album, on a literary sense, as I am sure can be inferred by my primarily-lyrical analysis. But that is what this album is about- it is about Lennon’s words- his belief in stripping everything down to its rough, un-mastered core. It is about a struggle to understand the world, and Lennon’s ultimate faith in love only. On a musical level, the album is stripped. It is raw and unpolished, bluesy, folksy, rock-n-roll, and classic Lennon all at once. It is John and it is Yoko and it needs to be listened to. It contains the powerful message that originality, authenticity, and connections to the world and the self are all that truly matter.
So…I guess maybe I should rethink needing these Yoko sunglasses.
"All my concerts had no sounds in them; they were completely silent. People had to make up their own music in their minds"-- The one and only, Yoko Ono.
Listen to the Album: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
And! Listen to the John Lennon interview about the album with Jann Wenner from Rolling Stone.
And!! If you happen to listen to the interview, this Dave Edmunds version of "I Hear You Knocking" and Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" (please ignore the many religious references in this video version) are what Lennon refers to as the kind of simple rock he likes most.
Alright, hold up. Let me explain something that I just discovered. Summer+ homelessness+ everybody and their mother giving me new music every single day = me not being able to rediscover my iTunes library. This whole project began when I realized that I don’t think I’ve listened to all of the music I own, and today I go back on track. No more new stuff for a while. SO without further ado, I am going to hit shuffle on my iTunes library and whatever comes up is what I’m writing about. Druuuuuum roll please… Sufjan Stevens it is.
I was really hoping for Backstreet Boys or something embarrassing...nerds. 56 seconds into “Ya Leil” on Sufjan’s album A Sun Came! is good tunes. I’m digging whatever kind of music this is, it sounds like it belongs on a soundtrack for a Wes Anderson movie.
Listed among his many instruments are the lesser known stapler and stationary floor fan, but I’m down as long as he’s rocking it. 
Listed among his many instruments are the lesser known stapler and stationary floor fan, but I’m down as long as he’s rocking it. 
