John Lennon Solo Albums Poll

are work? I obviously haven't woken up yet. weak, I meant.

well, I find none of these songs great. Some are nice and alright. But I mean, we're talking about Lennon so no, they're not what I call great Lennon songs !

I'll keep 'Nobody Told Me', 'Woman' and 'Watching the Wheels' and maybe 'I'm Losing You', but that's about it.

agree

But my assessment - like some upthread - is biased due to hearing them when I was a kid

"Watching the Wheels" is probably the best of the bunch.

back to Sometime in NYC, this one in particular struck me as a pretty decent Spector-pop gem. Yoko does 60s girl-group!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe4jyGk3qIY

like there's actually a decent hook there

and feminist-call to arms-as-girl-group-ditty is p clever imo

There's some not bad tunes on that album, as long as you don't listen to the lyrics.

Watching the Wheels acoustic demo is his last masterpiece

"Whatever Gets You Through the Night" is a depressing experience to listen to: fagged-out, a submission to the sounds of the times

Is submission the right term, though? Lennon was quite enthusiastic about the era's hip discofied grooves in contemporary interviews. (I believe he did want a chart topper badly at the time, true.)

and it worked! his only #1 single. (which is sort of crazy)

his first #1 ("Starting Over" hit #1).

In the 1980 BBC interview he's quite touched that Elton helped him get his first #1 and John helped Bowie get his.

that was after he died, right?

"Starting Over" hitting #1, that is

right

Both Lennon and McCartney kept their eyes on the charts to check out the competition from the beginning, really... they were still doing this in the mid '70s, but Lennon was obviously paying more attention to US trends as a consequence of living there, where McCartney was paying attention more to the UK chart - he carried on doing this until at least Flowers in the Dirt, and never stopped working with contemporary producers.

Lennon was a fan of "Coming Up."

Can't remember where I read this but apparently "Coming Up" and the music video are what inspired Lennon to start writing songs again

He was writing songs throughout his "house husband" period, though!

was he? i thought he was pretty dormant creatively, busy "baking bread"... wasn't all of Double Fantasy/Milk & Honey written in 1980?

'Free as a Bird' was written in 1977, for one.

I mean, if anyone thinks a songwriter with instruments lying around the house can just switch off their creative impulses for five years, then y'know, that's just naive.

you're just talking metaphysical nonsense

https://i.imgur.com/y4YErKh.jpg

I understand what you mean and agree in a way but it is totally possible for a songwriter to go through a long period in which, for whatever reason, nothing gets done.
I mean, not comparing, but I have always made songs but at some times (personal issues, work, family, whatever), you can really spend years without making songs although there are instruments and all available.

Free as a Bird is not on Double Fantasy or Milk & Honey.

yeah obviously he probably noodled around but he was busy "breaking bread." i'm pretty sure he wrote most of if not all of DF & MH in 1980

No, but 'Free as a Bird' was still written in 1977, as was 'Now and Then', not to mention numerous other demos from 1975-1979 that have been heavily bootlegged and are out there if you can be arsed to seek them out.

But even though proof of Lennon writing songs during his "house husband" days exists, you're quite welcome to believe the mythology of him baking bread for five fucking years.

lol you realize that's a euphemism right? he was blasted on smack for many of those years. besides, the question was when he was inspired to make a new record, and it was the "Coming Up" video, and none of those bootlegged songs (to my knowledge) made it onto Double Fantasy or Milk & Honey.

idgi what's the basis for assuming he was "blasted on smack" while raising Sean

There was no "question", you out-and-out stated "apparently "Coming Up" and the music video are what inspired Lennon to start writing songs again", and I pointed out, correctly, that he'd never stopped writing songs. You're now changing this (because you're wrong) to "making a new record" which is something completely different.

(x-post, obviously)

The fact that the likes of 'Free as a Bird', 'Now and Then' and 'Real Life' didn't make it onto Double Fantasy or Milk and Honey is neither here nor there. They still got written.

it's fairly well documented, Jann Wenner says as much in his new bio, there's Robert Rosen's Nowhere Man (sourced from Lennon's diaries). even the Philip Norman bio has allusions to it. obviously the truth lies somewhere between the baking bread myth and the nightmare that Albert Goldman concocted. anyway the question is when did he write the songs on DF & MH - I don't know of any songs on those records written before 1980.

& should've been clear initially: it inspired him to start writing songs for a new record, with the intention of releasing it, not puttering about writing a song every six months or something

I can't imagine raising a baby while smacked out but I guess ppl do

Kurt & Courtney

also they obv had help, nannies, etc.

and what a bang-up job they did

How can you be sure that he wasn't intending on doing something with those songs when he wrote them? How can you be sure they weren't in contention? How do you even know how frequently Lennon was writing songs between 1975-1979? The answer to questions of course are: you can't be sure and you don't know.

We can only go off the evidence that exists, which is that he was still writing songs during his "house husband" days.

Now, Lennon might very well have heard 'Coming Up' and thought "hmm, I'd better get back in there and make a record", but that's something different. We know he hadn't made a record for years.

He'd let his record contract lapse- and signed a new one with Geffen for Double Fantasy, which was seen very much as comeback record:

PLAYBOY: "The word is out: John Lennon and Yoko Ono are back in the studio, recording again for the first time since 1975, when they vanished from public view. Let's start with you, John. What have you been doing?"
LENNON: "I've been baking bread and looking after the baby."

"baking bread" "looking after the baby"

https://i.imgur.com/TMLjbG8.gif

Yes, he'd let his record contract lapse and so what? He was John Lennon! I don't think he would have had a problem getting another record deal when he felt the need to look for one, and I'm pretty sure he knew it.

Even Stiff Records tried to sign Lennon.

Ha, right, they sent him a message saying, "$1000! And that's our final offer!" Lennon briefly (thought probably jokingly) entertained taking them up on it.

The timeframe probably doesn't line up, but imagine Lennon making the deal and then recording w/Rockpile* and/or The Attractions!

*Which reminds me of an anecdote from a recent Nick Lowe interview I read wherein he describes a scene from when Brinsley Schwarz opened for Wings. The Brinsleys were having an aftershow party and where singing Beatles songs when Paul shows. They were reluctant to continue because they were under the impression he was really trying to shake off "the Beatles thing", but he joined in, and Lowe noted that afterwards more and more Beatles songs started popping up in Wings sets.

Hard to reconcile his casual appreciation of “coming up” with “How do you sleep nightssssssss?”

Only a person who loved Paul could have written "How Do You Sleep?"