John Lennon Solo Albums Poll

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?"

'How Do You Sleep?' and 'Coming Up' were released 9 years apart. That's more time than The Beatles' recording career from 'Love Me Do' to Abbey Road.

For what it's worth, here's the Fred Seaman account of John's reaction to hearing 'Coming Up':

We were driving past a vast shopping mall, near Walt Whitman's birthplace, when a familiar voice boomed over the four speakers.

"Fuck a pig!" John shouted. "It's Paul!".

Indeed it was Paul McCartney's new hit single, "Coming Up', a catchy tune built around a repetitive staccato riff. John frowned, turned up the volume, and began to nod to the beat.

"Not bad," he said at the end of the song, sounded surprised and even somewhat disappointed. When the announcer mentioned that Paul played all the instruments himself, John mumbled something to the effect that it made perfect sense as Paul had always wanted to be a one-man band. John turned down the volume and fell silent for a while. Then he asked me to get him a copy of Paul's new album and set up a stereo system in his bedroom.....

The next day at breakfast, John hummed the melody of Paul's new single, which he said he could not get out of his head." It's driving me crackers!" he exclaimed cheerfully. He said the album was uneven, but he acknowledged that it was an unusually adventurous effort by Paul, and far superior to his previous release 'Back to the Egg' which John had dismissed as "garbage'. He gave Paul credit for trying his hand at something new.

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.

nah, not really. there is certainly a thing called "writers block". there is certainly a thing called "creative burnout". as a musician there is nothing more that helps the quality of my work than taking a break. it's not like being a creative person is this all consuming thing going at 100% your entire life. like anything, especially to do with creativity/emotional/imaginative intelligence there are rhythms, there are ups and downs, fluxuations. but you tend to have unrealistic demands from your artists.

There's no evidence to suggest that Lennon had writers block, though.

a five year gap between albums might be one piece of evidence, js

are we like required now to have an extremely stupid argument about the beatles on this board once a month

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.

I mean, I’ve heard the one about when The Basher was electrocuted more than once, so...

a five year gap between albums might be one piece of evidence, js

― FREEZE! FYI! (dog latin), Thursday, November 23, 2017 4:47 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This proves nothing other than he didn't release an album for five years, which of course everybody knows. Everything else is just pure speculation, but we do know he was writing songs during that period because evidence of that actually exists.

So, what, 20, 30 songs?

More?

Maybe he wrote 500 songs.

20, 30, 500 songs, still lazy. only if he had come up with an album concept singles release schedule and branding schema now we would be talking real creativity

Everything else is just pure speculation, but we do know he was writing songs during that period because evidence of that actually exists.

― Gholdfish Killah (Turrican), Thursday, November 23, 2017 6:39 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You never answered my question.

I did, it's above.

How many songs did he write in that period, is the question.

I genuinely don't know and you seem to.

Can someone explain the love for “Whatever Gets You Through the Night”? There’s virtually no tune to speak of, the arrangement is this godawful Steve Douglas disco groove that somehow doesn’t groove. And the lyrics leave no impression whatsoever.

How on earth this became his biggest hit remains a mystery to me.

(x-post)

Yeah, and I already answered it!

What, three songs?

Can someone explain the love for “Whatever Gets You Through the Night”? There’s virtually no tune to speak of, the arrangement is this godawful Steve Douglas disco groove that somehow doesn’t groove. And the lyrics leave no impression whatsoever.

How on earth this became his biggest hit remains a mystery to me.

― Naive Teen Idol, Saturday, November 25, 2017 7:30 PM (thirty-seven seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It wasn't anywhere near as successful on the UK chart as it was on the US one - I suspect that's because Lennon, as a consequence of living in America at that point, was pretty much paying attention to American trends rather than British ones. I'm unsure as to how much Elton John being on it would have helped his chart position in the US, it didn't do much for it here.

x-post to Tom D:

Everything else is just pure speculation, but we do know he was writing songs during that period because evidence of that actually exists.
― Gholdfish Killah (Turrican), Thursday, November 23, 2017 6:39 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

― Gholdfish Killah (Turrican), Saturday, November 25, 2017 7:20 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So how many songs did he write?

Yeah, I'm not repeating it again. If you didn't grasp it the first time, there's no hope for you.

this is the worst argument currently running on ILX

Yeah, can't disagree with that.

It is indeed ridiculous and completely incomprehensible.

My father has the NY Post from some point shortly after his death when the headline was “YOKO: DON’T BLAME N.Y.”

And right beneath it is a photo of John’s face in his coffin. Brutal tabloid shit

(xx-post)

I agree, so far we've had people saying that Lennon suffered from writers block from 1975-1979 when there's no evidence to support this. His lack of releases during this period only proves that he didn't release anything, it doesn't prove he didn't write anything, and there is evidence that he had been writing songs during that period. All of this is based on fact. Everything else is speculation.

It's ridiculously SO not difficult to grasp.

why on earth is this important to you

LOL yes!

(xp) So all you say is, "I don't know how many songs he wrote in this period, I'm not sure I can even provide a rough estimate, but I know he wrote some songs, I know the names of three of them". Goodnight Vienna... hold on that's Ringo.

*penny_falling_in_slow_motion.gif*

*golf_clap.wav*

Finally!

like to be clear, turrican, sure, your version of events where lennon was writing tons of songs on the regular is plausible! totally! so is the version where he had writer's block. or just lost the muse or wasn't focused on songwriting. or whatever! they're all speculative guesses into the life of an artist we all like. this is called "interpretation," and it is something fans and critics do both with the content of the work and the lives of the artists.

adopting your i-have-the-objective-facts-and-everyone-else-is-wrong tone (where your take is right and other people's just show they've been sidetracked by "mythology"), which you've now done back-to-back across two different beatles-related threads (completely derailing whatever other conversation might have been possible), is condescending to all other posters and also just really boring as a mode of conversation. i don't know what you're getting out of it unless you just get a kick out of trying to get a rise out of people (aka trolling), in this case for a week straight on one fairly narrow point.

(x-post)

The amount of bootlegged demo recordings that have so far made it out of Lennon's personal achives is irrelevant - it proves that Lennon was writing songs, it does not prove he had writers block. Facts are facts and logic is logic.

in a world where you weren't being a complete junior-high-school music nerd authority about this, someone would probably have the energy to engage in a friendly discussion about how writers' block takes different forms, is not an on-off state change, and is not mutually exclusive with having written some songs at some point in a five year period. people might even share from their own personal experiences or make informed or off-the-wall comparisons with other artists. you know, like a bunch of friendly people talking about music they like might.

but given the bigger problems here i mean why bother? you're not interested in engaging with any of these points of view; you just want to defend lennon against the apparently heretical speculation that he might not have written all that much material in the late 1970s.

like to be clear, turrican, sure, your version of events where lennon was writing tons of songs on the regular is...

...*record scratch noise* Yeah, stop there. That's your wording, not mine. I said he was writing songs and there is evidence to support this. This is fact.

I also did say "everything else is speculation" didn't I? Yes, I did. Several times, which I shouldn't have really needed to do.

I would have been happily done with this conversation two days ago, and I would have been if I wasn't forced to repeat myself.

Hahaha wtf
This is pure entertainment

Is there not a thread on ILM about writers block already?

Apologies but you do realize that writer's block doesn't necessarily mean that the sufferer produces absolutely no work whatsoever.

Can someone explain the love for “Whatever Gets You Through the Night”? There’s virtually no tune to speak of, the arrangement is this godawful Steve Douglas disco groove that somehow doesn’t groove. And the lyrics leave no impression whatsoever.

How on earth this became his biggest hit remains a mystery to me.

― Naive Teen Idol, Saturday, November 25, 2017 11:30 AM (one hour ago)

I always liked this record, not as something particularly tuneful (although the whole thing is sung in harmony). I like it as some kind of rhythm record. Doesn't strike me as a disco groove, I don't really know what it is. Do not like the mix.