jorgelito

John Lennon died 26 years ago today, shot by a lunatic in front of his home. The world lost a great artist.

I always wondered what music he would have produced in his later years. He was always my favorite Beatle. I thought his song writing was excellent. My favorites include Across the Universe, Strawberry Fields, and In My Life. Solo works I like are Watching the Wheels and Woman. There's something about his compositions that is so flawed, raw and imperfect that gives the songs a certain feel that really resonated with me in contrast to Paul's music which just seems so bland and humanless.

How about you? Who was your favorite Beatle? What do you remember or like most about John Lennon?

Rest in Peace John. The world misses you.

P.S. - I can't believe Pan did not post this, it just feels....wrong

ratbastid

It's okay. Pan will be along any minute, I'm sure.

What I always loved about John was how real he was in his music. Even when Phil Specter had him completely over-produced, he still managed to sound like he was right in the room with you.

In my opinion, his pieces of "A Day in the Life" are some of the most beautiful sounds ever recorded.

jt6879

I found this thread late, but have to comment, I really didn't like John Lennon. I still don't cant get into the artsy fartsy music

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warrrreagl

I must be slipping - a John Lennon thread and I wasn't the TFPer who came to mind....

The best damn rhythm guitarist I ever heard. If you don't believe it, just TRY to play those damn triplet strums on "All My Loving."

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Living is easy with eyes closed.

pan6467

Yes, Paul was the commercial one, just lay bills down and watch him write a tune, Ringo was always too out of it to know anything and George was learning, but hadn't found a voice... and unfortunately never truly did.

Think everyone knows which is my favorite. Just in case, it's John.

I remember every day what he taught, what he had to say. To quote another band (sorta) "He was just a singer in a rock and roll band", and yes, his life was complicated and parts were very hypocritical, but yet what he was able to say not just in his music but in public...... is beautiful.

He knew the US would try to deport him for spying on the war, he knew his record sales would flounder and that people would turn away from him when he spoke out..... and yet he did. He used his fame like no other before, he used it to help, teach and to try to change the world.

His voice was one that could not be purchased. You didn't see him writing James Bond songs or Coca Cola commercials. He even walked away from the whole madness just to raise his kid.

Funny, but true story...... the first night Lady Sage came to my apartment, I played John Lennon's DVD "IMAGINE". There are some scenes of Yoko and John and they show how much they were in love and just be who they wanted to..... I turned to Lady Sage and told her, that was how I saw love. Being able to just go out in public have fun, enjoy ourselves, do stuff that is just silly but you do it because you are so in love you're doing it and not realizing it....everyone else and embarassment be damned.

And ya know what...... I have that woman and that kind of love.

Amen....... we truly need a voice like his now.

Why? It was someone else's turn... I had last year, better to hear others' voices than just mine go on about him.

My favorite songs by Lennon;

Watching the Wheels..... one of the most beautiful songs ever written, very deep. I use it as a recovery song in groups, I play it then ask the clients to write what the song means to them, how it depicts addiction and recovery.

Power to the People..... a song that grabs you, a song we need to see more people listening to and singing.

Love is.... just so simple and yet says so much.

Finally, I must recommend that if you haven't watch Lennon on Dick Cavett or guest hosting for Mike Douglass..... very deep in many ways.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

mixedmedia

My favorite Beatle was John.

But I think it's a little harsh to dismiss the other three as "bland and meaningless," "out of it" and "never finding a voice." In fact, I think that is quite rude and disrespectful. I love The Beatles and it took all four of them for there to be The Beatles.

I enjoy the solo work that all of them did, but the four of them together were a phenomena that none of them managed to recapture on their own.

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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

roachboy

it is a shame that john lennon was killed as he was, in the same way that it is a shame that anyone is killed in parallel ways, for no reason, absurdly.
i do not think he is a martyr.
i do not find him to be a culture hero.
but it is a shame.

i know this is a kind of memorial thread, so i'll say this:

on the beatles:
even though endless repetition has driven a stake into the heart of most of their recorded output for me, there are things that i still think are interesting and that make me happy when i hear them--usually it is the tape loop work, like at the end of strawberry fields, the whole of tomorrow never knows (still my favorite beatles song), revolution no. 9....much of which was john's doings...and i can still listen to "revolver" from time to time.

frankly, the beatles are not the only group that i started out being really into that repetition has destroyed for me: bob marley and the wailers are another--i need to hear the old original studio one tracks to listen to him any more---in both cases even though i know that these are great musicians and really great songwriters. repetition is too big. these are among the pleasures the degeneration of commercial radio destroyed.

another band reduced to total sonic debris, same cause: led zeppelin.
they started out simpler, so the destruction was absolute.

anyway, finding out more about george martin's background as radio producer and expert tape manipulator made me think about them differently...which is something, considering the depth of the repetition effect.

of john's solo stuff, i have to say that i am only still at all interested in some of the plastic ono band stuff. working class hero.

i think george is still underrated, as the first triple lp has tons of great stuff on it: many of george's beatles tunes were as good or better than the central combine's work.
but george succumbed to facile pop bloat soon thereafter, and i dont remember anything interesting me after the concert for bengaladesh came out.

ringo. why?

paul.
paul paul paul.
paul.
ugh.
in the seemingly endless field of stuff that is his solo output, he put out some stuff that can only be understood as a kind of 4 minute life-sucking void of such awful power that words nearly fail.
ebony and ivory for example.
but that is not the worst.
there are others whose horrifying nature is such that i cannot look directly onto them.
the sonic equivalent of h.p. lovecraft's old gods.
ghastly.
just ghastly.

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

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Average_Joe

One day a long time ago, I was waiting in a subway station in Boston for the next train, and there was a street performer playing an electric keyboard in the station as well. A couple minutes after I got there, he started playing "Imagine". A group of students in the 16-18 age group arrived to wait for the subway, and they started singing the words to "Imagine", then more people started singing, until it seemed the whole population of the subway station was standing there singing and smiling and having a great time. Students, businessmen, older people....lots of different types of people. During the song, the subway arrived, and only a few people got on. The rest stayed to finish the song.

It was one of the most beautiful and surreal experiences I ever had.

warrrreagl

John was there. Beautiful story.

I teach college music appreciation to a largely hip-hop demographic, yet I persist in doing a unit on Beatles every semester. Without fail, the one song they DEMAND to hear is "Imagine." Always "Imagine." They've heard plenty of other Beatles and solo-Beatles songs their whole lives without knowing what they were, but each class sits totally still and reverant while I play "Imagine."

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pan6467

"Bland and meaningless" did not cross my keyboard. Commercial and no real substance is Paul. I'm a big Wings fan and I am probably one of the few in this forum that has watched "Give my Regards to Broad Street" (Paul's 80's movie) and liked it. But that doesn't change the fact that solo he really never took many stands against anything, I can't think of anything controversial ever coming out of Paul, as an icon in the music industry he is, in life, he isn't.

As for my assessment on Ringo, those are words that actually came from a well regarded Beatle biographer on the Today show in the early 90's.

George did find a voice but it was not public, again that's not supposed to be derogatory.

Those are just my opinions based on research and learning what I could about them.

As for the band, yes they were great but they also had the best of the best behind them building them and making them. Brian Epstein, George Martin, and the guys behind the scenes were great marketers. They may have started as a touring band but they were a long way from that at the end. At the end every move, every album's support single and their appearances were well planned and thought out and Paul was the man who kept the focus that way.

I think the only thing they did that was totally unscripted (as far as the band went) was the Let it Be concert on top of Apple Studio.

I think it was what truly destroyed them, the fun was gone. They lost who they were and each sought different ways to find themselves afterward.

John became extremely social and wanting to use his stardom to better society. Perhaps, it was nothing more than rebellion for the rigorous and tightly agendized situation he came from. In no way does that belittle what he did, but it may have been his true motivation for moves like being the stay at home dad and dropping out of music all together for 7 years. Or, maybe as some believe he went from one manipulation to another in Yoko.

Paul just found a money lust, had Linda's brother and the Eastman family showing him how to make it and keep it.

George went full throttle into religion and then stayed more in the shadows and behind the scenes (producing a majority of Monty Python's works).

Ringo was Ringo, and it took until the 80's for him to dry out and truly do anything, Ringo's all star band. I think out of all 4, Ringo is the most under rated and overlooked, simply because he didn't do much after the break and a lot of what he did do, (other than tour with his "All Starr Band") was with Paul or Paul's help. (Caveman, Ringo's movie, was made solely as repayment for being in Paul's movie.)

No matter the case, this does make good conversation and debate, at least for me.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

mixedmedia

You're right, Pan, you didn't use that term and I'm so sorry. I'm at a loss for where that came from. I guess I deduced it from your actual comment about Paul.

As for Paul, he made an enormous creative contribution to The Beatles and I am a big fan of his early solo and Wings work, too. I tend to not to give him too much grief for his latter day work because this sort of thing is very typical of musicians who manage to stay in the business for so long. Take Stevie Wonder, for instance, his cohort on Ebony and Ivory. It doesn't take away from my appreciation for his earlier work or the respect I have for him as a formative member of arguably the greatest rock band of all time.

George most certainly came into his own. All Things Must Pass is probably my favorite solo Beatle album. Again, some of his later work was a bit on the "pop" side, but it's also important not dismiss the entire body of his later work on the basis of the couple of singles from those albums. Even still, I like I've Got My Mind Set On You - maybe I'm just biased, though - I can find something to like in anything Beatle. Then there is the Traveling Wilburys - of which he was key in its formation and direction.

Yes, Ringo didn't do as much after The Beatles and yes, we can be frank, he simply is not as talented a musician or songwriter as the other three, but I like the solo work that he did and I believe his presence and personality were key to the cosmic stew that could only be The Beatles - of which no single part was expendable.

I'm sorry again for misconstruing your words and I suppose as long as we are both humongoid Beatles fans we will always have something we can agree on.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

pig

m2, pan, re: paul, bland, etc - problem solved!

I have a huge respect for the beatles, but i don't think i'm as strongly torn about john's passing as others. he was truly talented, in that quirky virtuoso way that i find somewhat mesmerizing.

as far as the other stuff: i think that regardless of management tactics and so forth, the beatles were a gestalt entity that combined for while for incredible greatness. the analysis we can do now is secondary - they were what they were.

didn't ringo do some work with tom petty? i mean, he obviously was a talented musician - you just can't suck and play with the beetles, and then sort of half-ass it through the other people he played with. maybe he didn't reinvent musical dexterity, but shit.

george + roy orbison + tom petty + jeff lynne + bob dylan? yeah, i'd say the wilburry's were ok.

in closing - its awful to have lost such a talented artist in the way that he passed - but he made a pretty good go of it. hats off to john.

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mixedmedia

Whew, I'm not totally insane. Thanks, pigglet.

I'm not saying that Ringo had no talent. Just that he wasn't....oh, I don't know. I don't want to speak bad of him. I love him just the way he is...whatever that is.

And I also wanted to mention George Martin in the post above and forgot. I certainly do not discount the influence he had on the band and on their music, especially after their decision not to tour anymore and become more experimental in the studio. He truly was the fifth Beatle in some ways...no offense to Billy Preston.

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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

bobby

VISITORS TO THIS THREAD MIGHT LIKE THIS....

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=110748

XOXOXOO............BOBBY

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Carno

Who the fuck are the Beatles?

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Ch'i

Its easy if you try. John Lennon's political activism was as strong as his songs, and resounded just as loudly. Truly a great man.

A Roman philosopher named Seneca once said "Life, if thou knowest how to use it, is long enough." I'll spend some time celebrating his life.

pan6467

For those wanting a lil You tube of 3 greats (you'll just have to and see who the other 2 are)

I just want to know wtf Yoko is doing????????

part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XquQ...elated&search=

part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcKB0...elated&search=

A very funny piece

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u63Q4pCfKg

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

lurkette

I love about John Lennon how he evolved. He took his position as a cultural icon and used it to help raise people's consciousness. I know everyone hates Yoko but I think she had that influence on him, or at least helped him make it more a part of his public persona. Not that I'm "glad" he died, but I can see how his death made his life and his music more meaningful. We missed out on the music he would have created, but in a way if he had carried on, maybe it would have made him just another aging rocker trying to be relevant. Somehow I think he would have found his voice no matter what, but as it is, that "Imagine" voice is what remains most strongly of him.

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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

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