This is the third of my what-if-the-Beatles-hadn't-broken-up Beatles albums, the first two of which were 1970's What Is Life and 1971's Working Class Heroes. This one would have been released in early 1972. As noted below and in my post on Working Class Heroes, I should have put "It's So Hard" on this album and "I Found Out" on this one, but until I have time to redo all of them, I'm just posting my original track listing and liner notes. The title for this one was the first to violate my original intention to avoid using the titles of any actual solo albums, but it proved to hard to resist in this case (and in the case of one later album in the series).
Imagine
Imagine (Lennon) 3:06 (1971/09/09)
Isn't It A Pity (Harrison) 7:08 (1970/11/27)
Tomorrow (McCartney/McCartney) 3:24 (1971/12/07)
Jealous Guy (Lennon) 4:17 (1971/09/09)
Bangla Desh (Harrison) (1971/07/28)
Another Day (McCartney/McCartney) 3:41 (1971/02/19)
Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp (Harrison) 3:04
Ram On (McCartney) (1971/05/17)
Crippled Inside (Lennon) (1971/09/09)
I Found Out (Lennon) 3:36 (1970/12/11)
Back Off Boogaloo (Starkey) 3:24 (1972/03/17)
Mumbo (McCartney/McCartney) (1971/12/07)
Give Me Some Truth (Lennon) 3:18 (1971/09/09)
Total Time - 49:21
Imagine
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Recorded 1971/06-07; Released 1971/09/09
From Imagine
Isn't It A Pity
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Drums (on about half of the album, no details available): Ringo Starr
Recorded Mid 1970; Released 1970/11/27
From All Things Must Pass
Tomorrow
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney; Performed by Wings
Recorded 1971/07; Released 1971/12/07
From Wild Life
Jealous Guy
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Recorded 1971/06-07; Released 1971/09/09
From Imagine
Bangla Desh
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Recorded 1971/07; Released 1971/07/28
Single
Another Day
Written and Performed by Paul and Linda McCartney
Recorded 1971/01; Released 1971/02/19
Single
Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp
Written and Performed by George Harrison
Drums (on about half of the album, no details available): Ringo Starr
Recorded Mid 1970; Released 1970/11/27
From All Things Must Pass
Ram On
Written and Performed by Paul and Linda McCartney
Recorded 1971/01-03; Released 1971/05/17
From Ram
Crippled Inside
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Dobro: George Harrison
Recorded 1971/06-07; Released 1971/09/09
From Imagine
I Found Out
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Drums: Ringo Starr
Recorded 1970/09-10; Released 1970/12/11
From Plastic Ono Band
Back Off Boogaloo
Written and Performed by Richard Starkey (Ringo Starr)
Guitar and Production: George Harrison
Recorded 1971-2?; Released 1972/03/17
Single
Mumbo
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney; Performed by Wings
Recorded 1971/07; Released 1971/12/07
From Wild Life
Give Me Some Truth
Written and Performed by John Lennon
Guitar: George Harrison
Recorded 1971/06-07; Released 1971/09/09
From Imagine
The third post-Beatles "Beatles" album is powered mainly by songs from John, specifically from his second solo album Imagine, which along with Plastic Ono Band is generally regarded as one of his two best solo albums. Strictly speaking "I Found Out" (a track from Plastic Ono Band) should have been on Working Class Heroes, while "It's So Hard" (a track from Imagine which I put on Working Class Heroes) should have been on this one. But it was only after I did Working Class Heroes that I decided to make use of more tracks from Plastic Ono Band. Originally I had limited myself to four tracks from any particular album (except George's All Things Must Pass, since it was a triple album), but afterward I decided that it would be a shame not to include more from the better albums, especially since many of the later albums by the various ex-Beatles lacked so much strong material. Another track that was a particularly strong contender from Plastic Ono Band was "Look At Me", which is one of the older compositions on the album (John noted that it was "pre-Janov", referring to the primal scream therapy he went through with Arthur Janov which led to most of the other soul-searching tracks on the album). But since it is a quiet, more ballad-like tune and this album already had two ballads from John ("Jealous Guy" and "Imagine"), I decided it made more sense to include a heavier song like "I Found Out".
"Imagine" and "Jealous Guy" were fairly obvious choices. Regardless of how one feels about the idealistic lyrics (which John later said Yoko should have been co-credited for, as he based them on something she had written), "Imagine" unquestionably had the greatest impact of all of John's post-1970 efforts and is in fact one of the most well known songs he ever wrote. "Jealous Guy" is also one of his best-known tracks. The music for this song dates back to the White Album period, though at the time it had different lyrics and was entitled "Child Of Nature". "Give Me Some Truth" is one of the best rockers on Imagine and, along with "I Found Out", makes a good counterbalance to the ballads. For the final selection from Imagine, I ended up choosing "Crippled Inside" over "How?" (another ballad), mainly because the jaunty music is something of a departure for John, but also because the lyrics, while vicious, are pretty well written. The song is obviously an attack on hypocrisy, and a few critics view it as an attack on Paul in particular (presumably because of the line about looking cute), though most do not. As far as I know, no one ever asked John to clarify his target, perhaps because all attention was focused on the song from Imagine which clearly was an attack on Paul, "How Do You Sleep?" (not the same as the song "How?" mentioned above). In that case there was no question about who the song was about ("The only thing you ever did was yesterday, now you're just another day"), though John defended it as a response to songs on Ram like "Too Many People". [And he later made clear that the hostility in the song was a spur of the moment emotional thing; in later years he and Paul even hung out together.]
Paul, meanwhile was going through a relatively fallow period, though as by far the most prolific of the four, he still had plenty of songs to choose from, some of which are not bad. "Another Day" was written in 1969 and was actually released before Ram, having been recorded at the beginning of the Ram sessions, and was Paul's first post-Beatles single. While I don't think it's quite as good as the best material on his first two albums, it's catchy and has a lyric which is better than many others he wrote. From Ram I decided to include one more song, and the short but pleasant "Ram On" was my choice (I also considered "Smile Away").
Paul followed Ram with his first Wings album, Wild Life. This is commonly rated as one of the worst albums of his career. This is not without justification, as it is sloppily recorded and contains some pretty poor material. Despite this, it is not entirely without merit. All Music Guide, while generally negative, calls it "frustrating and amazing", and "a pop record like no other", and Mojo gives a revisionist view, actually including it in The Mojo Collection: The Greatest Albums of All Time. "Tomorrow" is a standout track, and the opening track, "Mumbo", while not containing any actual lyrics (considering the kind of lyrics Paul sometimes wrote, this may not be a bad thing), is a decent rocker. Other tracks from the album which I considered were the title track and "Dear Friend", with the latter an especially strong contender, but unfortunately both were a little too long.
George's contributions include two more tracks from All Things Must Pass, and a single from the summer of 1971. "Isn't It A Pity" is one of the best known album tracks from All Things Must Pass, and "Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp" is one of the other many solid songs from the album. "Bangla Desh", meanwhile, was George's first effort to help that country recover from the aftereffects of the war in which it became independent. He followed this with his massive Concert For Bangladesh, which was the first major rock charity concert and an inspiration for later concerts such as Live Aid, though its actual effectiveness was limited by red tape and record company greed. The friend mentioned in the song who asked George to help was of course Ravi Shankar (he was not actually from Bangladesh, but was from neighboring West Bengal).
As for Ringo, he still hadn't come out with a regular pop album, but he did release a single in 1972 to follow up "It Don't Come Easy". This song, "Back Off Boogaloo", was another hit. At the time, some interpreted it as being about Paul (supposedly "Boogaloo" was a nickname the other Beatles sometimes called him, though I haven't seen any reliable source for this), but while the lyrics do lend themselves somewhat to that interpretation, Ringo later said it was based on something his friend Marc Bolan used to say. In any case, while it's hardly as good as his previous single, it is a fair effort and is a credible contribution to the album.
No comments:
Post a Comment