Fab Foundations # 10: “Visceral”

(Personal reflections inspired by Beatles songs)

Song: “Jealous Guy”
Album: Imagine (John Lennon solo album)
Release Date: September 1971

In the mid-70s’ I began expanding my Beatles experience beyond the band when I purchased the John Lennon album Shaved Fish, which I spotted at a flea market for a bargain-basement price. I was unaware at the time that this was not an original album, but a collection of Lennon’s early 70s singles, along with the bigger hits from his first 3 albums, and as anyone who reads this blog site on a regular basis knows, I’m not one for “Greatest Hits” albums. In hindsight, though, Shaved Fish, like the Who’s Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy was important, for the very reason that it did indeed contain those singles (such as “Give Peace a Chance”) which were not otherwise available unless you tracked the given single down (easier said than done). Anyhow, not long after purchasing, I converted the album to tape cassette so I could listen elsewhere, including in the car. 

I had this tape on my possession one summer for a family vacation with my parents and my five siblings. Virtually all of our family vacations in the 70s were of the road-trip variety, be it north into Quebec, south to Washington D.C., west to Niagara Falls, east to Bar Harbor, Maine, or anywhere in between. There was a lot of time to kill in the VW Bus and much of that would be spent listening to music. We had quite a range of tastes in music amongst the eight of us, and we all contributed to the playlist, but I have to say I may have taken the cake with that John Lennon tape in terms of pushing the envelope.

One song off the album is titled “Woman is the Nigger of the World”, a not-so-subtle lament which needs no further explanation as to its meaning. The title is repeated often enough in the song to get the point across. Another song, “Cold Turkey”, is about heroin withdrawal, which has John Lennon convincingly moaning in agony over and over as the song labors its way to a conclusion. There’s plenty of other juicy stuff on the album too. Mom and Dad, God Bless them, let me play Shaved Fish in its entirety, and not just once, but a handful of times. Loudly. That summer it was all just part of the soundtrack of our road trip, and I was made to feel comfortable listening to it.

Looking back now, as I write this blog, I think to myself: How did I get to the point of finding the music off of Shaved Fish worthy of my repeated attention, never mind to the degree that I was compelled enough to expose my family to it?  The songs off the album were revolutionary and rebellious, trippy and idealist, a longing for what could have been, and what could be. I was just your average, every day kid growing up in the 70s.  I had a great upbringing. What gives? I suppose I could equate my interest in that music to how my brother felt while tapping into the anti-authority Punk movement of the late 70s (as did I, to a lesser degree) or my son cranking rebellious Rap Music many years later in my car (I kept Mom and Dad’s tolerance in mind for many of these moments). Even so, what was going on in my head?  In all our heads? What leads to this?

Speaking for myself, it begins with that timely Shaved Fish purchase. Let me back up a bit to take it from there.


For as much as I was fascinated by the Beatles as a band while in my teens, I quickly ended up becoming equally fascinated in what they did individually after the fact, and I can give credit to that innocent flea-market act for sparking it. One big reason for my post-Beatles fascination was that I came of age in the 70s, after the band had broken up, making the ongoing lives of John, Paul, George and Ringo’s in that decade and beyond a bit more familiar and real to me than what had occurred prior (side note: I have but one vague Beatles-related memory when they were still together in the 60s; an image of a spectacled, long-haired John Lennon in a magazine – Life or Time or something like that - whom my parents helped me identify). Another big reason was that there was always speculation and hope during that decade that a Beatles reunion was in the works. In the meantime, however, there was plenty going on with each band member to keep the buzz alive and well.

The ex-Beatle who had the greatest effect on me during that 70s period was John Lennon, which is most likely the case for a majority of other fans of the band too. In fact, for me it was not even close. For one thing, Lennon always had a knack for making news in ways that the others did not. In the 70’s those newsworthy items included his ‘Bed-Ins for Peace’ (with Yoko); his clashes with the Nixon Administration that nearly got him deported; his “Lost Weekend” in Los Angeles (that lasted over a year); his “House Husband” years in seclusion; his comeback; and finally his tragic murder (which I will be addressing later this year, upon the 40^th anniversary of that sad December day when the music died).

An added boost in terms of my connecting with Lennon was that he lived in New York City, which was a tangible, accessible place to me, being a native of nearby Massachusetts. For many years I had a postcard on my refrigerator of John Lennon giving the peace sign in front of the Statue of Liberty. Not soon after putting it there, I emulated this at the very same Liberty Island location – trench coat, Lennon-style sunglasses, Irish cap, peace sign and all - and placed my photo side by side with his postcard.

Mostly however, John Lennon’s effect on me in that first post-Beatle decade (the only decade, as it would turn out, that us 70s kids would end up experiencing with all 4 band members) was through his songs, which were musically and lyrically visceral. This intuitive approach to his craft was in contrast to much of his Beatles output, which could often be either surreal (“Strawberry Fields Forever”, “A Day in the Life”) or dreamy (“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, “Across the Universe”) or filled with word play (“Tomorrow Never Knows”, “Come Together”, “I Am the Walrus”). It is true, Lennon also wrote straight-up, crystal-clear-meaning songs while with the Beatles (“Help”, “In My Life”, “All You Need is Love”) but during his solo career, this intuitive approach to songwriting would predominate.

At the same time, those 70s songs of his packed a punch, hence the visceral descriptive. Think about it….in just about every case, Lennon’s solo songs were straight-from-the-gut and easy to understand lyrically, but also strong and vibrant musically. The titles alone pretty much told the story, even before you heard a single note. There was “Jealous Guy” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wADRRYNHhOA ), “Give Peace a Chance”, “Happy X-Mas (War is Over)”, “Mother”, “Imagine”, “Woman”, “Starting Over”, “Watching the Wheels”, “Power to the People”, “Mind Games”, “Working Class Hero”, “Gimme Some Truth”, “Crippled Inside”, “How Do You Sleep”, ”Whatever Gets You Through the Night”, “Instant Karma”, and yes, “Intuition”. The list goes on.  

In other words, what you see is what you get.  For a teenage kid, there was so much complex stuff in the world to figure out already, including lyrics of many Beatles and other musicians’ songs I loved. I’d also started going to concerts around then and the lyrics from the songs that were being sung in those shows could be difficult to understand. Hey, don’t get me wrong, it was all a great part of the process of growing up. But it was refreshing to get the ‘straight dope’ for a change, and John Lennon offered that. “Gimme Some Truth” indeed. 

This week I got to thinking, was John Lennon’s impact more important in the 60s with the Beatles, or in the 70s after the fact? It’s a tough one. In the 70s Lennon showed the next wave of rock-and-rollers how not to sell out. In fact, he went in the opposite direction, to the point where one could argue he was committing artistic suicide; taking on big protest-related topics like the war in Vietnam, greed, and the struggles of woman around the world ...to the point of backlash. He stirred the pot. This fact alone makes a strong case for his 70s output. There was nothing clandestine or plastic about it (despite his band’s name), and man-oh-man, can that ever appeal to a teenager.

Few have taken a greater leap of faith than John Lennon did in the late 60’s and early 70’s.  Lennon had it made in all walks of life but abandoned it all in search of his version of truth, which centered on his relationship with Yoko Ono.  An early sign of his self-imposed exile from mainstream society was when he returned his British MBE award to Queen Elizabeth with the note, “Your majesty, I am returning this in protest against Britain’s involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam, and against my single ‘Cold Turkey’ slipping down in the charts” (though leaving much behind, Lennon’s wit remained intact).  Quite a departure from the mop-top grand entrance he made into the USA in 1964. 

Although I walk a different path, I truly appreciate what John Lennon did in his short life after the Beatles.  I feel it was in his nature to do so. The man had his ups and downs, like all of us (just listen to his Imagine album to get both ends of that spectrum).  But there was no sugar coating. And there was nary a dishonest bone in his body.  Teenagers can sense that sort of thing and are willing to break from the norm if only to listen.

- Pete