In October 1973, John Lennon enlisted the help of infamous producer Phil Spector to record an album. However, it didn’t all go exactly to plan for Lennon as he had recently split from Yoko Ono, became a regular at clubs all around Los Angeles, and fashioned a reputation for drunken antics as he slipped into his self-proclaimed “lost weekend.”
Meanwhile, a rapidly deteriorating Spector wasn’t holding up much better. He took the tapes from the sessions that they had actually managed to record and left Lennon with nothing. Ordinarily, this would have been bad enough, but the threat of legal action already hung over the former Beatles member’s head. “It started in ’73 with Phil and fell apart. I ended up as part of a mad, drunken scene in Los Angeles and I finally finished it off on my own,” Lennon later told Rolling Stone. “And there were still problems with it up to the minute it came out. I can’t begin to say, it’s just barmy. There’s a jinx on that album.”
The record, which would finally go on to be released in 1975, was entitled Rock and Roll and featured 13 covers from the ’50s and ’60s which Lennon had a particular fondness for. The whole reason for it being made in the first place though stemmed from six years earlier when the Beatles were recording Abbey Road. Come Together was the first track on the album which was released 47 years ago this week [September 26th]. Initially devised as a campaign song for psychologist and political activist Timothy Leary, Lennon changed it significantly once he got it into the studio.
In June 1969, Lennon conducted a “bed-in” with his wife Yoko to promote peace in the world. Among the guests who came to see him at his hotel where he was staying was Leary. Seen as a key component of the counterculture movement of the ’60s, Leary had designs on getting into power. He visited Lennon in the hope that the Beatle would be able to write a campaign song for him, as he plotted against Ronald Reagan in the race to become governor of California.
“Come together, join the party,” was Leary’s slogan that he was planning to run with.
Lennon agreed to support him and tried to come up with a song which utilised the slogan. However, he was unsuccessful. “I tried and tried, but I couldn’t come up with it,” Lennon remembered in Playboy. “But I came up with this – Come Together. It would’ve been no good to him. You couldn’t have a campaign song like that, right?”
Ultimately, Leary wouldn’t end up running for the position after he was imprisoned for cannabis possession. This freed Lennon up and allowed him to then take the song into the studio to show his bandmates. “The thing was created in the studio,” Lennon said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HONxwhwmgU
However once Leary was released from jail, he wasn’t too impressed when he heard the reworked version of the song that was meant to be for his campaign. He subsequently sent a letter to Lennon expressing his disappointment. “He replied with typical charm and wit,” Leary said of the response he got back. “He said that he was a tailor and I was a customer who had ordered a suit and never returned. So he sold it to someone else.”
When Lennon played one of the first incarnations of the song to the other Beatles, Paul McCartney immediately voiced his concern. “John acknowledged it was rather close to it,” McCartney said, when discussing its similarities to Chuck Berry’s 1956 single You Can’t Catch Me. “So I said, ‘Well, anything you can do to get away from that?’ I suggested that we tried it swampy – ‘swampy’ was the word I used. So we did, we took it right down. I laid that bass line down which very much makes the mood.”
Despite the instrumentation being changed significantly, Lennon decided to keep the opening lyric “Here come old flat-top, he come grooving up slowly.” When the executives at Chuck Berry’s label, Big Seven, eventually heard the song though they sued Lennon for plagiarism. They cited it as being too similar to Berry’s original lyric, “Here come a flat-top, he’s moving up with me.”
Morris Levy, Berry’s publisher, sued Lennon in 1973, after the singer had admitted to its similarities in an interview. This then resulted in a number of suits brought against Lennon, while he countersued Levy in an ugly exchange. By the end of it Lennon settled out of court and agreed to record three songs which Levy’s company owned the copyright for. The Beatles had long since broken up and all four members were now solo artists. So Lennon agreed that his next album would feature the chosen songs; however, he abandoned the ’73 sessions and released Walls And Bridges instead.
Yet more legal issues were caused by this release. Sensing that Lennon wasn’t going to hold up his end of the bargain, Levy rush-released a bootlegged album of the former Beatle performing covers. Entitled Roots, this move actually ended with Lennon suing Levy and winning the case. Roots was promptly removed from the shops and Rock and Roll was put out as a standard version of the covers album. It would prove to be the penultimate one from the Beatle though, as he withdrew into a quiet life with Yoko and their new son after it.
Come Together would prove to be his last politically influenced song within the Beatles and still stood as a favorite for the man himself despite the problems which later arose from it. “It was a funky record – it’s one of my favourite Beatles tracks…It’s funky, it’s bluesy, and I’m singing it pretty well…I’d buy it!” Lennon enthused of the number one single.
It remained in the charts well past the dawn of the new decade, but its consequences would stretch far beyond that for the songwriter.
Image: Joe Sia
Domestic violence is probably as old as music itself, so it’s no surprise there’s a litany of songs written about it, because of it, in protest of it – you get the idea. Beyond that, many musicians themselves are guilty of the heinous act. The way we treat those people within the industry is loaded, the way we consume (or don’t consume) their music as fans inherently fraught. What happens when your fave turns out to be problematic?
In recent days, one such incident resurfaced. Sydney band The Rumjacks announced a mammoth 35-date tour and frontman Frankie McLaughlin‘s 2012 conviction (and subsequent sentence) came back into public attention. Those who remembered the press coverage of McLaughlin’s conviction (it was very public) voiced their completely valid concerns about what kind of message this tour was sending re: the music industry as a safe and welcoming space. Suddenly, many of the venues didn’t want The Rumjacks playing on their stages anymore.
The public reaction to this has been, er, mixed at best. Responses ranging from relieved to annoyed pepper the web, with the predictable “he’s done his time, when do we stop maligning him for this?” line popping up particularly often. If, like me, your initial reaction to this kind of opinion is to roll your eyes, it can be difficult to see why that’s worth unpacking – but it is. McLaughlin served a “sixteen month custodial sentence” for three incidents of assault against his partner of the time. For the sake of anyone reading who might find it harrowing or upsetting, I’ll spare the details, but the court transcript can be found here. The Rumjacks, at the time, condemned McLaughlin’s actions in a Facebook post, and went on hiatus.
When the band fully reformed after his release, nothing more was said about the conviction beyond an interview with White Ribbon at BIGSOUND 2015 as part of their now seemingly defunct #notON campaign. The Rumjacks’ participation in the conference in the first place was a point of contention. QMusic eventually approved after lengthy discussions to this end. Now, in light of the media coverage, The Rumjacks have released another statement via their Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/TheRumjacks/posts/10154348011235450
It’s difficult to find evidence of the band or McLaughlin’s alleged extensive commitment to “the principles of #notON” beyond last year’s interview and this statement. That’s important. Sure, there’s been no lying or even necessarily hiding from his conviction, but it sure as hell hasn’t been a self-started point of discussion across the band’s career since it happened. As a public figure in the aftermath of a domestic violence conviction (“the aftermath” means forever, by the way – victims don’t get to just wake up one day and forget about these incidents), McLaughlin has been in a unique position to give voices to the voiceless. To promote open and honest discussions about domestic violence, rehabilitation, the justice system, all of it. To fundraise, even. It’s nice he met with a charity once. His statement above is a good one. But for some it may appear to be too little, too late.
It’s relatively impossible to talk about this issue without touching on Chris Brown, so let’s keep it brief. Brown’s assault of Rihanna resulted in him being barred from entering Australia. The enormity of his public status kept his actions in the news for years. It’s still being talked about – it will likely follow him for the rest of his career. A key reason for this? His reaction, and the nature of his music. His lyrics are often misogynistic at best, downright violent at worst. His response to the far-reaching consequences of his actions were tone deaf at best, and showed no contrition at worst.
Pictured: A dickhead
Obviously The Rumjacks’ reaction hasn’t been anywhere near as inappropriate as Brown’s (because there hasn’t really been one until now). So let’s take a look at their music. The Rumjacks are a Celt-punk band, so obviously there’s a particular language/ethos that usually goes hand in hand with that. The upshot is not pretty.
To where & whom i asked to know
She smiled, a cruelly mocking blow
She’ll never smile that way again
I ruined her for other men
And sent her to her wintry end with a..– Murder Shanty, The Rumjacks
To be fair, on The Rumjacks’ website, there’s a statement above the lyrics to that particular song that reads “Relax, geez.. its only a tale of the passing of the seasons & the cycle of life, if Nick Cave had written it youd be jerking off by now. [sic]” But it’s not really a lone example. Many songs refer to women as being whores, easy, dirty, or otherwise objectionable. Violence and alcohol abuse (which McLaughlin purports to have previously struggled with) are also recurring themes. I’m not a psychologist or a doctor, but I wonder how healthy or otherwise it might be for someone who’s had those issues to be making a living off the glamourising of them? To see crowds of people screaming these sentiments back at him?
In comparison to Chris Brown, The Rumjacks’ level of stature is low. They definitely have a solid fanbase, but they’re not in the public eye as much as him – not even close. Perhaps this is how the conviction, so publicly reported on at the time, managed to be mostly buried if not forgotten altogether.
So what does this mean for companies, entities, and fans that choose to stick by The Rumjacks, or indeed any artist with a history like this? Are they tacitly supporting violence? Funding it, even? Are fans of their music giving the old “separate the artist from the art” ideology a burl? As mentioned at the start of this article, The Rumjacks are not the only band in this position. By and large, the entire world seems mostly willing to overlook the absolutely disgusting actions of Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Led Zeppelin, Dr. Dre and so many others. Sure, social media didn’t exist back then, but it does now. Most people are aware of what happened, but, presumably due to their musical legacies and perhaps because their atrocities were committed all those years ago, they’re willing to turn a blind eye. Does that make them terrible people?
In today’s modern world, there are ways to appreciate art without lining the pockets of the artist… but does that truly make a difference? Is it actually possible to separate the two out at all? Art is, after all, an extension of the artist. A reflection of who they are and how they see the world. And if that’s the case, how ethical is supporting it in any way?
If you need to talk to someone after reading this article, or you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please call 1800 RESPECT or contact Reach Out Australia.
Image: The Rumjacks Facebook
Nina Simone once asked “please don’t let me be misunderstood”. That is a pretty plain message right there, but often we don’t fully comprehend what musicians are trying to say. We soundtrack our lives with heartfelt ballads to sob to, slushy love songs for gazing into each other’s eyes and pumping anthems for all those good times.
But what if we’ve got it wrong?
Some other smart person once noted that “we only hear what we want to hear”, and music is a pretty perfect example of that. Growing up with The Police often on the stereo, it was clear to me that Every Breath You Take was a simplistic, if sickly, love song. These days it’s common knowledge that those lyrics were written with darker and uglier meaning, although opinion is divided as to whether Sting is narrating the part of a stalker, or governmental big brother.
Listening to The Stranglers gentle melodies, you would be forgiven for assuming that Golden Brown was some kind of endearment to a lover, as “she lays me down, with my mind to run”. Not a byword for heroin, as confirmed by the band’s singer and lyricist Hugh Cornwell. And even as the world went crazy for Gangnam Style, who amongst us realised that the song was mocking the excessively wealthy lifestyle of the Gangnam district in Seoul?
Here are five more songs that may not mean quite what you thought they did. If ever there was a time for a ‘spoiler alert’, this is it…
Total Eclipse Of The Heart – Bonnie Tyler
This is the ultimate power ballad pleading for a lover’s return, right? Wrong! Bonnie’s mega-hit from 1983 was actually about vampires.
In 1981, Tyler took on a new manager who, in turn, set about looking for a new producer to work with her. After seeing Meat Loaf perform Bat Out Of Hell live, they approached producer Jim Steinman. In the course of recording, Steinman presented Tyler with Total Eclipse of the Heart, which went on to become her most successful song.
In speaking about the track, Steinman is quoted as saying “with Total Eclipse of the Heart, I was trying to come up with a love song and I remembered I actually wrote that to be a vampire love song. Its original title was Vampires In Love because I was working on a musical of Nosferatu, the other great vampire story. If anyone listens to the lyrics, they’re really like vampire lines. It’s all about the darkness, the power of darkness and love’s place in dark…”
And he isn’t lying. As Bonnie’s “holding on forever” to the love that’s “like a shadow on me all of the time / I don’t know what to do and I’m always in the dark”, it all becomes clear. And who could blame her for being “a little bit terrified” at the thought of dating the undead?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcOxhH8N3Bo
Born In The U.S.A. – Bruce Springsteen
This track is possibly the most publicly, and phenomenally, misinterpreted song of all time. Despite the fist pumping chorus, Springsteen was actually making a fairly damning, bleak commentary on the life that awaited returned veterans of the Vietnam War.
Released in 1984, Born In The U.S.A. was actually original demoed for Springsteen’s earlier album Nebraska. A somber, acoustic based release by Springsteen, Born In The U.S.A. grew out of that sensibility. Protesting the harsh conditions of the working class life in America, portraying a broken character isolated from his family and from the government.
Oddly enough, the song was then , and somehow still is today, taken up by American political figures as a sort of anthem and affirmation. Cited by critics and politicians as the embodiment of American values, as a figure of hope, Springsteen was even praised by President Ronald Reagan; the man behind the administration that Springsteen was condemning.
All can be blamed on that infectious chorus refrain “Born in the U.S.A.”, despite the intended irony. In 2000, journalist Brian Doherty made the interesting point that even though the song is continually misunderstood, “who’s to say Reagan wasn’t right to insist the song was an upper? When I hear those notes and that drumbeat, and the Boss’ best arena-stentorian, shout-groan vocals come over the speakers, I feel like I’m hearing the national anthem.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPhWR4d3FJQ
Waterfalls – TLC
Anyone born before 1990 knows that this song is for putting your arms around your girlfriends and singing along – preferably loudly and a little out of tune. It is the R&B ballad of the era, the gentle encouragement that pushed us 90s kids to follow our dreams and not to chase waterfalls, encouraged by the maternal vocal stylings of Left Eye, T-Boz and Chilli.
Actually, Waterfalls was written to tackle the illegal drugs trade, promiscuity and HIV/AIDS. The band wanted to make their point without “seeming like preaching”, hence the slightly ambiguous chorus.
Once you start listening to the lyrics though, you hear the story of the mother who sees her son caught up in crime “Cause he can’t seem to keep his self out of trouble / So he goes out and he makes his money the best way he knows how / Another body laying cold in the gutter”. Or the tragedy of the AIDS virus as it sweeps through populations; “His health is fading and he doesn’t know why / Three letters took him to his final resting place”
Critics often comment that the famed chorus is urging audiences to stick to the calmer, safer dreams, characterising those waterfalls as seemingly exciting and adventurous ideals, which in reality are dangerous and will carry you too fast into peril.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WEtxJ4-sh4
My Sharona – The Knack
Another belter, this one is best for driving with the windows down to. My Sharona is unmistakably a love song, if a raunchy one, but did you know that the titular Sharona was only 16?
In 1979, the song was famed as “the song that killed disco”, as one of the very few rock songs charting at the time. Obviously about a girl, the lyrics were talking about a girl that The Knack singer, Doug Fieger had met and fallen for. Fieger, then 25, had struck up a relationship with Sharona Alperin, who was underage. She actually appeared on the single’s cover at the time of release.
Most people simply skirted over the more telling lyrics in the song; “Such a dirty mind, always get it up / For the touch of the younger kind” that went alongside unmistakable innuendos like “When you make my motor run”. The couple continued to date for several years, and Sharona inspired more songs for the band, including the worryingly titled That’s What Little Girls Do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2dicpOe4HE
Imagine – John Lennon
Lennon’s hope for the world has lived on in this song ever since its release in 1971. The poster boy, and indeed the poster song, for world peace and unity. Imagine was played on nearly every radio station after the 9/11 bombings, often voted as Britain’s favourite song and described by Rolling Stone as “an enduring hymn of solace”.
There is a general sort of assumption as to the meaning of Imagine, but it’s only when you look a little deeper that you encounter widely differing interpretations. Yoko Ono has said that “It was just what John believed — that we are all one country, one world, one people. He wanted to get that idea out.”
But at the time, Lennon was quoted as describing the lyrics as “virtually the Communist Manifesto”. He went on to explain. “Even though I am not particularly a Communist and I do not belong to any movement…. But because it is sugarcoated, it is accepted… Now I understand what you have to do,” Lennon noted. “Put your political message across with a little honey.”
It has also proved divisive, hinting at a kind of Communist utopia, others have questioned whether it is similarly fatally flawed. Or commented on the hypocrisy of the vastly wealthy Lennon imagining no possessions or “No need for greed”. Bono has told how he loves ” the Buddhist core of the song”, and Tori Amos is certain that “It’s a song about sanity”. Iconic protest singer Joan Baez has said of Imagine that “It has tremendous meaning in places that are in the throes of social change.”
And maybe that is the key to the song. It is not so much a matter of being misunderstood, but actually that Lennon managed to write a song that was so utterly open to interpretation. It may have been the manifesto of John and Yoko, but it has also been moulded into thousands of personal and global manifestoes, with thousands of different meanings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVg2EJvvlF8
Image: Youtube
Beatlemania has gone to a whole new level with this strange purchase.
A British collector of Beatles memorabilia has purchased a lock of hair cut from the head of John Lennon back in 1966, for US$35 000 (that’s over AU$48 800) at an auction in Dallas. The strand, cut by a German barber, was 10 cm long. The bidder Paul Fraser apparently paid three times the expected price, as revealed by The Guardian.
Garry Shrum of Heritage Auctions of Dallas explained its significance. “This is the largest lock of John Lennon’s hair ever offered at auction and this world record price is a lasting testament to the world’s more than 50-year love affair and fascination with Lennon and the Beatles,” he told the BBC.
He also said it was cut at “a very important time in his career.” It was a month after the release of The Beatles’ seventh album Revolver and before Lennon starred in How I Won The War as Private Gripweed.
Some of the more, let’s say mainstream, collectable items sold at the audition were a photo of John Lennon right before cutting his hair, photo of the band signed by all four members, a sealed copy of the band’s cover of Yesterday And Today and an unused ticket from their first show in Washington DC.
What this superfan is planning to actually do with the lock of hair, is anyone’s guess.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxha1IUsSPI
As the world is still in mourning over the death of David Bowie, footage has emerged of Bowie mourning the death of another before him – his friend, and Beatles superstar, John Lennon.
In a newly uncovered video (thank you, Reddit,) we see Bowie performing an absolutely heartbreaking cover of Lennon’s peace anthem Imagine, on the anniversary of his assassination (December 8.)
The clip begins with Bowie talking about his camaraderie with the late Beatle. He details how Lennon jokingly described Bowie’s music as “rock ‘n roll with lipstick on,” before sharing a touching anecdote of the last time the pair were ever together. He spoke about how they visited a store in a Hong Kong market, and that he asked Lennon to don a replica Beatles jacket in order for him to snap a photo. “I’ve still got the photograph. The jacket doesn’t fit properly, it looks like John had outgrown it.”
“On this day, December the eighth, 1980, John Lennon was shot and killed outside of his New York apartment,” he laments, before launching into the universally beloved song.
This is a powerful moment in musical history. As the world wipes away the tears we’ve shed for Bowie, it’s beautiful to look back on Bowie doing exactly the same for yet another musical legend.
Rest in peace John Lennon (1940 – 1980) and David Bowie (1947 – 2016.)