Those pesky kids huh? A Message from John (and Yoko)

 Kids of Today! Huh?

Yoko Ono

STRANGE DAYS INDEED . . . . 

On this day in music history: January 27, 1984 - “Milk And Honey”, the seventh album by John Lennon & Yoko Ono is released. Produced by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, it is recorded at The Hit Factory in New York City in August - September 1980 and Late 1983. Lennon’s tracks are recorded during the sessions for “Double Fantasy” in the Summer and Fall of 1980 and were intended for the follow up release in 1981. The project is shelved after Lennon’s death, but are revived after Ono severs ties with Geffen Records, signing with Polydor Records. Lennon’s songs are comprised of rehearsal recordings and early takes that are polished up during post production. Ono’s songs are new recordings completed in 1983 during preparation for the album’s release. It spins off three singles including “I’m Stepping Out” (#55 Pop), “Borrowed Time”, and “Nobody Told Me” (#5 Pop), the latter of which had been written by Lennon with the intention of giving it to Ringo Starr to record. The album’s cover features a full color outtake shot by Japanese photographer Kishin Shinoyama, from the same photo session that produced the cover for “Double Fantasy”. Originally released on CD in 1984 also, the album is remastered and reissued on CD (on Capitol Records) in October of 2001 with four additional bonus tracks, including a twenty two minute excerpt of Lennon’s final interview recorded on December 8, 1980. It is remastered and reissued on CD again in 2010, minus the added bonus tracks. Out of print on vinyl since 1989, it is reissued as a 180 gram vinyl LP in 2015. “Milk And Honey” peaks at number eleven on the Billboard Top 200, and is certified Gold in the US by the RIAA.

Video starring George Harrison, Miles Davis, Fred Astaire and ensemble cast

John & Yoko:above us only sky

"Channel 4’s feature-length documentary about the making of Lennon’s album Imagine, featuring unseen footage from John and Yoko’s Berkshire home where much of it was recorded, is as close as you’re going to get. There’s testimony from musicians who played on the album, plus interviews with Yoko and eldest son Julian Lennon. But it’s John who commands the attention, bashing out his songs on the upright piano so the band can learn them, and telling fellow ex-Beatle George exactly what sort of guitar solo he’s after." - TV Guide

Truly this is a mere 'advert' for the repackaging of the reissue and yet isn't really about the making of the album at all, it is barely about the making of the one hit track and I am guessing, whilst I love Yoko and always saw her first as a quite independent artist in her own right, the influence here is clear. She hangs over the whole project like a judgemental omnipotent influence ensuring that nothing untoward is touched upon.  However not only did she really co-write 'Imagine' that finally becomes clear by referencing 'Grapefruit' but this hagiographic whitewash of a film clearly did not want to rattle any cages or spoil things by exploring anything even approaching the truth. It is merely about just the song and as everyone has called it the 'untold story' which is patently laughable! There is nothing here that we haven' t seen before. Given the film makers finishing up by saying they edited it from thousands of hours of footage it seems extraordinary how bland an end result they have committed to broadcast. Quite why some of the art folk or gallerists and retired DJs and 'D' listers are represented here (Yoko's gallery perhaps?) the whole set up is totally unfathomable and frankly I couldn't even be bothered to find out who the hell they are and even dear Klaus Voormann sounds old and confused getting his facts wrong about now . . . . . . . Even Julian is used as a cursory footnote here. To say that the song 'Imagine' is "not religious" is foolish in the extreme as 'no hell below us, above us only sky"  and "and no religion too" always made it simplistically clear but this doesn't look at their life together in Berkshire where they hardly spent 2 years in their newly bought stately home how John was no father to poor Julian at all by then or visits the reasons other than what comes across as whimsy to move to New York in any depth at all their life style changes there and for example their fascination with numerology or suffering from such heroin addiction (or consumption really in that they never injected) but had smoked it on and off for years, so that in New York that John readily saw UFO's on the skyline over the Dakota building for example and the footage of the rich man's 99 acre stately home of Tittenhurst Park where they spent twice the value of the house on eccentric landscaping projects (their lake was built without any planning permission) and 'doing it up' only to leave after a couple of years selling the house to Ringo and all of this is certainly stuff that we have seen before. The heartbreaking encounter there with the supposed ex-Vietnam vet with his fuses blown is not new and doesn't really warrant a second viewing. We might be forgiven for thinking the footage we haven't seen is only the 'D' lister talking heads waffling on saying next to nothing. 
Heck you know we ALL have an opinion on John and Yoko!

Truly truly dreadful piece of hagiography. Hardly worth bothering to watch

Of course the 'bed-in' had a profound affect upon this Beatles fan and my burgeoning hippy principles were bolstered by this pacifist chant!
Don't think I bought it though . . . what's that all about? . . . . . . the video and newsreel footage was John and Yoko as our ambassador to let the straights know we weren't gonna take it any more! "All we are saying . . . . . . "

On this day in music history: June 1, 1969 - “Give Peace A Chance” by The Plastic Ono Band is recorded. Written by John Lennon (though credited to Lennon - McCartney on its original release), the song is written as a message to promote world peace. Inspiration for the song comes during John and Yoko’s “bed-in” honeymoon, after a reporter asks Lennon what they are trying to achieve by laying in bed. Lennon answers “just give peace a chance”. When he gives this answer on more than one occasion during the bed-in, John quickly writes the song and then hires a four track tape machine to brought into their suite to commit it to tape. It is recorded in room 1742 of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, with numerous friends and celebrities present including Timothy Leary, Petula Clark, Dick Gregory, Allen Ginsberg, Murray the K, Derek Taylor and Tommy Smothers (also on guitar) singing on the chorus. The song is adapted as an anthem of the American anti-war movement. Released as a single in the UK on July 4, 1969 (US release on July 7, 1969) “Give Peace A Chance” peaks at #2 on the UK singles chart and #14 on the Billboard Hot 100.

thanks to the most excellent Jeff Harris' blog 'Behind The Grooves   

The first time I went to New York for work I was at a loose end and made several walks into and around Central Park as some were like pilgrimages I needed to make. To go to the Guggenheim Museum as it featured in the work of Richard Hamilton (the subject of my collegiate thesis) but first to go and stand at the Dakota Building to pay my respects to where John Lennon lived, worked and was taken from us and I walked across the road from the park and stood in the doorway as near to the entrance gates as I could. 
I couldn't stay for long as it was too intense suddenly being impacted by how much this was exactly where he died was so heavy to say the least and surprised as to how much it hit me but I stood for a moment and hung my head thinking about what John meant to me. I had a hanging tooth threatening to come out on the plane over and as I stood by the park and looked back at the building where John was murdered, I ripped the tooth (a big back molar) and the piece of hanging bloody flesh still holding it in place and pulled, casting the bloody vestige of my tooth containing my DNA into the foliage of the trees and shrubs nearest to the Dakota! Somehow a piece of my own DNA cast out into the park land brought me comfort and I walked back to my hotel in silence.



I wonder if Yoko was at home?