Highly effective, poignant, essential, and delightful are all phrases that describe Think about – each the title track and the LP that was John Lennon’s second solo album launch, within the autumn of 1971. One track doesn’t make a terrific album, even when it’s as seminal and defining as Think about… and, make no mistake, this can be a nice album, stuffed with sensible songs, with nice hooks. With John’s acerbic wit ever-present, although, the album by no means approaches the sort of music that John discovered irrelevant and meaningless.
John started work on the album that was to develop into Think about slightly over three months after ending John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Recording his new album was accomplished in three separate phases, the primary between February 11 and 16, adopted by one other from Could 24 to twenty-eight, earlier than some last overdubs and mixing in New York over the 4th of July weekend. The sooner periods had been at Abbey Highway and the Could periods had been on the Lennon’s house studio at Tittenhurst Park, the New York periods in July had been on the File Plant.
Think about is a really totally different album from the one which went earlier than it, as John instructed David Sheff in 1980, “I call [Imagine] Plastic Ono with chocolate coating.” This document is extra immediately accessible, however don’t let that idiot you into considering John had gone smooth.
Like his earlier album, Think about has Yoko Ono’s affect throughout it. None extra so than within the sensible title track. Yoko’s poetry, included in her 1964 e book Grapefruit, helped encourage John’s lyrics for “Imagine,” and in addition influenced the quilt of the album. Yoko’s poem “Cloud Piece” consists of the traces: “Imagine the clouds dripping, dig a hole in your garden to put them in.” John later stated “Imagine,” “should be credited to Lennon/Ono. A lot of it—the lyric and the concept—came from Yoko, but in those days I was a bit more selfish, a bit more macho, and I sort of omitted her contribution, but it was right out of Grapefruit.”
Simply what’s it that makes “Imagine” such an ideal recording? From the opening bars of John enjoying the piano, the track stakes its declare on our senses. The intelligent manner the monitor is produced, to maneuver the seemingly distant piano from the middle to the total stereo pan helps to intensify John’s plaintive, and weak, vocal. The subtly lovely strings, scored by Torrie Zito, play their half in making this track the very artistic peak of John and Yoko’s working collectively.
The sooner periods, at Abbey Highway, passed off in the course of the recording of the one, “Power To The People” and since Ringo was unavailable, Jim Gordon from Derek and the Dominos was drafted in to play drums, together with Klaus Voormann on bass. “It’s So Hard” and “I Don’t Want To Be A Soldier,” had been begun on the February periods, with King Curtis including his saxophone to the previous in New York in July, whereas the latter track was considerably reworked on the Could periods. At Abbey Highway, additionally they recorded Yoko’s “Open Your Box,” which grew to become the b-side of “Power To The People.”
“It’s So Hard” has extra of the pared-down Plastic Ono Band really feel to it. It’s a 12 bar blues and the addition of Zito’s string association (overdubbed on the File Plant) together with King Curtis’s saxophone make it a extra “traditional” track than most of what seems on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.
“I Don’t Want To Be A Soldier” was reworked on the Could, Tittenhurst periods, and apart from Lennon and Voormann, it includes a a lot bigger band together with George Harrison on slide guitar, the sensible Nicky Hopkins on piano, Joey Molland, and Tom Evans from Badfinger play acoustic guitars, drummer Jim Keltner and Alan White performs vibraphone; later in New York King Curtis added his saxophone prospers. The track is one in every of Lennon’s easiest lyrical numbers however in simplicity there’s energy. The facility is made much more vital by the hypnotic music that’s each relentless and persuasive. Zito’s strings are once more an excellent addition to the entire really feel of the track.
Within the 5 days at Tittenhurst, along with “I Don’t Want To Be A Soldier,” John and the assembled musicians recorded “Crippled Inside,” “Jealous Guy,” “Gimme Some Truth,” “Oh My Love,” “How Do You Sleep?,” “How?,” “Oh Yoko!,” and the album’s title monitor. George performs some nice dobro on “Crippled Inside” and it’s additional enhanced by some trademark “diamond trills” from Nicky Hopkins on the piano. The spirit by which this document was made was helped by recording a lot of it at John and Yoko’s house. It feels private and, with the Lennons once more producing it with assist from Phil Spector, it heightens the sense of intimacy.
“Jealous Guy” has develop into one in every of John’s best-known songs, helped in no small half by it having been coated by Roxy Music in early 1981 and brought to No.1 on the UK charts. The track had its beginnings in India in 1968 earlier than its full flowering when John rewrote the lyrics.
Acerbic and political, “Gimme Some Truth” highlights John’s manner with phrases and succinctly sums up a lot of what made John tick. John, all the time forward of his time, tackles the query of political management – simply as related right now as in 1971. This track foreshadows what would comply with in John’s songwriting over the approaching years.
“Oh My Love” is an attractive and tender track, enhanced by George’s delicate guitar enjoying and John and Yoko’s great phrases. From tenderness to harsh actuality with “How Do You Sleep?,” arguably probably the most infamous track on the album. Typically described as John’s assault on Paul, it’s best defined by John himself.
“It’s not about Paul, it’s about me. I’m really attacking myself. But I regret the association, well, what’s to regret? He lived through it. The only thing that matters is how he and I feel about these things and not what the writer or commentator thinks about it. Him and me are okay.”
After which it’s instantly again to the smooth facet of John with “How?” Whereas it will be lyrically at house on his earlier LP, its manufacturing is certainly of the “chocolate coating” selection. The album’s last track is the uplifting and delightful “Oh Yoko!” A easy track, however one that’s merely pretty. Phil Spector sings the concord and, on the time of the album’s launch, EMI wished to place it out as a single. John refused. If he hadn’t, it will have been a large hit. It’s a track that simply attracts you in and makes you’re feeling good. And isn’t that what music ought to do? Typically. It must also make you suppose, query, and, in fact, fill you with pleasure. Think about does all this stuff and rather more.
Store for John Lennon’s music on vinyl or CD now.
