Happy Birthday, John Lennon!
My favorite Beatle is and always will be John Lennon. Paul is a great writer of pop songs, but John gave The Beatles edge. Together Lennon & McCartney were amazing. Here’s a great example of what they both brought to their writing, their song “We Can Work It Out”:
Try to see it my way,
Do I have to keep on talking till I can’t go on?
While you see it your way,
Run the risk of knowing that our love may soon be gone.
We can work it out,
We can work it out.
Think of what you’re saying.
You can get it wrong and still you think that it’s alright.
Think of what I’m saying,
We can work it out and get it straight, or say good night.
We can work it out,
We can work it out.
Life is very short, and there’s no time
For fussing and fighting, my friend.
I have always thought that it’s a crime,
So I will ask you once again.
Try to see it my way,
Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong.
While you see it your way
There’s a chance that we may fall apart before too long.
We can work it out,
We can work it out.
Life is very short, and there’s no time
For fussing and fighting, my friend.
I have always thought that it’s a crime,
So I will ask you once again.
Try to see it my way,
Only time will tell if I am right or I am wrong.
While you see it your way
There’s a chance that we may fall apart before too long.
We can work it out,
We can work it out.
The verses, which Paul sings, are in the major key and pop along quite nicely ending with the affirmation “we can work it out,” repeated to underscore the positive.
The chorus, which John sings, is in the minor key and serves as a psychological ‘shadow’ to the verses, reminding the Other in this musical conversation that “life is very short.”
Of course, the line is also ironic to the extreme considering what happened outside the Dakota apartment building in Manhattan on the night of December 8, 1980.
Today is John Lennon’s 70th birthday. I thought it would be a good idea for us to remember him. After all, songwriting is storytelling, and there have been very few storytellers who match what John Lennon managed to accomplish with his music.
A must-see: Happy Birthday John, inside details and little seen photos of John.
John’s Wikipedia page.
John’s official website.
John’s IMDB page.
Note: There are 340 movie soundtrack listings for The Beatles.
And then there are the movies featuring John.
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Help! (1965)
How I Won The War (1967)
Magical Mystery Tour (1967)
Yellow Submarine (1968)
And of course his music.
“A Hard Day’s Night”
“You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”
“Norwegian Wood”
“Strawberry Fields Forever”
“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”
“A Day in the Life”
“I am the Walrus”
“Revolution”
“Across the Universe”
“Give Peace a Chance”
“Imagine”
When John Lennon was assassinated, I was in what would turn out to be a seven month stint working as a salesman at The Guitar Center on Van Ness in San Francisco. On a typical morning, only a handful of customers would show up before noon. These were, after all, musicians. The morning after Lennon’s death, there was a line of people waiting for the store to open. Fans wanted to be together with other music fans, some to buy anything that they could associate with Lennon (we sold out of Rickenbacker guitars within an hour of opening), others just to listen to FM-radio station we had blaring, all Lennon songs, all day. Strangers hugging, crying, singing.
The tragedy of his death is compounded by the fact that after a downward spiral in his life, by 1980 Lennon had settled into a great groove, both personally and professionally. Who knows what he could have created had he been allowed to live. Sadly that’s something we can only imagine.
What about you? What do you remember about John Lennon? What are your favorite Lennon songs? What do you have to say to John on his 70th birthday?
Comment Archive