Excess of Expression: John Lennon 1969-72
For better and – mostly – for worse, John Lennon essentially invented the phenomena of the ‘Rock Star’ as social-political activist. Having broken free of the perceived restraints put upon him whilst in The Beatles, Lennon’s early solo works are marked by an earnest, and in many cases naïve, search for integrity and meaning. Or as he put it in 1970: “I remember what it’s all about now you f**kers! F**k you all!” It was a pursuit which took Lennon to musical, political and personal extremes: from musique concrete back to blues-infused rock ‘n’ roll; from the bed-ins for peace to flirtations with Maoism; from heroin to primal scream therapy.
Yet in spite of the drama and energy of his private and public life, Lennon’s solo-music spectacularly failed to recapture the emotional weight and expression of his work with The Beatles. Neither ‘Mother’ nor ‘My Mummy’s Dead’ from Plastic Ono Band come close to channeling Lennon’s pain and feelings of parental abandonment in the same way that ‘Julia’ from the White Album does. Similarly, the two and a half minutes of ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun’ contains more imagination than all forty minutes of ‘Imagine’. Why was it that, in putting self- expression, politics and philosophical substance at the forefront of his artistic agenda, Lennon’s music ended up failing to express both himself and everyday concerns with the same force as his work from the sixties?
Source: Basil Bowdler/cherwell.org
