First, let me re-introduce myself. I just recently retired. I came of musical age in the sixties and seventies so I am pretty much steeped in genres that today are called Oldies and Classic Rock. In recent years I’ve expanded to listen to a lot more classic and contemporary jazz. I’m really glad that I have a son, and now a grandson, to nudge me into listening to music that isn’t pushing fifty years old.
I recently watched the documentary “John and Yoko: Above US Only Sky” which was released in 2018. It’s a look into the lives of John Lennon and Yoko Ono during the writing and recording of John’s 1971 album Imagine. It uses both video shot at the time of the recording sessions and recent interviews with people involved in the album. (You can find it on Netflix…)
Back in the day I never did jump on the “We hate Yoko because she broke up the Beatles” bandwagon. I think the musical and creative talent in the Beatles made it inevitable that the Fab Four would go their separate ways. But I also didn’t pay a lot of attention to John’s post-Beatle music; most of it seemed too angry to me; I gravitated to the more “uplifting” work of George Harrison.
This film gave me a whole new appreciation for Lennon and his post-Beatle life. It explores where he was personally, emotionally and musically after the break-up of the Beatles and how he expressed that in his work.
While I thoroughly enjoyed the entire story, what struck me most was how John wanted to be “just John” and create an identity separate from being a Beatle. It’s hard for me to imagine how difficult that must have been, but a number of scenes in the movie show him as being very human and approachable. He was more about breaking down walls than building them.
This is truly expressed in centerpiece of the story, the song “Imagine”; as John’s son Julian says near the end of the film “After all, we all actually want what he’s singing about.”
Fifty years on we don’t seem to be much closer to John’s vision. As George might say, “Isn’t it a pity…”
KJB
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