(The Praeger Singer-Songwriter Collection) Ben Urish, Ken Bielen-The Words and Music of John Lennon-Praeger (2007) (5 page)

“Walking on Thin Ice.” In addition, Ono later presumably used part of this

recording for her song “Never Say Goodbye” from her album
It’s Alright

in 1982, as Lennon’s voice can be heard screaming “Yoko” on the latter

recording.

Side two is an audio impression of the newlyweds’ honeymoon event, the

bed-in for peace in Amsterdam. Once again, background noises and natural

sounds are heard. The recording begins with Ono singing “John John (Let’s

Hope for Peace),” a more formal live rock version of which was included on

their next album. This segues into a part of the tireless interviews they gave

during, as they called it, their “advertising campaign for peace” and some of

the clearer summations of their message are not surprisingly included here.

Lennon can be heard ordering room service and reading the paper to his

wife. When a questioner asks about The Beatles’ first hit single, “Love Me

Do,” incorrectly referring to it as “Do You Love Me?” Lennon instantly

quips, “Not particularly,” in reply.

The ending is a sound collage of the two extemporizing commercial jingles

in their advertising campaign for peace and unwinding at the end of the

day. Lennon also mockingly performs a few bars of his Beatles composition,

“Good Night,” which Starr sings on the White Album. Whereas the first side

is of novelty interest after more than one listening, the second side succeeds

in Ono’s and Lennon’s goal of creating an immediate, artistic, and commu-

nicative documentary impression of their then-current lives. Despite this suc-

cess, it was to be the last of such experimental recordings released, although

another was planned.

A footnote to the album came and went all but unnoticed in 1980 with

the release of the couple’s
Double Fantasy
album. The
Double Fantasy
cover

features a black-and-white photo of Lennon and Ono kissing, a fitting image

for that album’s theme of couplehood and family. What passed mention was

that it was a remake of or a parallel to the interior album cover for
Wedding

Album,
which features a similarly posed black-and-white photo of the couple

presumably enjoying (or re-creating) their first kiss as husband and wife.

“cold Turkey”

By the fall of 1969 The Beatles was ostensibly still a functioning unit, yet

the group’s fragmentation continued as each member found other artistic

outlets for his varying interests. As The Beatles completed the
Abbey Road

album, Lennon presented them with his latest song “Cold Turkey.” The

group rejected it, so Lennon decided to record it as the next release of his

Plastic Ono Band.8 They may have rejected it as a Beatles release, but both

George Harrison and Ringo Starr were willing to record it and did so, but

12    The Words and Music of John Lennon

Lennon rejected the effort and re-recorded it with other musicians.9
Abbey

Road
was then released in October 1969, as was Lennon and Ono’s third

experimental recorded collaboration,
Wedding Album.

As discussed previously,
Wedding Album
would prove to be a comparatively

minor work, while “Cold Turkey” became a significant marker of Lennon’s

artistic terrain and growth as The Beatles came to an end and is therefore a

significant marker for him as a solo recording artist as well.

Like its predecessor “Give Peace a Chance,” “Cold Turkey” was originally

credited as a Lennon-McCartney composition (later releases give credit only

to Lennon), and its performance was credited as a product of the Plastic Ono

Band.10 And once again, McCartney seems to have had no direct involve-

ment in the song’s creation or recording. It would be the last time Lennon

would uphold the agreement he and Paul had supposedly made in their youth

to share all songwriting credits. McCartney apparently stopped this practice

before Lennon when he began composing songs for the film
The Family Way

in 1966. After the film, McCartney went back and forth on his non-Beatles

songs, sharing credit with Lennon on two and taking sole credit on four, such

as on “Come and Get It” for the group Badfinger in 1969. Interestingly,

Lennon did credit McCartney for his similar, though noticeably fewer, non-

Beatle compositions until the change on “Cold Turkey.”11

As Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band released “Cold Turkey,” The Bea-

tles released George Harrison’s song “Something” as their new single, with

Lennon’s song “Come Together” on the flip side, both from the
Abbey Road

album. The sensibilities of the two A-sides are quite distinct and partially evi-

dence Lennon’s increasing artistic difference from the rest of the group.

“Cold Turkey” shares with Lennon’s
Abbey Road
piece “I Want You (She’s

So Heavy)” a harsh overall sound, straining vocals, and trance-like repetition.

In addition, the song’s production prefigures the stripped-down minimalist

approach that Lennon would employ on his and Ono’s
Plastic Ono Band

albums in the coming year.

The song title “Cold Turkey” was a slang term for immediate and complete

withdrawal from drugs. The lyrical descriptions of the “thirty-six hours, rol-

lin’ in pain” and the self-made hell of rising fevers and bleak, nervous nihil-

ism certainly make the literal point clear. When Lennon’s weary, moaning

delivery of the simple lyrics are musically coupled with his and Eric Clapton’s

jarring and rumbling guitar work, the song succeeds as an audio portrait of

physical and mental anguish.

Yet, as was not unusual with Lennon, the song goes beyond the literal

meaning. Lennon later termed it a song about pain, and was surprised that it

was largely banned from radio play in the United States on the grounds that

it was about drugs—even though it was antidrugs (or at least, anti–heroin

addiction). In fact, the lyrics never mention drugs in general, or any drug

in particular, and instead work on the metaphorical level of the pain of total

or surprising loss. Something that, as Lennon said about the song in 1972,

The Ballad of John and Yoko, Late 1968 to Early 1970    13

happens to all of us “one way or another.”12 In that light, the song becomes

Lennon’s perhaps unconscious statement of anxiety at the apparent dissolu-

tion of The Beatles, a major personal and professional support system that he

would have to do without.

As if the literal subject matter was not pushing the pop music boundaries

enough, the five-minute piece ends with almost 1 minute and 45 seconds of

Lennon’s screams and moans layered with similarly characterized guitar tones

and feedback noises. Where “Give Peace a Chance” drew out its chanting

chorus and ends in exultation, “Cold Turkey” draws out tortured moans and

ends in exhaustion. The song finishes abruptly with a short series of sounds

that are eerily similar to Lennon’s groundbreaking work on The Beatles’

recordings “Strawberry Fields” and “Revolution #9” as well as his experi-

mental sound collages with Ono. Perhaps this was Lennon’s “audio signa-

ture.” This audio referencing of previous work further implies that “Cold

Turkey” recognizes any type of abrupt loss.

The flip side of “Cold Turkey,” Ono’s “Don’t Worry Kyoko,” is just as

intense, with Lennon and Clapton providing the lilting guitar groove for her

vibrant vocalizing and was included as part of Ono’s album
Fly
and as such is

discussed in that context.

Characteristically, Lennon debuted this strange-sounding (for the era),

harsh, and alienating song before its release at a rock and roll festival high-

lighting 1950s performers, chiding the audience when they did not respond

as enthusiastically as he thought they should have. He also used “Cold Turkey”

as a joke when he later returned his Member of the British Empire (MBE)

award to the British government in protest of (among other things) its

support of the United States in Vietnam. He facetiously added that he was

also protesting the fact that “Cold Turkey” did not make it into the top 10.

It had peaked at number 14 in the United Kingdom and only made it to

number 30 in the United States, the pains of drug withdrawal not exactly

being acceptable pop music fodder at the time.

The expression of raw emotional pain and angst in “Cold Turkey” would

soon be at the core of many of the songs that would make up Lennon’s

Plastic Ono Band
album—although that album is significantly more direct,

having most of the poetic metaphor absent. In fact, fans and critics alike

would soon see such expressions as an integral part of Lennon’s strengths as a

singer-songwriter. Therefore, the importance of “Cold Turkey” in establish-

ing Lennon as a solo artist and significant creative force separate from The

Beatles should not be ignored.

liVe Peace in ToronTo

After the completion of the
Abbey Road
album in late summer 1969,

Lennon was basically finished with recording as a Beatle. Although the group

would have other recording sessions as Phil Spector worked on the
Get Back

14    The Words and Music of John Lennon

sessions’ tapes and turned them into the album
Let It Be,
Lennon did not

participate. In fact, Lennon took the unfinished Beatles tracks “What’s the

New Mary Jane?” and “You Know My Name (Look Up My Number)” and

intended to complete them for future release as Plastic Ono Band offerings.

McCartney reportedly stopped this, and the former did not see release until

the
Anthology 3
collection in 1995, while the latter became the flip side of the

“Let It Be” single in March 1970.13

In September 1969, Lennon accepted an invitation to attend a rock and

roll festival concert in Toronto featuring a few modern groups and such

1950s stalwarts as Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and others. He quickly

formed a version of the Plastic Ono Band again, including Eric Clapton,

for the event. The band had no real rehearsals but was able to get through

passable if erratic versions of early rock classics such as “Blue Suede Shoes,”

“Money,” and “Dizzy Miss Lizzie.” The Beatles, with Lennon performing

the lead vocals, had covered the two latter songs. Lennon’s combined ner-

vousness and pleasure are evident while the band’s roughness is alternately a

drawback when they slip out of tune and out of time, and a true joy when the

performances of Lennon and Clapton mesh and feed off each other.

Leaving the oldies behind, the band next performs “Yer Blues,” which

Clapton at least had performed with Lennon before, albeit 10 months ear-

lier. The next number was the debut of Lennon’s “Cold Turkey.” Although

the studio single had been out and on the charts by the time the album of

this live concert was released, the song had not yet been recorded when per-

formed here. The performance moves along at a slightly quicker and more

lilting pace and is not nearly as harsh as the single became or as it would be

in future live performances.

“Give Peace a Chance” follows, with Lennon extemporizing alternate but

similar lyrics for the verses, retaining the same thrust and mixing the serious

message and humor of the single recording.

Even though contemporary bands were also in performance in addition to

the 1950s icons, the event was advertised as a rock and roll revival. In what

must have been equal doses of courage and arrogance, the band shifted to

featuring Ono and her nonpop performances, expanding on the performance

pattern employed for
The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus
almost a year

previously. Most might consider this a long way in some respects from Jerry

Lee Lewis, but Lennon and Ono saw it differently. She and the band rip into

what would become the B-side of “Cold Turkey,” “Don’t Worry Kyoko.”

Ono’s full-throttle vocals and Lennon and Clapton’s hard-core guitar sounds

must have been startling to a crowd primed for rockabilly and doo-wop.

The finale of the set is an electrified version of Ono’s “John John (Let’s

Hope for Peace),” an acoustic version of which would be included in the

audio collage of “Amsterdam” from
Wedding Album,
as previously men-

tioned. Like “Cold Turkey,” at the time of the concert, a recorded version of

the performance had not been released yet. However, it would be issued by

The Ballad of John and Yoko, Late 1968 to Early 1970    15

the time
Live Peace in Toronto
was released. Lennon and Clapton end up set-

ting their guitars by their amplifiers, thus letting the perpetual feedback end

the set as the band left the stage.

An edited version of the performance came out as a record album three

months later in December 1969, making it Lennon and Ono’s fourth album.

Those four albums and the two Plastic Ono Band singles had been released

in 13 months, in addition to Lennon’s other work, with and without The

Beatles. The concert was filmed, but when the documentary was eventually