The Introspective Beatle
As a Beatle, John Lennon often delivered introspective works that revealed a soul struggling to keep it together (“Help!”) while offering nostalgic reflections (“Strawberry Fields Forever”) and concerns about the world around him (“Revolution,” “Come Together”). The radio-friendly nature of the material often disguised a troubled man in pain.
Lennon had endured more than just the breakup of the Beatles. His marriage had ended and he “was smitten with artist Yoko Ono who had challenged him to rethink everything about being an artist and a man.” CM He’d also dealt with “heroin, a miscarriage, police harassment and just being one of the most famous people on earth. In early 1970 Lennon was in the midst of a full nervous breakdown.” CM
Musical Therapy
Lennon dove headfirst into the “proto-New Wage belief system” JG of Arthur Janov’s primal scream therapy, working directly with Janov himself. CM Lennon faced his parents abandoning him as a young child and realized that “all his life he had the need to be loved while under the surface a seething anger raged.” CM
Musically, the revelation engulfed Lennon’s first official solo album, Plastic Ono Band. He threw out all pretenses of acting like nothing was wrong. He “created a harrowing set of unflinchingly personal songs, laying out all of his fears and angers for everyone to hear.” AM The album is “an often painful, soul-baring musical therapy session,” PR a “document of bare-bones despair” TL “Sometimes the listener feels embarrassed like an inadvertent eavesdropper.” JG
Lennon told Rolling Stone, “I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I think it’s realistic and it’s true to the me that has been developing over the years from my life.” CM
“It was a revolutionary record – never before had a record been so explicitly introspective, and very few records made absolutely no concession to the audience’s expectations, daring the listeners to meet all the artist’s demands.” AM
“Which isn’t to say that the record is unlistenable.” AM “It is ultimately life-affirming.” AM “Few albums are ever as…difficult and rewarding.” AM “Always direct, hard-hitting and tender by turns, almost every track here is a gem.” DBW
Bare-Bones Production
“This is the ultimate in underproduced, but brilliantly written rock.” JA Lennon recorded these “stark, minimally-arranged songs” DBW with former Beatle bandmate Ringo Starr on drums and Klaus Voormann on bass. Billy Preston, who’d recorded with the Beatles on “Get Back,” also shows up for one track.
The album is “majestically produced by Phil Spector” TL “in the most uncharacteristically minimal way imaginable.” JA Spector “resists the temptation to swamp the songs in saccharine-sweet strings and ethereal choirs, opting instead for a sparse, intimate sound which kept John’s emotionally draining confessional sharply in focus.” PR The album “in its echo-drenched, garage-rock crudity, is years ahead of punk.” 500
“Lennon’s voice is remarkably effect-free, and the only immediately apparent sound augmentations are echo and reverb that add weight and tension. The lack of typical Spector kitchen-sink production methods is telling, and suggests that for once Lennon held sway ove their joint productions.” JG
The Singing and Songwriting
In addition, Lennon’s “still-underrated singing stands with rock’s finest.” TL and “his melodies remain strong and memorable, which actually intensifies the pain and rage of the songs.” AM His “writing was never sharper.” TL “Lyrics were streamlined, instrumentation was sparse, and Yoko’s pretensions were almost totally absent.” JG
The Album’s Legacy
“Plastic Ono Band continues to be an incredibly moving listening experience” AZ which is “essential for anyone with even a passing interest in Lennon’s work” JA and “a must-own for any rock fan.” AZ
The Songs
On “rock & roll’s most self-revelatory recording” 500 he purges “just about everything there is to purge.” DBW He tackles “class, religion, and being abandoned by his parents” EW’12 while also charting his “his loss of faith in his…country, friends, fans, and idols,” AM “including his own former band (‘I don’t believe in Beatles,’ he sings in God).” 500 At a time when the “youthquake of the ‘60s was supposed to deliver utopias for everyone” CM Lennon sings, “the dream is over.”
Lennon delivers “harrowing confessionals (Isolation),” JA and “deals with childhood loss in Mother,” 500 but “there’s also room for a fragile sense of possibility (see Hold On).” 500 On “Mother” Lennon sings, “Mother, you left me, but I never left you.” “It doesn’t get more real and honest than that and it is the central issue that his life and Plastic Ono Band pivots on.” CM
Lennon also “milks every style he knew to the hilt;” JA “songs range from tough rock & rollers to piano-based ballads and spare folk songs.” TL He delivers “nihilistic protest songs (the masterful Working Class Hero, I Found Out),” JA “raging proto-punk” (Well Well Well), TL and “elegant, understated love songs” (Look at Me, Love). JA
“Working Class Hero” stands out as “the greatest of his political songs. It focuses on one man and then jumps out, in the tradition of the song’s obvious antecedent, Bob Dylan.” JG Lennon “debunks not only the class system but also the entertainers like himself who churn out protest songs.” CG
Notes: A 2000 CD reissue added “Power to the People” and “Do the Oz.” In 2021, a reissue added “Give Peace a Chance,” “Cold Turkey,” and “Instant Karma (We All Shine On).”
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