50 years ago: The Beatles hit #1 with “Paperback Writer”

Paperback Writer The Beatles

Writer(s): John Lennon, Paul McCartney (see lyrics here) Released: May 30, 1966 First Charted: June 11, 1966 Peak: 12 US, 12 CB, 11 GR, 11 HR, 1 CL, 12 UK, 11 CN, 11 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, -- UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 1.0 radio, 33.0 video, -- streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: At the time that “Paperback Writer” ascended to the pinnacle of the United States’ Billboard Hot 100, that chart was eighteen years old. The song leapt into the pole position from #15. The only song to make a bigger jump was the Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love” from #27 to #1. FB This was the Beatles’ first chart topper not about love. SF Paul’s Auntie Lil had been challenging him to “write a song that wasn’t about love.” SF This “was a throwback to the Beatles’ early work as it is based upon their love of Chuck Berry.” KL However, the storytelling “is very much in the style that Paul McCartney was developing. It is an unusual composition” KL “sung from the perspective of an author soliciting a publisher.” SF While fictional, Paul was thinking of the beat poet Royston Ellis, who taught the Beatles how “to get high on Vick inhalers,” KL and author Martin Amis, “whom he had just developed a passion for.” SF He was also thinking of some of his friends, including John Dunbar, who’d he’d just help set up the Indica Bookshop. It was housed in the basement of the Indica Gallery, where bandmate John Lennon would meet future wife Yoko Ono. SF Paul may have also been teasing John, who dismissed the song as “son of ‘Day Tripper.’” KL John published his own books of poetry and stories with In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works. KL “Paperback Writer” became the theme song for the BBC series, Read All About It. KL In the UK, the ad to promote the single was the infamous “butcher cover,” a shot of the Beatles holding parts of dolls covered in blood. It was used initially as the cover for the U.S. album Yesterday…and Today SF The controversial cover “caused a wave of protest and…was quickly withdrawn.” FB However, it became a collectors’ item when Capitol Records simply pasted a replacement photo over some of the original pressings. FB Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for the Beatles FB Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. KL Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh (2005). 1000 UK Number One Hits: The Stories Behind Every Number One Single Since 1952. London, Great Britain: Omnibus Press. Page 123. SF Songfacts Related Links: First posted 3/27/2022; last updated 7/13/2023.

John Lennon “Just Like Starting Over” hit #1

Just Like Starting Over John Lennon

Writer(s): John Lennon (see lyrics here) Released: October 20, 1980 First Charted: October 24, 1980 Peak: 15 US, 15 CB, 14 GR, 15 HR, 12 RR, 17 AC, 1 CL, 1< sup>1 UK, 17 CN, 14 AU, 5 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.5 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 1.0 radio, 20.2 video, 27.96 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: After John Lennon’s 1975 retirement from music to become a house-husband and stay-at-home dad, he triumphantly returned in 1980 with Double Fantasy. The album emerged out of a vacation to Bermuda during which he started writing again. All the songs were completed within three weeks. TB Sadly, the release of the album and lead single “Just Like Starting Over” at year’s end were tragically overshadowed when Mark David Chapman shot and killed John Lennon on December 8, 1980 in front of Lennon’s New York City apartment. “Starting Over” had already reached the top 10 the week of Lennon’s murder; it would go on to top the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks. Similarly, Double Fantasy would posthumously top the album chart for eight weeks and take home the Grammy for Album of the Year. The “pleasantly breezy love song” SG was, as its title implies, “supposed to mark a new beginning in Lennon’s public life, not an end to it.” SG However, it took on deeper meaning in the wake of Lennon’s death. Now it was about “a happy middle-aged guy looking forward to a life that he would never get to live.” SG “He does a hiccupy and gimmicky rockabilly-revival thing” SG with his voice while the music is built on “a rock ‘n’ roll rhythm that takes the listener back to the days when John himself was just starting out.” DT Lennon said, “It was a 1950s sound because I’d never really recorded a song that sounded like that period, although that was my period, the music I identified with.” HL Indeed, “shades of Sun rockabilly, Roy Orbison, and the Beach Boys can be heard in the arrangement.” HL He also cited Elvis Presley, Gen Vincent, and Jerry Lee Lewis as influences. SG Resources: HL Michael Heatley and Spencer Leigh (1998). Behind the Song: The Stories of 100 Great Pop & Rock Classics. Blandford Books: London, UK. Page 34. Jasen ( SG Stereogum (4/15/2020). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan DT Dave Thompson (2011). 1000 Songs That Rock Your World. Krause Publications: Iola, WI. Page 246. TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Page 192. WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 4/9/2023.

John Lennon was murdered.

December 8, 1980 John Lennon murdered.

On the evening of December 8, 1980, John Lennon was returning to the Dakota Apartments where he lived in New York City. Mark David Chapman, a Beatles’ fan, fired five bullets from a .38 special revolver at Lennon. The legendary musician was rushed to the Roosevelt Hospital but pronounced dead on arrival at 11:15 pm. He was 40 years old. Famed broadcaster Howard Cosell announced the news on Monday Night Football. Chapman was a 25-year-old security guard from Honolulu, Hawaii, with no prior criminal convictions. He had planned the killing over several months. He was reportedly enraged by Lennon’s rich lifestyle and comment in 1966 that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus.” Chapman was inspired by Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye, who rages against hypocrisy and phonies. After shooting Lennon, Chapman remained at the scene reading The Catcher in the Rye. Chapman arrived at the Dakota early in the morning of December 8. He talked to the doorman and Beatles’ fans throughout the day. At around 5pm, Lennon was leaving for a recording session at the Record Plant and Chapman approached him and had him sign a copy of Double Fantasy, the latest album from Lennon and wife Yoko Ono. Chapman shot Lennon when he returned home about 10:50pm. Chapman pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to 20 years-to-life. He has been denied parole twelve times since becoming eligible in 2000. Resources and Related Links: Dave’s Music Database: “History Index” for more important dates in music history Dave’s Music Database: “Music Makers’ Birthdays” DMDB encyclopedia entry for John Lennon Wikipedia.org “Murder of John Lennon” First posted 12/6/2023.

John Lennon “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” charted

Happy Xmas (War Is Over) John Lennon & Yoko Ono

Writer(s): John Lennon, Yoko Ono (see lyrics here) Released: December 1, 1971 First Charted: December 17, 1971 Peak: 38 BB, 36 CB, 22 GR, 28 HR, 32 AC, 6 CL, 2 UK, 24 CN, 13 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, 1.2 UK, 2.22 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 63.55 video, 534.78 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: While John Lennon was still with the Beatles, he recorded three experimental studio albums with his wife, Yoko Ono. After he left the Beatles, he recorded the two most acclaimed albums of his solo career with Plastic Ono Band in 1970 and Imagine in 1971. That period included the title cut from the latter album (a #3 BB, 1 UK, 1971) plus a series of non-album singles, including “Instant Karma!” (#3 BB, 5 UK, 1970), “Power to the People (#11 BB, 6 UK, 1970), and “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” (#38 BB, 2 UK, 1971). The song was recorded in October 1971, first with John & Yoko and the session musicians who had performed with the Plastic Ono Band. Then they added the Harlem Community Choir, which consisted of thirty children, mostly between the ages of four and twelve. WK It was produced by the legendary Phil Spector, who also oversaw the previously mentioned Lennon albums as well as the Beatles’ final album, Let It Be. Dave Thompson called the song “the Lennons’ sweetest melody and most hopeful sentiment, dropped with scathing irony into the last years of Vietnam, and still powerful whenever a new war looms.” DT It was written as a protest song that evolved out of the couple’s peace activism and bed-ins starting in March 1969 during their honeymoon. In December of that year they launched a protest against the Vietnam War with a series of black-and-white posters in twelve major cities around the world declaring “War Is Over! If You Want It – Happy Christmas from John & Yoko.” WK “John Lennon was always rock’s most Dickensian character, and here, he emulates A Christmas Carol to a tee, stopping just short of pronouncing ‘God bless us, every one!’” DM “A Christmas Carol is the best-loved of all his stories not only because it fits the season’s hopes, but because, like the best records of the Beatles and Phil Spector, the love it inspires is equal to the love it creates.” DM “Happy Xmas” has since become a Christmas classic. Other chart versions have been recorded by Idols (#5 UK, 2003), Sarah McLachlan (#5 AC, 2006), the Fray (#50 BB, 2006), and Josh Groban (#4 AC, 2017). The Alarm, Melissa Etheridge, and REO Speedwagon have also recorded the song. Resources: DM Dave Marsh (1989). The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made. New American Library: New York, NY. Page 500. DT Dave Thompson (2011). 1000 Songs That Rock Your World. Krause Publications: Iola, WI. Page 27. WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 12/22/2023.

 

John Lennon charted with “Imagine”

Imagine John Lennon

Writer(s): John Lennon (see lyrics here) Released: October 11, 1971 First Charted: September 24, 1971 Peak: 3 US, 2 CB, 2 GR, 11 HR, 7 AC, 1 CL, 20 AR, 14 UK, 12 CN, 15 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, 1.79 UK, 1.96 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 5.0 radio, 331.37 video, 338.98 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: One morning early in 1971, Lennon sat at the white grand piano in his bedroom and virtually completed “his greatest musical gift to the world.” RS500 He considered “Imagine” to rate as high as anything he wrote with the Beatles. RS500 He wasn’t wrong. It was “a sweetened variant of the political songwriting that Lennon engaged in before and after.” TB This “is the record that saved John Lennon’s post-Beatles reputation.” TB It “became something more than a pop song. It has become an anthem that people sing when they need hope for mankind.” TC It was “a simple but moving hymn-like creation” SS “geared to…people’s utopian ideals but designed to be palatable to the masses.” TB His wife Yoko Ono told Rolling Stone that it was “just what John believed – that we are all one country, one world, one people.” RS500 While Lennon is “advocating an atheistic, anarchist utopia,” TC he had the foresight to soften the message via his approach. Poetic lyrics, intimate instrumentation, and a heartfelt vocal provided an accessibility that “emphasized the song’s fundamental humanity.” RS500 Lennon told broadcaster Andy Peebles, that the song “should be credited as a Lennon/Ono song. A lot of it, the lyric and the concept, came from Yoko, but those days I was a bit more selfish…and I omitted to mention her contribution, which was right out of Grapefruit.’” HL That book of poems, published by Ono in 1964, used “imagine” as a recurrent word. The song was produced by Phil Spector, known for his legendary “Wall of Sound” layering technique. SS However, for the “Imagine” song and album, he showed uncharacteristic restraint, because he trusted Lennon’s musical sense. It was recorded at Lennon’s home studio in his mansion just outside of London. Lennon sings and plays the grand piano while accompanied by Klaus Voorman on bass and Alan White on drums. Spector later added strings. SS The song had an interesting chart life. It went to #3 on the U.S. charts in 1971, but took four more years to hit in Lennon’s native England, reaching #6. In the wake of Lennon’s murder on December 8, 1980, “Imagine” stormed the U.K. charts once again, this time going all the way to the top. In fact, as is more common on the other side of the pond, Lennon’s ode to the power of possibilities has been released a couple more times, landing in or just outside the top ten. Resources: TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Pages 697-8. HL Michael Heatley and Spencer Leigh (1998). Behind the Song: The Stories of 100 Great Pop & Rock Classics. Blandford Books: London, UK. Page 134. DJ David Jasen (2002). A Century of American Popular Music: 2000 Best-Loved and Remembered Songs (1899-1999). Routledge: Taylor & Francis, Inc. Page 100. RS500 Rolling Stone (2004). “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” SS Steve Sullivan (2013). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings (Volumes I & II). Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Maryland. Pages 231-2. DT Dave Thompson (2011). 1000 Songs That Rock Your World. Krause Publications: Iola, WI. Page 241. TB Thunder Bay Press (2006). Singles: Six Decades of Hot Hits & Classic Cuts. Outline Press Ltd.: San Diego, CA. Page 126. WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 7/12/2014; last updated 4/14/2023.