•
Rating: The success of "Imagine" is the essential premise to this album: John Lennon feels the sudden need to return to a rougher, more raw sound; he thus turns to the Elephant Memory Band who put a lot of effort and energy into the tracks. The result is not bad.
The comparison with the illustrious predecessor is an excuse that doesn't hold: these are two profoundly different albums, the first being introspective and dreamy, and the second being social and active, and the sound is also very different. However, unlike "Imagine", there are certainly more "mediocre" tracks.
Yoko Ono continually interferes and wants (and gets) her share in the album, finding space even in John's songs. However, her songs play the role of fillers that shift the album's center of gravity in their own way towards a perspective that is anything but malevolent, but certainly "pop" ("Sisters o Sisters", "Born in a Prison"). The band, for its part, does not prove to be experienced in arrangements, which are quite sparse.
Without further ado, every song has its reason and takes itself tremendously seriously, often having a practical goal that it attempts to pursue by spreading the issue: "it was Rockefeller who pulled the trigger, that's what people think", John lashes out in "Attica State" against the then governor of the state of New York, the real culprit of the tragedy in the namesake prison. "Why does nobody care about John Sinclair? He must be freed!" he pushes in "John Sinclair", a track advocating for the release of this man accused for "two joints" and sentenced to "ten years". The track was successful: very soon John Sinclair was released. He even protests against the motherland in "Sunday Bloody Sunday" (it's the same "bloody Sunday" as in the much more famous U2 song) where he comes to embrace the Irish cause, also present in "The Luck of the Irish". "They gave you everything but not the keys to the prison", in "Angela", John sides with Angela Davis (who was part of the "Black Panthers"). The "Black Panthers" fought for African American rights but soon there was a significant crackdown against this movement. Angela Davis suffered the consequences, and again, Lennon's song contributed in its own small way to her release.
"Woman is the nigger of the world", the most significant song of the album, is inspired by a phrase by Yoko Ono which in Italian should sound something like "the woman is the nigger of the world". "If she doesn't become a slave, we say she doesn't love us, if she is genuine, we say she's trying to be a man"; John characterizes the situation of women with the related weight that history has brought with it. For those who have doubts about this, he states: "if you don't believe me, take a look at the one you're with".
I don't think "Sometimes in New York City" should be regarded as a masterpiece: the arrangements and perhaps songs too "regional" and "confined to themselves" limit the personal characterization of the album, paradoxically attenuating its force of momentum. However, it is still a very valid work: the disappointment for the album's failure will be accompanied by the temporary breakup with Yoko Ono during one of the darkest periods of his life.
Loading comments slowly
