John Lennon & Yoko Ono
Two virgins

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the death, at the hands of a madman, of John Lennon, who, had he been alive today, would have turned 80 years old. It has become a fully established tradition since 1981, the first anniversary of the murder, to commemorate and remember such an important musician in the music of the twentieth century, who died prematurely. All of this makes sense, especially considering that in rock music many figures died early, fostering a flourishing commercial trend connected to the dearly departed, complete with reissues (and not only) of works recorded during their artistic lives. It's well known that the reasons of marketing are ever active and in good health, almost timeless (at least poor widow Yoko Ono will not fall into poverty). The risk, however, is to place the dear departed on a pedestal, almost making him a saint, if not a God. Certainly, John Lennon was what everyone knows, crucial for the evolution of rock from the '60s onward. But it's also necessary to dwell on those instances that, in his solo experience after the Beatles disbanded, turned out to be authentic musical flops, making one think he had lost his best creative streak.

Let's take the case of "Two Virgins," his first solo album, composed in 1968 in tandem with the conceptual and experimental Japanese artist Yoko Ono, without the collaboration of the other three Beatles. Since I bought the album (in CD format) many years ago, driven by my long-standing inclination to collect records by various authors and rock groups, I haven't managed to accumulate a substantial number of listens of "Two Virgins." And is this perhaps due to the resistant nature of what was recorded on the LP? Yet I have always favored the music of the so-called innovators like Frank Zappa, Brian Eno, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, extending to more jazz realms with John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Keith Jarrett (just to name a few). No, in the case of "Two Virgins," listening is indeed a difficult task, not at all rewarding. And this is even considering the entire context in which John Lennon recorded the album. Coming back from a trip to India aimed at deepening, together with his band colleagues, the foundations of transcendental meditation without deriving effective philosophical refreshment, he was in search of new artistic and existential insights, which, evidently, he no longer found in the Beatles' partnership. The meeting with Yoko Ono, an artist grown in the situationalist movement called Fluxus, dates back to 1966, but it is only in that 1968 that the two were able to seal both an artistic and sentimental relationship. The first album recorded by the two would be this very controversial "Two Virgins."

First of all, for those who know John Lennon as the co-author, with Paul McCartney, of so many songs created under the Beatles' auspices, the surprise and astonishment for what was recorded and contained in the work were immense: a sound collage (similar to "Revolution No. 9" contained in the Beatles' "White Album" of the same year), without head or tail, of tape loops, distorted sounds, chords randomly strummed on the piano and organ, voices overlapping, and especially Yoko Ono, engaging in cacophonous ear-piercing vocalizations (for this, she might go down in history as the worst female vocalist of past decades). And if this is the sad musical side of the affair, worsening the situation is one of the ugliest album covers in rock history: front and back photos of John and Yoko in their Adam and Eve attire (certainly not possessing the phisique du role for a full nude photoshoot). Now, granted that in 1968, a year rich in artistic and non-artistic upheavals, placed in that effervescent and bright decade of the '60s, there was also a widespread liberalization of customs and therefore free love and sex were theorized too. But publishing a cover like the one described above has always led me to think that John Lennon was trying in every way to attract attention to a debut album that at first and subsequent listens, did not seem so substantial. In short, an awkward publicity stunt for which a clumsy justification was given like "the two authors of such an undertaking are as you see them, without frills, live and are truly two virgins authors of infinite and direct music." To think and support it in such facts are two characters like John Lennon and Yoko Ono who thus demonstrated to have the face like the back squad. Yes, because they had nothing virgin neither from the sexual point of view nor from the artistic and musical one. From the commercial side, they tried to propose themselves (experiencing at that time a real commercial flop).

From the purely musical aspect, instead, what is reported on the record is just a noisy sound collage (classifiable as noise music) that drags on wearily for a very long 32 minutes (and I don't feel like giving it even half a star). And how does the well-disposed listener, like myself, feel to pay attention to the musical adventures of John Lennon (careless of the improbable Yoko Ono)? Perplexed about the mental state of the two authors of such a composition (after all, the man John Lennon for his actions has always been an enigma even for his best friends), perhaps willing to rediscover the works of certain post-dodecaphonic experimental authors like John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen (the latter author of "Momente" who had aroused a certain interest in Paul McCartney at the time of the recording of "Sgt Pepper's"). Authors indeed of cultured and elite music, but never of poor output.

Regarding John Lennon, who remains a brilliant rocker in his genre, it is evident that he started his solo career in the worst possible way by venturing with Yoko Ono into experimental fields that were not congenial to him. Subsequently, he will provide us with excellent trials and disappointing episodes (the influence exerted by Yoko on John was certainly nefarious, certain LPs like "Some Time in New York City" are embarrassing). And it arouses full disagreement what Lennon claimed when, at the time of those experimental recordings like "Two Virgins," he lamented the misunderstanding by critics and audience, guilty of expecting something on par with his rocker style active in the Beatles. This condition of his has never been an obstacle for what he achieved, even if it was unscrupulous and poor. Perhaps just the fact of being a Beatle was for him an effective pass even to propose authentic duds. And it is always true that even the best, artists or otherwise, can make mistakes at least once in their life.