John Lennon
Jealous Guy

THE REVIEW

"Jealous Guy" is a song by John Lennon included in the album "Imagine" from 1971. The track was released as a posthumous single on November 18, 1985.

After brief historical/discographical notes, I would like to talk about the song in question.

"Jealous Guy" is a masterpiece ballad, conceivable only by an ex-Beatle. Lennon wrote this song when he no longer seemed like a Beatle; for a long time, that compositional fracture with the group's musical idea had been evident.

That English attitude was no longer in Lennon's notes since the Beatles' "White Album." Lennon had long been traveling on angrier tracks, less solar, more committed, and voluntarily less melodic. I believe that Lennon tried to be a different artist but ultimately couldn't. Being a Beatle and playing the "committed political child of '68" couldn't work. Lennon tried to be the Rocker of which, deep down, he perhaps outlined a spirit, an idea that many misunderstood.

But that doesn't matter, Lennon remains one of the masters of MELODY. That (in my opinion, damned) primal scream crumbles before what he was capable of doing at a piano with such an intense voice, broken, dark, and so damned interpretative ("God," "Love," "Imagine").

"Jealous Guy" originates from the world of the Beatles, from that affinity with McCartney. Where one wrote "Yesterday," the other proposed "Imagine." Where one wrote "Let it be," the other proposed "Give peace a chance." Where one wrote "Hey Jude," the other proposed "Happy Xmass (War is over)."

"Jealous Guy" is a slow piece that still today moves you, leaves you glued to the chair in silence, puts you in an awkward position if you try to sing it because these songs are etched in the mind and vocal cords of this gigantic, unique artist...perhaps the greatest.

"Jealous Guy" is a masterpiece, that's all. There's Lennon's past, which personalizes itself with a homemade recording, simple, pure, with a whistle from someone who, deep down, with such a song, could still believe they could whistle over it like each of us does while walking down the street. However, here a piece was being handed over to history, made immortal by whistling over it. Lennon was "scandalous" precisely for this; he doesn't have that compositional seriousness of McCartney. He records at home, delivers "historic" tracks to history recorded in a basement, that scrape, are imprecise, and the voice is neither clean nor compressed. The greatness of this song and of Lennon lies in this: "being beautiful and simple for what one is." An artistic message that people today call "return to origins," pity that in the end, it means "getting old."

Lennon, on the other hand, cleverly made himself immortal and forever young by staying at home, free from any discographic nonsense. Here's his revolutionary spirit.