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1970. John Lennon, four chords, a couple of friends, and a lot of pain to tell. With eyes veiled by tears caused by inner suffering, John reveals his world to us. A cold, superficial, damnably pathetic world, where “God is a concept by which we measure our pain”- from “God”.
The specter of the existential uselessness of a man bent over his own torments is reflected in the evocation of adolescent pain that appears in almost all eleven tracks of the album. John is a lonely man, on the edge between abandonment and despair, who finds few and fleeting moments of relief in Yoko (who, meanwhile, produces the mirror album "Yoko Ono -Plastic Ono Band"), in which he sees the completion of his soul. John is a dreamer destroyed by his own sensitivity, a wandering soul that, lacking adequate footwear, finds himself roaming the fields scorched by the desolate solitude enclosed in his words.
John Lennon was the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century. No one like him has probed so deeply into the sadness of the bourgeois (“keep you doped with religion and sex and TV and you think you’re so clever and classless and free” from “Working Class Hero”), no one more than him has unmasked with such bitterly effective words the state of isolation of the individual who insists on defining himself as “modern”.
John is a man who from his despair draws the ability to whisper sweet words of love in your ear (“Love is touch, touch is love, love is reaching, reaching love, love is asking to be loved” from “Love”) but from the same despair sometimes lets himself be overwhelmed (“I don’t expect you to understand after you caused so much pain, but then again you’re not the blame, you’re just a human, a victim of the insane” - “Isolation”).
The targeted choice of a few piano chords, of a drummer with a coarse touch like Ringo Starr, of elementary bass lines by Klaus Voormann, and of small guitar embroideries adequately saturated have in this album (which I have renamed “The Modern Gospel according to St. John”) the same function as those deliberately indecisive lines and those colors between steel gray and dull blue which cannot help but darken the indifference of the gaze of the three men turned back in “Le Pont de l’Europe” by Gustave Caillebotte (1877): in the painting in question, the movement and position of those three men, placed at the edge of such a desolating context for human nature as the industrial revolution, do not allow us to see their expression but only to intuit the sad indifference in their gaze. The movement and position of the chords and lines of “God”, “Remember”, “I Found Out”, “Mother”, and “My Mummy is Dead” fulfill the same function: they precipitate the listener into the anguish of the present, allowing them to imagine the magnitude of the pain that governs Lennon without perfectly seeing its unit of measurement.
The only moment when it seems that sunlight manages to pierce through the thick cloak of clouds that darkens the Author's sky to illuminate his expression is in “Hold On”: the massive presence of major chords, the less harsh melody compared to the rest of the work, and a text more open to future happiness (the song begins with “Hold on John, John hold on, it’s gonna be alright, you gonna win the fight” repeating with “Hold on Yoko, Yoko hold on, it’s gonna be alright, you gonna make the flight”- note the refinement of the contrast between the warrior Lennon who must win the battle and the sweetness of the butterfly Yoko who will take flight) sow the seed of hope even in Lennon’s chronic despair. The same Lennon who allows himself a bit of dark humor in the latter part of God, where, after declaring disbelief in Hitler, Jesus, or Kennedy, he'll confess to not believing in Elvis, Zimmerman, the Beatles, or himself individually because “I just believe in me, Yoko and me”.
This album speaks of despair using the right oil colors for every shade of sorrow. This album speaks of yellow-shame, gray-pessimism, white-ice, and black-death. This album narrates the black death of the soul. Without satanism, without scenes of gratuitous violence, without blood on the cover, it infuses a sense of spiritual death greater than any Slayer album. Since “The Passion” by Mel Gibson is about to be released in theaters, I can affirm that this album is the “passion” of John Lennon (his “Via Crucis” stops however at 11 stations). Or rather: the Gospel according to John.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Mother (05:36)
Mother, you had me, but I never had you
I wanted you, you didn't want me
So I, I just got to tell you
Goodbye, goodbye
Father, you left me, but I never left you
I needed you, you didn't need me
So I, I just got to tell you
Goodbye, goodbye
Children, don't do what I have done
I couldn't walk and I tried to run
So I, I just got to tell you
Goodbye, goodbye
Mama don't go
Daddy come home
(repeat 9 more times)
02 Hold On (01:53)
Hold on John, John hold on
It's gonna be alright
You gonna win the fight
Hold on Yoko, Yoko hold on
It's gonna be alright
You gonna make the flight
When you're by yourself
And there's no-one else
You just tell yourself
to hold on
Hold on world, world hold on
It's gonna be alright
You gonna see the light
When you're one
Really one
You get things done
Like they never been done
So hold on
Hold on
03 I Found Out (03:37)
I told you before, stay away from my door
Don't give me that brother, brother, brother, brother
The freaks on the phone, won't leave me alone
So don't give me that brother, brother, brother, brother No!
I found out!
I found out!
Now that I showed you what I been through,
Don't take nobody's word what you can do,
There ain't no Jesus gonna come from the sky
Now that I found out I know I can cry
I - I found out!
I - I found out!
Some of you sitting there with your cock in your hand
Don't get you nowhere don't make you a man
I heard something 'bout my ma and pa
They didn't want me so they made me a star
I - I found out!
I - I found out!
Old Hare Krishna got nothing on you
Just keep you crazy with nothing to do
Keep you occupied with pie in the sky
There ain't no Guru who can see through your eyes
I - I found out!
I - I found out!
I seen through junkies I been through it all
I seen religion from Jesus to Paul
Don't let them fool you with dope and cocaine
Can't do you no harm to feel your own pain
I - I found out!
I - I found this out!
I - I found out...
04 Working Class Hero (03:50)
As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
05 Isolation (02:53)
People say we got it made
Don't they know we're so afraid?
Isolation
We're afraid to be alone
Everybody got to have a home
Isolation
Just a boy and a little girl
Trying to change the whole wide world
Isolation
The world is just a little town
Everybody trying to put us down
Isolation
I don't expect you to understand
After you've caused so much pain
But then again, you're not to blame
You're just a human, a victim of the insane
We're afraid of everyone
Afraid of the sun
Isolation
The sun will never disappear
But the world may not have many years
Isolation
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Other reviews
By TomSkar
Plastic Ono Band opens with Mother, introduced by rather macabre sounding bells; the opening track is nothing more than a scream toward his parents who were the cause of his unhappiness.
In POB, Lennon gains spiritual independence and writes about his world, his life, distancing himself from his typical Beatles songs.
By SydBarrett96
John Lennon’s voice is very direct and clear, almost resigned to the events. I can describe it as a sort of primal scream, a desperate cry.
The final line 'The dream is over' represents for the author the end of the Liverpool quartet’s myth.
