Artist: John Lennon
Album: Walls and Bridges
Release Date: October 4, 1974
And once again real life meets the Album a Day series head-on, as today marks John Lennon’s 69th birthday, making Walls and Bridges a fitting contribution to solo/side project week. A friend asked me why I chose Walls and Bridges out of all of Lennon’s solo albums. The answer is fairly simple; having never heard a complete Lennon solo album, I had little frame of reference, and since I thought sentimental records like Imagine or Double Fantasy would have been too easy, I went with this one, which holds possibly my favorite Lennon solo track in “Whatever Gets You Thru The Night”. For added fun, I like the fact that Walls and Bridges appears to be a straightforward pop album, with no funky Yoko-inspired trippiness or overly sappy overtones. It’s just a bunch of fun songs by one of the greatest musical minds of the century (and no, I have no problem making a grand statement like that one). Does this album have the same emotional power that Imagine has or the posthumous glory of Double Fantasy? No. But at the same time that makes it the most honest and unassuming of Lennon’s albums, cutting through the bullshit and just being about music.
Happy birthday, John. Music misses you down here.
John Lennon – Whatever Gets You Thru The Night [iTunes] (YSI)
==TJ==
Filed under: Album A Day | Tagged: 1970s, Album A Day, John Lennon
His great album was John Lennon/Yoko Ono Band. Miles above Walls & Bridges. Really. Imagine ranks second. Double Fantasy is the kind of pap that McCartney writes. If he hadn’t been assassinated it would be considered a flop.
Steel & Glass, Scared, Beef Jerky? The man was stoned out of his mind and just writing the first thing that came into his head. #9 Dream is interesting, but there a thousands of better oldies to cover than Ya Ya.