Some Time InNew York City
In my opinion, Some Time In New York City is probably the worst album of pop music that any major star has ever put his name to. Presented as a tabloid newspaper, it's an extreme-Left reworking of the conventional media's reporting of the news, presenting stories of the day in a format that John & Yoko believed that the workers of the world should have been reading.
John Lennon & Yoko Ono: Some Time In New York City
So far, so good, as far as I'm concerned, I suppose...except the songs, uniformly, stank, bereft of melody, conviction, wit, Humanism or even humor. Each song addressed a different "radical cause": Feminism Woman Is The Nigger Of The World For the first time (on a major release) John & Yoko shared songs and while John, at least, could still sing, in fact, he's in pretty good, no, excellent, voice, Yoko sounded like a eunuch being strangled, s-l-o-w-l-y. To be honest, after Some Time In New York City, Linda McCartney always sounded pretty good to me. There are, as is only to be expected, some deft touches and to be fair, sonically, the album rocks in a ramshackle way. However, the only vaguely memorable track on the album is the closer, New York City, basically an update on The Ballad Of John And Yoko, a song about the Lennons' then-new spiritual home, New York City. It's a pleasantly updated, muscular, Chuck Berry rocker but it does have one interesting lyric which elevates the song to be something special, the delightful throwaway line, : "...Que pasa New York New York City Unfortunately, none of the other songs reach beyond their Leftish tabloid ravings. They're not bad, they're just not interesting, poetic or even funky. Like the newspaper edition it mimiced, Some Time In New York City may have seemed important the day it was released but it was forgotten the next. That's newspapers for you!
John Lennon & Yoko Ono: Some Time In New York City "...Quite possibly the most reviled effort by an ex-Beatle, John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Some Time In New York City is a time capsule of its year, 1972, when the anti-war movement of the previous decade was reaching its climax and Lennon had attracted the attention of the Nixon White House for his appearance at assorted political rallies and his association with such radicals as Bobby Seale, Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman..." Amazon reviewer B W Fairbanks "...This LP is raw and rocks from the start. It did not do very well when (it) came out but it's one of Johns best rock LPs..." Amazon reviewer Mark A Bentz
Some Time In New York City also contained a FREE LIVE album, with Side 1 recorded in London, December 1969 with a superband including George Harrison, Eric Clapton & Keith Moon, sloppily performing:
Side 2 consisted of an encore for a concert performance by Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention recorded in New York in June 1971 with the last music ever played at the Fillmore East. The concert was released by Zappa as LIVE At The Fillmore. The first track Lennon performs is Baby Please Don't Go a song he used to perform with The Beatles in Hamburg which has a strong Lennon vocal although Yoko's screaming is pretty distracting. Then Lennon leaves the stage while Yoko (warbling from inside a bag) makes strange noises for about 15 minutes. Hilarious! Incidentally, Frank Zappa was very unhappy that the Lennons pinched his band's improvisations on Yoko's tune, claiming them as her own, because they were impros on his music. Zappa never sued, though, he had too many other cases going. N.B.: The remastered edition of Some Time In New York City has now deleted this problematic track. Ono was later to describe Some Time In New York City as her and Lennon's "...political statement in songs a la Bertolt Brecht...", which isn't even slightly true. Albert Goldman Lennon's much vilified biographer in The Lives Of John Lennon points out that The Lennons were then at the vanguard of the radical movement which was hoping to topple the corrupt Nixon government in the coming November 1972 election. He believes that the Lennons were aiming to influence the votes of millions of young people (perhaps by a concert tour) and move into a position of influence in the new Democratic government. That would certainly have shown Paul! When Nixon was unexpectedly re-elected in 1972, The Lennons proved their commitment to radical causes by never mentioning them again and by 1973, Lennon had retreated into the completely apolitical state of Nutopia for his next album, Mind Games. The Remastered edition of Some Time In New York City now includes the peace-nik single:
which was actually recorded the year before, soon after Imagine was released. Happy Xmas was a big hit at the time and has become a standard, despite Yoko's awful vocal!
Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
John Lennon & Yoko Ono: Happy Xmas (War Is Over) Lennon Estate Video
Just as the Lennons had pinched Paul McCartney's Let It Be idea for filming the recording of an album for Imagine, so they lifted George Harrison's 1971 Concert For Bangla Desh idea of filming both performances of their August 30 1972 concert for a movie and a LIVE album The movie only became a TV-documentary and was first broadcast in December 1972 as John Lennon, LIVE in New York City. That was the last that was heard of it until 1986, when the Lennon Estate released the LIVE album from the concert.
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