Unearthed footage of John Lennon and George Harrison

CA-35

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I stole this from the WXPN web site. It's raw footage from a recording session of "How do you Sleep". It blew me way.

"It's the last week in May in 1971 at Ascot Sound Studios. John Lennon is singing and playing the same wood-finish Epiphone Casino electric guitar he played on 'Revolution'. A bearded George Harrison playing electric slide on John's pale blue Fender Strat. John and George's old friend Klaus Voormann is playing his deep hand-painted Fender Precision bass. Alan White (who would later join Yes) is playing his Ludwig silver sparkle drumkit. Nicky Hopkins is improvising on the red-top Wurlitzer Electric Piano, literally days before he leaves for Nellcôte to play on Exile on Main Street with The Rolling Stones. You are listening to the band playing 'How Do You Sleep' and all the hairs are standing up on the back of your neck."

"Surrounded by cigarette boxes and soda cans, the band in question seems to be at the end of a long night. Bassist Klaus Voormann looks practically asleep at his instrument. Meanwhile, Lennon’s vocals are almost gratingly dry, stripped of their usual studio processing, exposing every strain and rattle in his voice. But rather than weaken the track, this bone-dry approach draws out the song’s emotional sting to great effect. Lennon must have learned something from the experience, because he’d go on to fully embrace this minimal production style for his magnum opus, Plastic Ono Band. In a world of ultra-processed media presence, it’s a rare treat to see the artistic process unfolding more or less as it happened.

 

Westerly Wood

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really cool. Dr Pepper and filterless cigarettes.
1971, I was 4. how cool!
 

adorshki

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But rather than weaken the track, this bone-dry approach draws out the song’s emotional sting to great effect. Lennon must have learned something from the experience, because he’d go on to fully embrace this minimal production style for his magnum opus, Plastic Ono Band. In a world of ultra-processed media presence, it’s a rare treat to see the artistic process unfolding more or less as it happened.
Just for the sake of historical accuracy, in fact he already HAD embraced that style for Plastic Ono Band which had been out on the airwaves for about 6 months already in May of '71, with cuts like "Working Class Hero" and "I Found Out" (which cut Ringo has cited as one of his favorite all time recording sessions).
Not to knock the session, and love the rare footage, but that cut was one of the ones that made Imagine bearable for me at all, along with "I Don't Want to Be A Soldier" and "Gimme Some Truth" because for me, "Imagine" was right up there with the rest of the safe as milk pop that was coming to dominate the airwaves in the early '70's.
A huge letdown for me at least, after Plastic Ono Band.
 

Westerly Wood

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It's a little known fact that John originally penned "Imagine" for the Ray Conniff Singers but they turned it down, fearing mass elevator suicides on exposure to the tune.

i cant stand that song. maybe that rick astley song is worse. maybe.
 

walrus

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Well, I'd listen to "Imagine" over "Oh Yoko". Just sayin'...

BTW, there's a great part of the original clip of that recording in the "Imagine" movie, where Lennon bemoans his Epiphone Casino - "It's crippling me"... I laugh every time I see that - buy another guitar, John! But in those days, no guitar techs, etc. When the Beatles toured, George used to tune their guitars up!

Astounding, really, how little the Beatles spent on guitars and equipment.

Here's the clip - warning, there's bad word in there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8Q8PC8RM-k

walrus
 

adorshki

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Well, I'd listen to "Imagine" over "Oh Yoko". Just sayin'...
From "the usual source":
"The last song on the album was "Oh Yoko!"; EMI pushed for this track to be the single, but Lennon thought it was too "pop"
And he should have used Yoko's lyrics:
"A quote from Ono's book Grapefruit (which the Lennons were in the process of promoting the re-release of in the UK) was also included on the back cover:
"Imagine the clouds dripping. Dig a hole in your garden to put them in."[21] "
:tongue-new:
 

walrus

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Given the disdain that many people held for Yoko at the time, however misplaced, making that a single would have been a mistake, IMHO.

However cool the chords or melody might be, it's one of those songs that (at least for me) you would never bother learning to play. Only one person can sing about Yoko, and he often did.

walrus
 

adorshki

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Given the disdain that many people held for Yoko at the time, however misplaced, making that a single would have been a mistake, IMHO.
Yeah, they shoulda gone for "Crippled Inside" !
:friendly_wink:
However cool the chords or melody might be, it's one of those songs that (at least for me) you would never bother learning to play. Only one person can sing about Yoko, and he often did.
walrus

(I did go for "Oh Yoko" in the Imagine songbook, but only 'cause the chords were easy and I finally had a steel-string to do it justice.)
:friendly_wink:
 
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