Tag Archives: John Lennon

Not Fade Away

Buddy Holly’s music career lasted three years and he only released three albums during that time, but his legacy and influence still lasts to this day. Today is the 75th anniversary of the Texan singer’s birth and a couple of tribute albums have already been released this year to commemorate this event. Listen to Me and Rave on Buddy Holly are the titles of these two compilations and both feature a host of acts that have come along in the five decades since Holly’s death. Zooey Deschanel appears on both albums, singing It’s So Easy on the former and Oh Boy, as part of She & Him, on the latter. Brian Wilson, Jackson Browne and former Beatle Ringo Starr all appear on Listen to Me, while the only other surviving Beatle appears on Rave On Buddy Holly. McCartney also sings It’s So Easy and you can find Patti Smith, Lou Reed and over a dozen more contemporary artists on the album. Of course, many performers have paid tribute to Buddy over the years and today I’ll have a look at some of those

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Nowhere Boy

It was thirty years ago today that John Lennon was murdered at the entrance to his residence at the Dakota building in New York City. The three decades since his death have seen the release of a number of documentaries and feature films that focus on certain aspects of Lennon’s life. The post-Beatles period and Lennon’s political activism throughout the early seventies is nicely covered in a documentary by Leaf and Scheinfeld called The U.S. vs John Lennon (2006). From 1988, Andrew Solt’s Imagine: John Lennon chronicles his life as a member of The Beatles and then focuses on his solo career. It features edited performances of his songs and uses interviews and archival footage to tell his story. The actor Ian Hart made his first two film appearances playing his fellow Liverpudlian in Backbeat (1991) and The Hours & the Times (1994). The former focuses on the relationship between Stuart Sutcliffe and Lennon as The Beatles honed their craft in Hamburg in the early sixties, while the latter re-imagines an actual holiday spent by Lennon and manager Brian Epstein in Barcelona in 1963. This year, Christopher Eccleston portrayed the singer’s relationship with Yoko Ono and the eventual demise of The Beatles in the BBC film, Lennon Naked. A year earlier, Aaron Johnson (pictured above) played the pre-Beatle Lennon in artist Sam Taylor-Wood’s Nowhere Boy

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They Say It’s Your Birthday

John Lennon was born in Liverpool on October 9th, 1940, and would be about to celebrate his 70th birthday tomorrow if he hadn’t been murdered by Mark Chapman in 1980 (and if he then managed to stay alive for the subsequent decades, of course). Coincidentally, EMI has re-released remastered versions of Lennon’s solo albums and have added a couple of more Greatest Hits collections to the pile. There’s also a stripped-down version of Double Fantasy, a few box sets, a 70th birthday t-shirt and a bleedin’ 2011 calendar. Don’t they know there’s a recession on? Anyway, Lennon is my favourite member of the Fab Four and I like a lot of his solo songs in general and the Plastic Ono Band album in particular. Many people have attempted versions of his songs and a few have written ones about him. Hamell on Trial‘s original features some frenetic acoustic guitar accompanying the singer’s breathless tale about a life-changing encounter with the subject of his song. The Flaming Lips version of a song that was posthumously released on Milk & Honey in 1984 comes from a 1995 tribute album called Working Class Hero. Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs have so far released two Under the Covers albums. The first volume focuses on the sixties and includes their take on And Your Bird Can Sing by The Beatles. Gimme Some Truth appears on the seventies-themed follow-up. Look out for another post about Lennon on December 8th

John Lennon – Hamell on Trial

Nobody Told Me (John Lennon cover) – The Flaming Lips

Gimme Some Truth (John Lennon cover) – Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs

The Ballad of Yoko Ono

Yoko-Ono-trees

This week’s episode of Later…with Jools Holland features Smokey Robinson, The Dead Weather, Bassekou Kouyate, Miike Snow and Basement Jaxx. Basement Jaxx are joined by Yoko Ono, who will also perform without the band. This week I will just focus on one of those guests. Yoko Ono is an artist and musician, who got her start in music when she hooked up with a singer named John Lennon. Lennon was a member of a band from the sixties called The Beatles and Ono’s relationship with Lennon was seen by many as a major reason for that group’s untimely demise. Lennon was quite fond of Ono and wrote a number of songs that expressed his fondness for her. They were man and wife for the whole of the seventies, but the arrangement ended at the end of 1980 when Mark Chapman took Lennon’s life. Here are a number of songs sung by Yoko Ono plus a couple written by John Lennon about her. I’ve also included a few more songs about Ono, the breakup of the Beatles, and Sissy Spacek’s displeasure at the cover of the Two Virgins LP

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Letting Off Steam While Getting Steamed

Swearing

A bar in Spain has come up with an unusual marketing plan for these recessionary times. Customers at the Casa Pocho bar in Cullera, southern Spain, are encouraged to come in for a drink and to insult the staff while they’re at it. Free drinks will be given to patrons who can come up with novel or humorous ways of verbally abusing the bar staff. To be frank, I experience this every time I go to The Abbey Bar in Galbally, Co Limerick. The customers are often quite explicit and forthright in their criticisms and demands of the bar staff who, to be fair, are well able to give it back. I also experience it every time I go to The Wild Onion in Limerick, and they don’t even serve alcohol there. I’d be quite willing to return the abuse, but I’d really miss the omelettes if I got barred. Here’s a mix of abusive tunes to get you in the mood should you decide to visit the Casa Pocho. Some of the songs are harmless, others are witty or funny, while a number of them are downright offensive and contain language that some people might find offensive. Happy listening, you miscreants!


01 Waitress In The Sky – The Replacements

02 You Talk Too Much – Sultans of Ping F.C.

03 Piss On You – The Wannadies

04 Tell That Girl to Shut Up – Holly & the Italians

05 Hey (Shut The Fuck Up Boy) – Peter, Bjorn & John

06 Guess Who Batman (Fuck You Very Much) – Lily Allen

07 Fuck Me Pumps – Amy Winehouse

08 Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole – Martha Wainwright

09 Rufus Is A Tit Man (live) – Loudon Wainwright III

10 Your Feet’s Too Big – Fats Waller

11 Hound Dog – Big Mama Thornton

12 Road Rage – Catatonia

13 Why D’Ya Do It? – Marianne Faithfull

14 How Do You Sleep? – John Lennon

15 Short People – Randy Newman

16 Brilliant Mistake – Elvis Costello

17 Positively 4th Street – Bob Dylan

18 Under My Thumb – The Rolling Stones

19 Fortunate Son – CCR

20 Common People – Pulp

21 You’re So Vain (Carly Simon cover) – The Feeling

22 Fucker – Eels

23 Fuck You, It’s Over – Glasvegas

If I Should Fall From Grace With God

Mrs Doyle

In Ireland, blasphemy is prohibited by the constitution even though it is not a crime by law. However, that could change soon if a proposal by the Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, gets the go-ahead. Here’s what he has to say: “A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €100,000.” Apparently, blasphemous matter would be material that would be considered highly insulting to a significant portion of the members of a particular religion. This raises a number of questions. What is meant by a “religion”? The popular ones like Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism and Hinduism with their various gods and practices and followers are obvious enough. But, what about Atheism, Agnosticism, Paganism and the like? Many of the adherents to these philosophies may be insulted by the beliefs and practices of mainstream religions. Nowadays, many Irish people gain spiritual sustenance from sporting fixtures, music concerts and outings to the cinema. I’m sure that many people would be upset if I insulted Roy Keane, Clint Eastwood or Bob Dylan (not that I would, of course!) But would it be blasphemy if I did?

Even though such a proposal would be hard to define and even harder to enforce it could also spell the end of the career of someone like Tommy Tiernan, whose act relies heavily on making fun of religious superstition. It would surely put an end to RTE Two’s never-ending repeats of Father Ted, the funniest Irish comedy ever made by a British TV company. Worse of all, it could mean that one of my favourite films, Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979), would be banned again in Ireland. It had been originally banned for eight years following its original release because of its alleged blasphemy against Jesus and the Catholic church. In fact, J.C. only appears briefly and is treated quite reverently on those occasions. Not only that but the film makes fun of the masses who blindly follow gods and religions without question as they have nothing else to believe in. This is shown perfectly in the famous “We’re all individuals” scene. It would be a sacrilege if films and shows like these were banned. Thanks be to God I have them on DVD to watch when I want. Mind you, it wouldn’t be the end of the world even if this proposal becomes law in Ireland. Since 1991, the Commonwealth of Australia has not recognised blasphemy as as offence, although it is against the law to register a ship that has a blasphemous name. Of course, you’d be a long way from civilisation if you decided to move there, but surely that would be a small price to pay for a bit of blasphemy

One of Limerick’s more entertaining and educational blogs has chosen May 14th as National Blasphemy Day. This is what Bock the Robber has to say: “In light of the draft anti-blasphemy legislation proposed by the Irish government, I suggest holding a National Blasphemy Day, on which every blogger deliberately sets out to grossly offend the religious sensitivities of as many religious believers as possible, with the clear intention of causing outrage.” Bock has also created a Facebook group here. I notice that Bock has also given his site a fresh makeover and promises that he is “Now 20% More Offensive.” It is certainly not my intention to upset the religious sensibilities of anyone. Instead, here’s a few tunes that will hopefully have the desired effect

The Beatles caused a bit of a stir in 1965 when John Lennon made this comment to a reporter: “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I do not know what will go first, rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity…We’re more popular than Jesus now.” This lead to some “fans” burning the band’s records in certain US states, including people who bought them solely for this purpose! Lennon tried to explain his position by pointing out that he wasn’t trying to offend anyone: he believed that his band was a part of popular culture that was more popular than religion at that time, particularly among the younger generation. Following the break-up of The Beatles, a track on his first solo album, Plastic Ono Band (1970), caused more controversy. In the song entitled God, he listed a load of important figures that he no longer believed in including The Beatles, Buddha, Jesus, Elvis, Bob Dylan, and God. I remember being quite shocked when I heard the song for the first time. I mean, what did Bob Dylan do to deserve such treatment?

God – John Lennon

Throughout the sixties, The Beatles’ perceived image as “cheeky chappies” had been contrasted with that of The Rolling Stones who played on their bad-boy image by releasing an album called Their Satanic Majesties Request in 1967. The following year they released the single, Sympathy for the Devil, a song that draws heavily upon the plot and some incidents from The Master and Margarita, a novel from Mikhail Bulgakov. The narrator tells us that he was present at many of history’s most atrocious moments: from making sure that Pontius Pilate washed his hands to seal Jesus’ fate up to the death of the Kennedys. Towards the end of the song he reveals that the Devil does indeed have the best tunes when he asks us to just call him “Lucifer”

Sympathy for the Devil – The Rolling Stones

I’m not really sure whether Richard Thompson’s God Loves a Drunk is actually blasphemous or not. It’s actually more about social class and alcoholism than it is about religion. In its witty and humorous lyric, Thompson argues that God has more time for someone who’s down on his luck and spends his time drinking than someone who lives comfortably and responsibly. And he wonders if the drunk will be rewarded in the afterlife: “Will the pubs never close, will the glass never drain?/No more D.T.’s and no shakes/And no horrors/Very next morning you feel right as rain.” Sounds like Heaven to me

God Loves a Drunk – Richard Thompson

Jesus – The Missing Years by John Prine is even wittier and more humorous than Thompson’s song. It’s also a little bit more blasphemous. Little is known about what Jesus got up to from about the time he got angry with the traders in the temple up to the time he started turning water into wine and giving the fishmongers and bakers a run for their money. Here, Prine tries to piece together what the teenage Jesus did. Some of the highlights include moving to Rome and marrying an Irish girl and recording with the Stones

Jesus the Missing Years – John Prine

Even in 1986, English band XTC received some notoriety with a song that simply questions God’s existence. It’s structured like a prayer to God and features two separate singers. The first and last verses of the song are sung by an eight year old girl who was the daughter of a friend of Todd Rundgren, who produced the album. The rest of the song is sung by its composer, Andy Partridge. Essentially, the song ponders a question that many people have been asking for a long time: if there really is a God then why does he let so much shit happen?

Dear God – XTC

Perhaps Stephen Lynch’s song offers some clues to the questions posed above. The song is attributed to the singer and comedian, but is sung by a female singer. It is a parody of Joan Osborne’s hit single, One of Us, and uses the same tune with humorous lyrics in the style of Weird Al Yankovic. Osborne’s original was written by Eric Bazilian of The Hooters and the parody was written by Bob Rivers. The parody wonders what the world would be like if God smoked cannibis. To be frank, I don’t think it would one bit different than it is now

What If God Smoked Weed? – Stephen Lynch