When talking about the greatest Beatles songs of all time, few have avoided the critical eye of John Lennon. From his early days with the Fab Four until his solo catalogue, Lennon was never shy about discussing the albums he enjoyed and, in equal measure, those he thought should have been left on the cutting room floor. While much has been made about Lennon despising some of Paul McCartney’s offerings like ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’, he wasn’t afraid to drag his own music through the mud, too.
Throughout the band’s tenure, Lennon was notoriously ashamed of how most of the Beatles’ songs were recorded, expressing a desire to have another crack at a handful of tunes during his solo career. While tracks like ‘Come Together’ would remain a part of Lennon’s setlist on the offhand occasion that he would perform live, his primary focus was working on various projects with and without the help of his wife, Yoko Ono.
Fresh out of The Beatles, Lennon’s first proper solo venture, Plastic Ono Band,would be one of his personal favourite records. He believed that he hit a nerve that none of his other bandmates could have. Although the songs were there on cutting tracks like ‘Mother’ and ‘God’, Lennon thought he needed a little more honey to convey his message.
From there, Imagine was born, featuring songs that would become Lennon’s most celebrated work, from the humble prayer in the title track to the indictment of political hypocrites worldwide in ‘Gimme Some Truth’. Since his message songs were spawning massive hits, Lennon thought the next logical step was to take those political ideologies and spread them out across one album.
While the idea of a political double album may have seemed decent on paper, Some Time in New York City became one of the first Lennon projects not to hit a nerve with the public. Coming off the first single using a racial slur, much of the album features songs that feel like they were rushed to make them sound current, coupled with a back-and-forth track listing of works from both Lennon and Ono.
Even though the playing is rough around the edges in a few spots, plenty of great songs still turn up on the album. As much as something like ‘We’re All Water’ may have been better left behind, Ono’s ‘Sisters O Sisters’ and Lennon’s ‘The Luck of the Irish’ are fascinating looks at pressing issues, namely women’s rights and The Troubles.
When looking back on that time, though, Ono said that Lennon would have instead not put the album out at all, telling Guitar World, “That one, we both kind of regretted. We thought it was an interesting idea, but nobody got it. So I felt awful. Sales were bad, et cetera. It made things kind of difficult for us.”
For the first time since getting together, the couple found that their creative personalities were becoming self-destructive, leading to both of them separating and Lennon moving to California to undergo his ‘Lost Weekend’ when making albums like Walls and Bridges and Rock ‘n’ Roll. Lennon and Ono may have been the definition of soulmates, but Some Time In New York City ended up being the straw that broke the camel’s back.
