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John Lennon, Signature Box, 8CD box – I was never a huge John Lennon fan, but hey – how can any self-respecting music lover not be a John Lennon fan? And, since I didn’t have any of his solo CDs, the release of this gorgeous discography to commemorate what would have been his 70th birthday was the perfect excuse to catch up.
John Lennon was with us for 40 years, and we’ve lived without him for 30. And then this box comes along and reminds us of it all. The box itself is somewhat outsized, and much bigger than you need to hold 10 CDs. It is all white, with the word “LENNON” emblazoned in blue sky/cloud motif on top of all that white. When you slip slide the top of the box off (tight, the way an iPhone box would breathe open mid-pace), you see a greeting:
FROM
YOKO
JULIAN
SEAN
Personal messages from the three surviving Lennons. Below that is a hardcover book, white with the word “Yes” emblazoned on it in blue. The booklet has an essay and photos.
Below it are John Lennon’s eight CDs, and one singles and rarities collection:
- John Lennon, Plastic Ono Band
- John Lennon, Imagine
- John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band, Some Time in NYC
- John Lennon, Mind Games
- John Lennon, Walls and Bridges
- John Lennon, Rock ‘n’ Roll
- John Lennon, Double Fantasy
- John Lennon, Milk and Honey
- Singles and Home Tapes
Each of these (except the last) contains a thick and glorious booklet that include photos, essays and lyrics.
Once your fantasy has taken in all this glorious media, you can note the side of the inner box, which has a nice portrait of John and Yoko (full body) on one side, and an abstract concept of their faces on the other.
Finally, at the bottom, there’s a drawer that contains a gorgeous print of a drawing of John and Yoko sitting under a tree. Nice.
The square white book that comes with the set is a gorgeous little thing, with the word “yes” inlaid in blue in what seems to be John’s handwriting. It contains 60 pages of photos and writings on John Lennon, with some lyrics, doodles and artwork. Many of the photos are of John and Yoko together, and there are some of John before he met Yoko; there are no pictures of John’s two sons. John is in every picture in the book except a picture of a Ringo Starr album cover, inexplicably included here. There’s a great picture of the bed-in that is followed by a pen drawing of the scene. My favourite picture is of John and Yoko at Giza, with the pyramids in the background. The essay is not bad, as it gives saucy quotes from John pissed off about people’s expectations of him, or their poor opinions of Yoko (and, by extension then, of him too), but it also re-tells some of the stories that are in the individual album booklets. Some of the typography is screwy, as a few lines drift out of the left column. On pages 7, 11, 14, 15, 20, 44, 45, 48 and 56 this problem exists. Is this some sort of code? Sadly, there are no labels or credits for the pics and paintings. Neil Young Archives Volume 1 this ain’t, but it’s a work of art nonetheless.
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band - The booklet has a nice drawing in it depicting the album cover scene on page 2, and the picture from “Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band” on the back of the booklet. There’s also a nice pic of John in a kimono, and John and Yoko posing with large pictures of themselves as children, probably when they were each only four years old or so. The essay gives a short background to the recording of the album, as they all do, to set the scene.
The music, of course, is great. Opening track is “Mother”, probably the best song John ever did. The gloomy bell that makes you think out of something Black Sabbath would have done around the time, then that burst of music: a guitar, a piano, a drum and a voice all coming in at the same time. The song is so simple, so heart-wrenching, and even if it seems to come in with everything right off the bat, it just builds and builds. It’s hard to hit the skip button when this one comes on, for whatever reason, you just want to drop everything you’re doing and focus all of your attention. “Hold On” is a decent song, “I Found Out” is an early punk classic with minimalistic production and great lyrics.
“Working Class Hero” is, of course, the classic of anger that it is, covered as it has been by such great voices as Marianne Faithful and others. “Isolation” is a scary dirge that could have been written by Roger Waters. “Remember” is cool as cucumber rock ‘n’ roll, and “Love” is as quiet as quiet gets. “Well, Well, Well” kicks and grooves, it’s mean. “Look At Me” is a very boring ballad, or dirge, while “God” blisters with iconoclasm and a great repetitive groove. “I don’t believe in Elvis, I don’t believe in Zimmerman, I don’t believe in Beatles – I just believe in me, Yoko and me.” The final track, “My Mummy’s Dead” is a fragment, just like John liked to use for his own albums and Beatles albums. A brilliant album full of great tracks.
Imagine - The booklet has pictures of John at his white grand piano, lounging in his white deck chairs, wrestling a pig, or hanging out with Yoko or Phil Specter.
The title track opens the piece, and everyone’s heard it a million times – it’s been voted the greatest composition of all creation. “Crippled Inside” is an old-time country rocker with great piano, “Jealous Guy” is the greatest whistling song ever written, while “It’s So Hard” is more standard rock ‘n’ roll with some cool saxophone. “I Don’t Wanna Be A Soldier Mama” is some great swamp rock, love it. “Give Me Some Truth” is fast-moving anger rock, John spouting bile at critics. “I’m sick and tired of hearing things from uptight short-sighted narrow-minded hypocrites/ All I want is the truth, just give me the truth,” and it just goes on and on. Amazing. “Oh My Love” is a simple, beautiful ditty with just John’s voice and guitar, with some piano. “How Do You Sleep” is another anger song, this time against Paul McCartney, which starts off with those pretentious string sounds, then gets into some more swamp boogie. That is followed by the simple (and similarly-titled) “How?”, which is a bit of a schmaltzer with strings and everything. “Oh Yoko!” is a fun song to close the album.
Some Time In New York City - One disc of studio music and one disc of live recordings. The booklet opens up with a picture of John and Yoko and their band of the day, Elephant’s Memory, with a little map to name the individual – but no index to the map. Great, I guess someone screwed up there. There’s also a groovy picture of John and Yoko playing onstage with Frank Zappa, as they did for the scary final four songs on the live recording that covers Disc 2. The gatefold CD holder has three panes and shows John and Yoko posing in front of a smashed car, Yoko looking un-Asian and wearing a witch’s hat, there’s also a really atrocious photo of the band onstage. This is the first release ascribed to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and it is a highly politicised work.
Disc 1, which represents a studio recording, starts off with “Woman Is The Nigger Of The World”, sounding a lot like something Leonard Cohen might have put on “Death of a Ladies Man”, with a big, brash Saturday Night Live band sort of sound. “Sisters, O Sisters” is the first real Yoko Ono song in the John Lennon series, it starts off with Yoko’s voice saying “Male chauvinist pig engineer, nyeh heh”, and John saying “Right on, sister.” It’s like another world. The opening salvo has the feel of a theatre piece, it then becomes a bit of old school rock ‘n’ roll that is actually a great little song from Yoko. Love it, even if this form of music isn’t really what Yoko was about – I wonder if she was saddled into it somehow by John to win her greater acceptance from the music people he’d surrounded himself with from the Beatles days and carried over into his solo work. “Attica State” is more great anger rock from both John and Yoko, but somehow Yoko is more prominent in this (Ironically, David Chapman is housed here on his life sentence for murdering John). “Born in a Prison” sounds very much like something you’d hear from David Letterman’s band, but it’s a ballad from Yoko and is a bit maudlin high school. “New York City” is great rock ‘n’ roll from John, “Standing on a corner, just me and Yoko Ono”, love it! “Sunday Bloody Sunday” is a great piece of funk from John (“This is not a U2 song, this is a John and Yoko song.”) “The Luck Of The Irish” is a nice song, if a bit over-produced with the strings and the piano and all and Yoko affecting an opera singer-type of voice. I like the Shonen Knife version a bit more, but that may be because I heard it first (it also certainly doesn’t suffer from over-production). “John Sinclair”, despite the fantastic slide guitar, is the first flop of the series, probably because of the irritating “got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to got to…” that he does. I never want to hear the song again, unless I’m convinced otherwise. “Angela” is much better, a song that Yoko sings about Angela Davis, who was imprisoned for 18 months without trial. “We’re All Water” is a crazy old rocker sung by Yoko that has plenty of her freaky vocal noises on it.
Disc two represents two live recordings. The first was from a show done at the Lyceum Ballroom in London, England on December 15th 1969 for a UNICEF charity concert when John and Yoko were playing with Eric Clapton, Bonnie and Delaney, George Harrison, Keith Moon, Billy Preston, Klaus Voorman, and tons of other people. The two songs are an eight minute-long version of “Cold Turkey”, a song John had released as a single and is presented here as a relatively straight forward version, and “Don’t Worry Kyoko”, a 16 minute-long Yoko Ono noise freakout that presages anything that Hijo Kaidan ever did on the Japanese noise scene in the late 80s and 90s, and which starts with the wail “Johnnnnnnnnn I love you; repent, you killed Harati you murderer”, which is followed by jabs of great funk that is punctuated by those unholy wails. The best thing is the applause at the end – whatever people might have said about Yoko at the time, the crowd seemed into it, or at least blasted into some drop-jaw respect. The last four tracks were recorded with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention on June 6th 1971 and Frank is heard prominently speaking on some tracks, particularly “Scumbag”. “Well (Baby Please Don’t Go)” is an old school rock ‘n’ roll song done to precision by the Mothers, with Yoko’s insane wailing accompanying it, another unhinged moment. Great, great, great solo, which I can only guess was supplied by Zappa himself, and there is tons of applause. Yes!! This eventually drifts into “Jamrag”, which is less interesting, as it gets into the keyboard and Ono-wail thing and is quite experimental, it sounds a lot like prog rock. “Scumbag” starts on a note and is near-perfect, with John pitching in 35 seconds into the song with the only lyrics to the song: “Scumbag.” I have to wonder if this sense of humor is more Frank’s than John’s; it seems more Zappa-esque, but who really knows – John was the boss in those days. “Au” happens when the band leaves the stage, and then Yoko carries on with her voice and some feedback. It’s really fantastic, and she gets great applause.
Mind Games - Just a few things in the booklet, namely a press conference pic with John and Yoko, a wonky “Declaration of Nutopia” letter signed and caricatured by both John and Yoko, and a strange message about the three most important books John’s read recently; oh yeah, and a nice picture of a cat on top of it.
The eponymous opening song is probably already very well known for its atmospheric lyrics and gorgeous rhythms; it’s followed by “Tight A$”, which is good fun – some old blistering rock ‘n’ roll from John’s Reeperbahn era. “Aisumasen (I’m Sorry)” is something you’d hear from anyone, whether they’re Madonna or Lunarin, but it’s also a beautiful song that is well-written, nicely produced, and a real keeper. “One Day (At A Time)” sounds like a reject from Sgt Pepper’s. “Bring On The Lucie (Freda People)” is really great, envigorating rock ‘n’ roll with a rousing popular chorus and fantastic right-on lyrics. Fantastic! “Intuition” is sort of a boring folk song that sounds more like Paul than John; “Out of the Blue” sort of sounds like “Sexy Sadie” and something else, but more produced. “Only People” is more rousing groove and fun! “I Know (I Know)” sounds like more confession from John, it’s a nice acoustic ballad that becomes a woodsy rocker (“I’m sorry, yes I am”). It includes the line “Today I love you more than yesterday/ Right now I love you more right now.” Sounds like a less elegant version than something else I know (try Elvis’ cialis on demand dosage: “”Ku-u-i-po I love you more today, More today than yesterday / But I love you less today, Less than I will tomorrow”. Continuing (ironically), with the Hawaiian theme, “You Are Here” is a Honolulu rocker, that includes the line “East is east and west is west, the twain shall meet/ East is west, and west is east, Let it be complete”, disagreeing completely with Rudyard Kilping, tadalafil 5mg shop “East is east and west is west, and never the twin shall meet”. Album closer “Meat City” is a really amazing rocker that includes some crazy voice-manipulated bits in the first part. Were it not for those, it would be one of John Lennon’s best bits of his solo career.
Walls and Bridge - some illustrations, and some pictures of John with long, long hair hanging out with Elton John, who played with him on “Whatever Gets You Thru The Night”. The cover is a collage of three drawings John made when he was 11, the booklet shows all three in their entirety. This album was recorded during John’s lost weekend in Los Angeles with May Pang when he also produced an album with Harry Nilsson, and at one point there was a mini Beatles reunion when Paul McCartney showed up at the studio to jam with John, Nilsson, Stevie Wonder and some other musicians. The recordings are available on YouTube, but they are a bit tough to listen to, with the sounds of bickering an coke snorting.
The album starts well, with the slinky “Going Down On Love”, which is followed closely by the honky tonk funk of “Whatever Gets You Thru The Night”, which features Elton John and his whole band and was Lennon’s first #1 single as a solo artist (and the last one he’d enjoy in his lifetime). “Old Dirt Road” is a boring dirge, at least compared to the ripping funk of the song that follows it, “What You Got.” “Bless You” is a sad song to Yoko that includes some nice horns, while “Scared” is a gloomy tune with a full brass band accompanying it that has some nice guitar work. It hits the spot, while” #9 Dream” is a very nice dreamy song with a gorgeous, memorable tune. “Surprise, Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradox)” is a groovy rocker that’s punctuated with horns. “Steel and Glass” is an angry rip at Beatles manager Alan Klein, with some dark funk and ominous strings, each verse is another stab at the man. “Beef Jerky” is a cool and silly instrumental, with prominent guitar and cool horns, and an occasional crowd chant of “beef jerky, beef jerky, beef jerky.” “Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down And Out)” feels sorry for itself, with bitter lyrics like “I’ll scratch your back and you’ll knife mine.” Last song is a knocked-off song called “tadalafil online sicuro“, a song that John was obliged to release in order to satisfy a settlement with music publisher cialis more expensive than viagra who was able to establish in court that John and the Beatles ripped off Chuck Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me” (which he owned the rights to) in “tadalafil 20 milligrams” (hey – they do sound similar, and he really lifted one of the line – although not as baldly as the Beach Boys did to Chuck Berry’s “cialis 20mg 2cp“; why was everybody ripping off Chuck Berry and treating him so disrespectfully?). An 11-year-old Julian Lennon plays drums. It’s fun, but a bit too short. Lennon would record it properly on his next album (and finally also satisfy his legal obligation to Levy, who had decided after hearing the crappy “Ya Ya” to take things into his own hands by mail-order releasing ROOTS: John Lennon Sings The Great Rock & Roll Hits against John and his record company’s wishes, a major rock ‘n’ roll cock-up… but a very interesting one at least).
Rock ‘N’ Roll - The title, written like that, seems like a typo, but that’s the way it’s spelled (just like Guns N’ Roses looks wrong). The booklet has four pictures of a young John Lennon from the Hamburg days, and no lyrics sheet. The three “ghosts” that are strolling by are the other Beatles (Stuart Sutcliffe, George Harrison and Paul McCartney – seems that Pete Best was absent from the photo shoot that day, or didn’t make it into the photo that was finally used).
The album opens with a faithful version of Gene Vincent’s “Be-Bop-A-Lula”, and is followed by that version of Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” that everybody knows. “Rip It Up” and “Ready Teddy”, both by Bumps Blackwell, are sexy rockers done as a medley, with the provocative lyrics “Gonna rip it up, gonna rock it up, gonna shake it up, gonna ball it up, gonna rick it up and ball tonight,” great rock with horns. “You Can’t Catch Me” is the offending Chuck Berry that John was nailed on for lifting ideas for “Come Together” that brought this whole album into existence – the publisher of “You Can’t Catch Me” agreed to a settlement if John would record some of his songs, and he finally did on this album. Lennon’s version of the song is loud and boisterous and a lot of fun. Fats Domino’s “Ain’t That A Shame”, a song that the Beatles must have played a lot in the early days, and can be heard on Part 1 of the Beatles Anthology DVD series, is given the slow, heavy Cheap Trick treatment. “Do You Want To Dance”, the old Bobby Freeman number, is given a kind of island vibe to it, even if John shouts the chorus. Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” is a slow, hornified rocker, while “Slippin’ And Slidin’” has a lot of insane energy. Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue” is given the full Buddy Holly treatment, with the rolling drums. Who could record anything but a faithful version of this unique classic? “Bring It On Home To Me/Send Me Some Lovin’” is pretty standard, while “Bony Moronie” really zooms, with fantastic fuzz guitar and long, grungy aggressive lyrics. At 2:18, this release’s version of “Ya Ya” is a bit more than twice as long as the version that closes “Walls and Bridges”, which John had done with his 12-year-old son Julian Lennon. It has long instrumental bits and seems more like a kids song than anything else. “Just Because” is a schmaltzy Lloyd Price song that John doesn’t really take seriously and drags out endlessly. It’s pretty boring and not a great album-closer (the sessions also produced another song, “Move Over, Ms. L”, which was the B-side to “Stand By Me”, the album’s only single. It’s in the set, but on another CD).
“Rock’N'Roll” was the last album John would release for five years. In the meantime, he reconciled with Yoko, they had a baby, John cleaned up, he became a devoted father and spent his whole day with his new boy, Sean. After a while, he felt the urge to make music again, and eventually he had enough for “Double Fantasy.”
Double Fantasy - The booklet has pics of John, John and Yoko, and John and Yoko and Sean. It also has a nice pen drawing of John being a dad to his little kid.
The album is a mix of songs by John and Yoko, meaning that approximately every other one is by one or the other. John has seven songs and so does Yoko. John and Yoko did the album by themselves, not under contract to a studio, so they had the luxury of shopping it around. David Geffen was the one who got the contract, and it launched his label. John starts it up with “(Just Like) Starting Over”, the dreamy tune with the angelic chorus backing it up, followed by Yoko’s very new wave “Kiss Kiss Kiss”, a very groovy tune with sampled sounds “da-te” and an orgasmic double climax over the final 30 seconds at the end of the song. This is the album with the greatest Yoko presence, and her first real contribution since her stellar contributions to “Some Time In New York City”, actually. “Cleanup Time” is groovy funky psychedelic slow and peaceful that incorporates nursery rhymes, horns, and some fantastic guitar work. Yoko’s “Give Me Something” is electronic New Wave and sounds a bit like Peter Schilling, very robotic. “Give me something that’s not cold cold cold.” John brings back the soul with the mournful “I’m Losing You”, a hard song to sing or listen to when you know what happened to him later, which Yoko blends into “I’m Moving On”, where she demonstrates the spite of a woman betrayed by her man – it has almost the same beat, but a different riff, it is more mechanical. “You didn’t have to tell a white lie/ you know you scarred me for life/ Don’t stick your finger in my pie/ You know I see through your jive/ I want the truth and nothing more.” Both songs are great, and they’re even better when heard together (which you usually wouldn’t, because radio DJs typically play the former and skip the latter… and so do compilers of John Lennon anthologies). Next is “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)”, a wonderful song for five-year-old Sean Lennon that brings the family back together. “Watching The Wheels” is a regular song and quite well known. “Yes, I’m Your Angel” by Yoko Ono is some sort of 1920s flapper song, not innovative in any way, but still fun. “Woman” by John is that fantastic love song with that great riff and the spacy vocals, hammed up a bit with backing vocalists. Yoko has her own version of a boy song with “Beautiful Boys”, which is gloomy and more like a Nico song than anything else. “Your tears are streaming even when you’re smiling.” “Dear Yoko” is a funky rocker (it starts off with “well-a-well-a-well-a”) with great vocals and terrific lyrics that is somewhat like “Oh Yoko!” from “Imagine”. The last two songs are by Yoko: “Every Man Has A Woman Who Loves Him” is a bit of a New Wave plodder that is a companion to John’s “Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down And Out), and “Hard Times Are Over” is a kind of a warbly Broadway tune that comes off as somewhat overproduced.
Milk and Honey - The booklet has many pictures, mainly John with Sean or Yoko, with a few of him on his own. The final picture is Yoko in a kimono sitting alone, looking off to her right, seeming very lonely. It is the last statement of the set, as the last two CDs (“singles” and “home recordings” don’t have a booklet).
This album was released posthumously, and of the 12 songs odd-numbered songs are John’s, while even-numbered songs are Yoko’s. Some of the songs don’t have that big production, at least not for John’s songs, since Yoko still had a chance to at least see her songs completed. The release opens with “Steppin’ Out”, a fun song about a househusband going crazy after being cooped up with the family for too long and watching Sesame Street, it has a chunky, chugging feel to it. Yoko’s first number “Sleepless Night” is a funky, confused new wave/dub wander around soundscapes and strange grooves, the singing is pretty good. It has a very experimental sound and he Japanese accent seems to be gone. “I Don’t Want to Face It” starts off with John goofing around, saying “un, deux, eins, zwei hickle fickle.” The song is a pretty standard rocker. Yoko’s second number “Don’t Be Scared” is pretty much pure dub, with plenty of deep bass, scratchy guitars and a bit of percussion. It is a bit jazzy and has backing vocals and just sort of meanders aimlessly. “Everybody’s Talking” is that goofy rocker with the weird Thompson Twins percussion feel to it. “O’ Sanity” has an overproduced feel to it, but it is very short and has great, crazy lyrics: “It’s only sane to be insane/ Psychotic builds a castle and lives in it/ I don’t know what to do with my sanity/ When the world’s at the verge of calamity.” John’s “Borrowed Time”, with its ironic title (so many sadly ironic titles on that last album: “I Don’t Want To Face It”, “Nobody Told Me”, “Borrowed Time” and especially “Grow Old With Me”) is quite minimal and simple, also not a very exciting song. “Your Hands” is a sexy song of longing, sung partly in Japanese – she sounds like she’s singing a national anthem in these parts – with the translation of what she’s sung delivered in English in a semi-hurried speaking tone. She delivers one of the set’s strongest lyrics here: “In a day, no matter how many times we meet, it’s not enough/ In a lifetime, no matter how many times we meet, it’s not enough/ In a lifetime, no matter how many times we meet, it’s not enough/ In many lifetimes, no matter how many times we meet, it’s not enough.” The tone is militant, defiant. Oh man – brings a tear every time. “(Forgive Me) My Little Flower Princess” is sort of a Roxy Music crooner sung by an apologetic philanderer. “Let Me Count The Ways” is Yoko’s simple piano ditty for John, talking about how much she misses John, lots of memories. “Grow Old With Me” is a beautiful song, with John singing passionately a really sweet ditty, with piano and simple drum accompaniment. “God bless our love, God bless our love.” The final song, “You’re The One”, is by Yoko – it starts off with the sound of explosions, sampled voices, keyboards, and then erupts into a strange new wave tune that sounds like early Talk Talk. It’s pretty good, she performs a sort of strange vocal ballet that has drips of inspiration for Kate Bush and Bjork. Good stuff, Yoko!
The album cover for “Milk And Honey” is similar to the cover for “Double Fantasy”, just a close-up of John and Yoko showing their love for each other, Yoko looks great, and John looks happy, both of these photos came from the same session. It must be hard for Yoko to look at those pictures after her terrible loss.
It’s hard for me to take, and hard for me to believe, that John was 40 when he was murdered, nearly the same age as I am now. I’m very lucky to have made it this far, and have a beautiful family to share my life with, I wish John could have had the same.
The final two discs are the singles and the rarities. For the singles and B-sides which don’t appear on the albums, there’s the percussion-led and mightily aggressive sax-fuelled “Power To The People” (great!!), “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” (how can you complain? It’s one of the best Christmas songs ever), “Instant Karma” (sounds like a Beatles song), “Cold Turkey” (great bustin’ blues stomp), and “Give Peace A Chance” (one of the greatest group raps ever – stellar!). There’s also “Move Over Ms L”, the B-side to “Stand By Me” from “Rock’N'Roll”. The song is good fun, with its rollicking beat, and the horns keeping things hot.
The home recordings have four songs not found on any other CD in this set, and seven demos of well-known songs, most of which are for songs that appear on the first album. These include a version of “Mother” that sounds a lot like the original albeit without the 34 seconds of gloomy church bell toming at the beginning; similar for “Love” and “God”, which are presented in stripped-down acoustic versions. “Remember” is just the song without the intro, John singing and playing the piano. “I Don’t Want To Be A Soldier Mama” is John with guitar, piano and drum accompaniment, it is very folky with a bit of honky tonk while the final recording is full of electric sounds, intense vocals and is quite swampy and sinister. “I Found Out” is very familiar, while “Nobody Told Me” is even more stripped down, with a horrible recording quality. “Isolation” is just John’s voice with piano, he still sounds a lot like Roger Waters. “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)” is a very stripped-down version, with just voice, guitar, and handclaps and different lyrics.
Then there are the original songs: “Honey Don’t” is not on other albums, it sounds like an old rocker. “One Of The Boys” is John and guitar, friendly and homey, as is “India, India,” which sounds almost like a James Taylor groove-out. “Serve Yourself” is a song mocking religious freaks that sort of parodies Bob Dylan’s “Serve Somebody”, quite righteously taking the piss out of old Bob.
As a bonus, here’s a clip of John and Bob bickering in a taxi in London: