As 1974 unfolded it became increasingly apparent these were curious, unchartered days for those totems of English rock during the 1960s.
With aspirations of steering The Who forward, Pete Townshend had gone back to their formative days of Mods and mayhem with his weighty ‘Quadrophenia‘ (1973), this being an audacious attempt to reconnect the band with their audience – Townshend now finding himself returning to Who history, as next up for his attention was a film version of their 1969 rock opera ‘Tommy‘.
The ‘thematic’ album bug had bitten deep into Ray Davies, who by now could not resist tying up every new Kinks L.P. in a conceptual bow, brother Ray satisfying his artistic instincts despite successive releases meeting with disparaging reviews and diminishing sales.
If there was a concept currently attached to the Rolling Stones it was the two-fold dilemma based on the dissent of guitarist Mick Taylor at not receiving songwriting accreditation he felt was due on tracks credited solely to Jagger & Richards – that and the descent into drug dependency of fellow guitar player Keith.
The two other venerable members of the elite ’60s vanguard, who together had hoisted The Beatles to towering levels of creativity, were by now existing in circumstances that were diametrically opposed. Paul McCartney was happily married and satisfied with his lot, this contentment helped in no small way by the accomplishment evident on ‘Band on the Run‘ (1973), Paul for the time being happy to rest on the laurels of his definitive post-Beatle masterpiece.
John Lennon on the other hand had nothing like the stability or in fact the success, being enjoyed by his former compadre. As 1974 dawned, probably at the very moment the clock struck midnight, he was living the L.A. highlife having night owls such as Keith Moon, Ringo and Harry Nilsson for company.
Estranged from wife Yoko Ono, he was now romantically attached to his former PA May Pang, Lennon having seen his last two albums, the heavily politicised and frankly self-indulgent ‘Some Time in New York City‘ (1972) and so-so ‘Mind Games‘ (1973) generate largely negative reviews, although the excellent title-track of the latter had gone someway to restoring a reputation that had come under fire.
With Townshend occupied by the ‘Tommy‘ film or, more pertinently, its accompanying soundtrack (thus prohibiting a new Who album that year), 1974 brought continuation of the narrative Davies had begun 12 months earlier, The Kinks ‘Preservation Act II‘ dismissed out of hand in reaching even fewer than its predecessor. Six weeks before 1975 arrived the Stones weighed in with ‘It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll‘, this eclectic mix of sassy grooves and straightforward self-parody proving the swansong for Taylor who quit before the round of promotional parties were over.
If there was an album to capture the inertia in evidence as yesteryear luminaries came to terms with the circumstances of 1974 it was ‘WALLS and BRIDGES‘ (September 1974) on which Lennon attempts to make sense of a life and career, that at their current stages, appear more unfathomable than fulfilling.
It stands as a fascinating, flawed, ultimately frustrating record, the songs across this 12-track collection stretching the entire spectrum from inspired to insipid – Lennon taking the opportunity to address his estrangement from Yoko, relationship with Pang, more often than not sounding solemn and wracked by self-doubt.
There is no inkling into what he feels about issues of the day such as Watergate or end of the Vietnam war, Lennon avoiding any reference idols or heroes – working class or otherwise – and neither is he at this juncture a lobbyist for utopian ideals of peace and harmony among mankind.
Indeed, his focus pure and simple is himself and the delight, drama and by the sound of things disillusionment, that went into being John Lennon as the mid-70s fast approached.
On completing the recording process for ‘Mind Games’ in the late summer of 1973, Lennon and new companion Pang decamped to Los Angeles, their arrival coinciding with a phase of his life dubbed (by John himself on more than one occasion) as ‘The Lost Weekend‘, the term taken from the title of 1945 Billy Wilder film starring Ray Milland, whose character is an alcoholic writer prone to erratic behaviour and alcohol-induced blackouts.
Lennon had not long landed on the West Coast when he and Nilsson were involved in a number of unruly escapades at various L.A. nightspots. This drunken disorder occurred through a chaotic period when they working on the creation of an album, in this case ‘Pussy Cats‘ a record Nilsson was recording in Hollywood that John had agreed to produce.
Given noted hellraisers such as Moon, Starr and ex-Monkees drummer Micky Dolenz were invited to participate and despite the sessions developing into a round-the-clock party, the resulting album was surprisingly good. But while he was clearly pained at being parted from his wife, this turbulent time had an upside in that 33-year-old Lennon reestablished contact with young son Julian (from his first marriage) and also restored cordial relations with McCartney for the first time since dissolution of The Beatles in 1970, Paul a welcome visitor to the ‘Pussy Cats‘ pantomime on a number of occasions.
Prior to assuming production duties for the Nilsson record, Lennon had been working on an album of rock and roll covers in L.A. with Phil Spector at the control panel (as he had been for John’s three solo albums prior to ‘Mind Games‘). But such was the disarray as boozy bonhomie became the order of the day, Lennon abandoned the project – it would finally see the light of day as the album ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll‘ in 1975, John subsequently completing the record on his own in New York.
Instead he decided to cut a bona fide fifth solo album, although rather than have recording dates descend into chaos, he took the core musicians who were present on ‘Pussy Cats‘ – Jesse Ed Davis (guitars), Klaus Voorman (bass), Jim Keltner (drums), Bobby Keys (saxophone), Ken Ascher (keyboards) – and to be certain they (and he) would be free of distraction, relocated to the Record Plant in New York to cut the tracks, the subsequent ‘Walls and Bridges‘ representative of his conflicted state of mind.
Setting aside the sexual connotation of the title, opening track ‘Going Down on Love‘ reveals Lennon as a disconsolate figure, (‘Somebody please, please help me/You know I’m drowning in the sea of hatred’), his anguish initially played out over the congas of Arthur Jenkins and superb piano work from renowned sessioneer Nicky Hopkins.
While the ‘please help me‘ refrain evokes Beatle memories, in the present his separation from Ono sounds hard to bear. Despite the melody adopting a lighter tone as the track unfolds, helped out by the introduction of horns that creak rather than blare, there is no shaking off his downcast mood:
‘Something precious and rare/Disappears in thin air/And it seems so unfair/Nothing doin’ nowhere/Well you burn all your boats/And you sow your wild oats/Well you know, you know, you know the price is right.’
In contrast the rollicking ‘Whatever Get’s You Through the Night‘ serves to cast off his despair, the uproarious sax breaks of Keys and Eric Aprea supported by Ascher on clavinet. This uplifting piece is underpinned by the keyboard (piano/organ) contribution of Elton John, whose vocals are so prominent in the mix he co-sings the track rather than provide harmonies.
Apparently written around a selection of phrases Lennon heard while watching late night television, he throws in some amusing word play for good measure (‘Don’t need a watch to waste your time‘ and ‘Don’t need a gun to blow your mind’). Elton was so sure it was a number one waiting to happen he bet Lennon that if the song topped the charts they would perform it together at a forthcoming Madison Square Garden concert he was playing, Elton John at this point the biggest rock act on the planet.
Unconvinced the song was a hit let alone a number one (by now he was the only ex-Beatle not to have had a U.S. chart-topping 45), John took the wager and two weeks after ‘Whatever Get’s You thru the Night‘ topped the U.S. singles chart, on Thursday 28 November 1974 Lennon performed the song and two Beatle-numbers (‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds‘ and ‘I Saw Her Standing There‘), with Elton and his band – this New York performance, while greeted ecstatically on the night, would sadly prove his last before a paying audience.
The mood of despondency returns with ‘Old Dirt Road‘ a plaintive, string-laden piece with some expressive guitar work. Lennon describes in broad terms how challenging (‘Trying to shovel smoke with a pitchfork in the wind‘), his life has become, while on ‘What You Got‘ which is altogether more upbeat, he celebrates and disparages his new found surroundings:
Over punchy funk overtones, created by Ascher on clavinet and the pulsing bass of Voorman, he produces a terse vocal that stops just short of self-loathing:
‘Well it’s Saturday night and I just gotta rip it up/Sunday morning I just gotta give it up/Come Monday momma and I just gotta run away/You know it’s such a drag to face another day.’
Built upon light jazz inflections, ‘Bless You‘ is a poignant, sultry ballad infused with regret at how he and Yoko have come to be estranged.
It is a charming, if somewhat rueful piece, (‘Bless you whoever you are/Holding her now/Be warm and kind hearted/And remember though love is strange/Now and forever our love will remain‘), Lennon expressing his wistfulness over a melody not too far removed from a Steely Dan offering of the time – the track in structure and sentiment, recalled when Paul Simon recorded a number in similar vein for his ‘Still Crazy After All These Years‘ album of the following year.
On starting with howls of anguish, side one closer ‘Scared‘ rarely lets up in regard of bitterness and angst, yet even at his most introspectively irate, Lennon finds room for sly humour at his own expense.
Leaving nothing to conjecture in revealing how fearful and wounded he feels (‘As the years roll away/And the price that I paid/And the straws slips away’). The striking electric guitar work of Davis and pushy presence of the horns establish a solid platform upon which Lennon can vent his anger (‘Hatred and jealousy, gonna be the death of me/I guess I knew it right from the start‘), the artist mocking himself for his protestations on peace and love, when it was inner peace he should have been pursuing.
If ‘Scared‘ was Lennon looking back in anger, then side two opener ‘#9 Dream‘ is an exercise in being reflective, John happy in nudging the track toward territory also occupied by ‘Across the Universe‘ as he conjures nostalgic, if abstract scenes:
‘So long ago/Was it in a dream, was it just a dream?/I know, yes I know/Seemed so very real, it seemed so real to me/Took a walk down the street/Thru the heat whispered trees/I thought I could hear (hear, hear, hear)/Somebody call out my name as it started to rain.’
As composer and producer John loads the track with sufficient hooks, namely the smooth saxophone solo by Keys and interweaving keyboard motifs of Hopkins and Asher, to give it every chance of achieving success as a single, ‘#9 Dream‘ reaching number 9 on U.S. listings, although despite its commercial presentation it failed to crack the U.K. top twenty.
The ‘Ah! bцwakawa pousse‘ line that punctuates the track has no literal meaning – reportedly coming to Lennon in a dream – and is phrased in such a way to conjure memories of ‘My Sweet Lord‘ by his fellow former Fab George. During an era when ex-Beatles were known to be frosty toward one another, Harrison however was not the slightest bit offended, in fact when it appeared he described ‘Walls and Bridges‘ as ‘a lovely album.‘
Having made Ono the subject of several compositions, on ‘Surprise Surprise‘ (Sweet Bird of Paradox), John switches his attention to May Pang, the song noticeably – subconsciously perhaps – more cheery and endearing (certainly to the listener) than those focused on Yoko.
For the best part of three minutes John allows himself room to be relaxed if not completely content, the jovial tone of his vocal set against melodic keyboards and ambient horns:
‘Sweet as the smell of success/Her body’s warm and wet/She gets me through this God awful loneliness/A natural high butterfly/Oh I need, need, need her.‘
The lush texture of the track combined with the touching lyrical simplicity (‘A bird of paradise/The sunrise in her eyes/God only knows such a sweet surprise/I was blind she blew my mind‘), creates a template Jeff Lynne would embrace for any number of ELO records in the coming years. Yet when during the fade out when John makes ‘Sweet, sweet love‘ sound unerringly like ‘Beep, beep yeah’ its hard to miss what he’s driving at.
Up to now ‘Walls and Bridges‘ has been an interesting, on occasion solemn, but largely intriguing listen, in other words a good quality singer-songwriter offering. Yet from this point onward the standard noticeably declines, the final four tracks a disappointing hodge-podge of mediocre writing and muddled thinking.
Having launched an acrimonious attack on McCartney with the song ‘How Do You Sleep?’ on his 1971 ‘Imagine‘ album, Lennon now takes latter-day Beatles business manager Allan Klein to task, his ire encompassed within ‘Steel and Glass.’
While the pop/soul inflections of the melody, enhanced by a sweeping string arrangement, are agreeable enough, at almost five minutes it comes very close to outstaying its welcome. Likewise with the lyric, Lennon over-eggs the pudding (‘Your teeth are clean but your mind is capped/You leave your smell like an alley cat’), the words, as a whole, witheringly sarcastic rather than downright hurtful – at least when pillorying Paul, Lennon did so with a touch of pathos at the end of his poisoned pen.
Quite what purpose the instrumental ‘Beef Jerky‘ serves is hard to say. As an up tempo backing track, (featuring some feisty soloing from Davis), it appears to be awaiting a pertinent set of lyrics that are not forthcoming. But if merely a vehicle to showcase the cohesion of the players then it stands as a pointless inclusion as that has long been established.
Penultimate track and at just over five minutes the longest on the record, ‘Nobody Loves You‘ (When You’re Down and Out) finds Lennon at rock bottom, life in all its ebb and flow a melancholy proposition.
His affecting vocal and acoustic guitar work are to be admired, John offering ‘All I can tell you is it’s all show biz‘, as insight into how it feels to be rich, admired and famous. But behind the mask of stardom there is a disconsolate man, although if his point is that everyone from the most prosperous to the poorest are susceptible to feelings of loneliness, it is undercut by intrusive horns and overly dramatic strings. These misjudgments as a producer were leapt upon by critics and in his largely disparaging review of the album, Charles Shaar Murray of the New Musical Express, condemned the song as:
‘The rankest and most offensive piece of self-pity that Lennon has yet been involved in.’
If Lennon there, at best, sounds haunted by the past, on the closing track, the throwaway ‘Ya Ya‘ he pays a debt to it. The song was included due to a contractual obligation to Morris Levy (who owned the rights to this 1961 hit for Lee Dorsey), the New York publisher having threatened to sue Lennon for copyright infringement citing parts of the Chuck Berry composition ‘You Can’t Catch Me’ (also owned by Levy) had been incorporated into The Beatles 1969 hit ‘Come Together’.
To avoid the inconvenience of a court case (Lennon already involved in a legal battle aimed at securing a Green Card to make permanent his residency in the United States), he agreed to include a song belonging to Levy on his next album – John (billed as ‘Dad‘ on the sleeve), playing piano and Julian hitting a drum through 66 seconds of paying-off dues. (He would include a full-length version of the song on the ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll‘ album).
That Lennon had a duty to include a Levy track was beyond dispute, but tacking it onto the end was an error of judgement, better to have hidden it away earlier on side two rather than have this anomaly as the final thing to be heard on what had been a collection of songs crafted to convey deep, inner feelings.
Recorded through the summer of 1974, ‘Walls and Bridges‘ was released on September 26, by way of irony exactly five years to the day since The Beatles put out ‘Abbey Road‘ the last album, chronologically speaking, they made together.
Prior to Harrison offering his praise of the record, both McCartney and Starr had words of encouragement for their ex-bandmate, Paul voicing the measured analysis of ‘It’s good, but he can do better‘, which was far closer to the fact than Ringo’s extravagant claim of it being ‘The best record made by anyone in the last five years‘, the drummer among many to have made a superior album during that time.
The critics, however, offered no such endorsement. Overall the New Musical Express dismissed it as ‘lacklustre’, noted New York rock scribe Robert Christgau pointed to ‘A lack of conviction’ in bestowing a B- mark on his renowned A-D rating system, but most damning of all was a Rolling Stone appraisal of ‘There is no real point of view at work, no point at all save for continuing a career for it’s own sake.’
But there was solace to be found in the chart performance of ‘Walls and Bridges‘ which spent a week on top of the U.S. album charts during November 1974, while peaking at number six in his U.K. homeland.
Indeed, having a commercially successful record on his hands set in motion a positive chain of events that would lead Lennon to a new chapter of his life – 1975 bringing notice his application for permanent residency in the United States had been successful, he reconciled with Yoko, the ‘Lost Weekend’ consigned to the past when she gave birth to their son, Sean, in October.
It was a year that saw Dylan (‘Blood on the Tracks‘) and Townshend (‘The Who by Numbers‘) express their torment as they came to terms with respective issues of divorce and contradictions of being an aging rock star. John meanwhile, was happy to leave them to their soul searching, shelving plans for his next release in order to enjoy a life of cosy domesticity with Yoko and Sean within the rooms of their New York apartment.
On ‘Walls and Bridges’ Lennon had attempted building a bridge to his audience through a series of often morose monologues that revealed his troubled being, yet ended the period happily ensconced inside the walls of his Dakota building residence.
It would be five years before he once again began recording new music.
JOHN LENNON – WALLS and BRIDGES (Released September 24 1974):
Going Down on Love/Whatever Gets You thru the Night/Old Dirt Road/What You Got/Bless You/Scared/#9 Dream/Surprise Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradox)/Steel and Glass/Beef Jerky/Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down and Out)/Ya Ya;
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