Come Together

"What is good about this book is that it centres on Lennon’s time in New York in the early 1970s and it also goes way back. It shows step by step his political awakening in The Beatles, the first time he spoke out against war, the first time he tried to write a protest song and the controversy over the song Revolution , which loads of people on the left hated. Lennon was such a psychologically complex character and his political beliefs were very much wrapped up in personal responses – such as the way that people responded to Yoko, the way that he didn’t feel at home in Britain anymore, and the fact that after The Beatles broke up he needed something else, some sort of big project to embark on. Jon Wiener is very balanced. He is obviously a Lennon fan but he doesn’t mind pointing out the times Lennon pissed people off, or contradicted himself, or said something stupid or was acting from less than noble motives. He was concerned with the future of the left and thanks to Yoko he was actually one of the first artists to release feminist rock songs. Unfortunately, he was never that good at writing protest songs. He was the most famous rock star activist in the world but he wasn’t very good at putting his views into songs. There was of course Revolution and Give Peace a Chance , which is better when sung by thousands of people on a march than on the record. You have also got Power to the People , which was really big at the time but hasn’t aged well. His idea with his album Some Time in New York City was to look at the newspaper headlines and turn them into songs. Some people are very good at it but he wasn’t. They were kind of crass and simplistic and annoying. With a couple of redeeming features, it is just a really bad record. And then he gave up on politics for lots of reasons, one of which being that Nixon’s government wanted to deport him because of the things he was saying about the Vietnam War, and also he thought his music was getting worse. When Nixon won the 1972 elections Lennon got really depressed and thought, what is the point? It depends really. The problem is I don’t really like the sanctification of him. Totally, and to say that you can accept all those flaws and still think that he was a brave and fascinating person is very interesting. Even if he didn’t carry his principles into the years after 1972 they were still valid at the time, and still had an impact. Weirdly, some people who have read my Lennon chapter think I was really harsh on Lennon. To me, I am just telling it the way I saw it."