No need to announce who that was. Apart from the great trio of songs he wrote with the Beatles (Strawberry Fields, A Day in the Life and I Am the Walrus) I think my two favourite Lennon songs are this one and Don't Let Me Down. As for the video, well, what other music video do you know that has cameo appearances by Fred Astaire, George Harrison, Dick Cavett and Andy Warhol?
Great song and, I think, very appropriate for this week.
My least favourite Lennon song? Imagine.
* * *
Let's have a bunch of clips today. This is French harpsichordist Jean Rondeau playing the Bach Chaconne from the Second Violin Partita:
* * *
We need some Dylan. I bought this album way back in 69 or 70 and at the time I was taken aback by the utter simplicity of it. Which now I appreciate.
And that has to be THE most unprepossessing album cover photo ever.
* * *
Another piece for harpsichord. This is Continuum by Ligeti, composed in 1968, so just a year after John Wesley Harding.
* * *
This one is from a bit later, 1982: Laurie Anderson with "O Superman."
* * *
This is Gustav Leonhardt playing a piece by the French harpsichordist François Couperin named after another French harpsichordist: "La Superbe ou La Forqueray."
* * *
We need a finale, I guess and I can think of no finer symphonic finale than the Molto Allegro to the Symphony No. 41 by Mozart. Here with the Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie conducted by Mark Laycock.
As the old Australian saying goes "we're not here to f**k spiders!"
Bob Dylan put out a really nice album lately called "Modern Times." I think I have just about ALL his albums on CD, and a few hundred concert bootlegs too. Regarding John Lennon, I have a friend who used to lead a Lennon cover band! I especially like the 1st album, Plastic Ono Band, and the Rock & Roll album of his covers of 50s songs. Ligeti is a composer I've enjoyed at moments but don't usually find him very listenable. Unlike the Couperins, both Louis and Francois, who I always find put me in a thoughtful and pleasant mood.
ReplyDeleteOthers have recommended the Modern Times album, but I still haven't heard it! Guess I should. I picked all these wildly various clips because, to my mind, they all make a power aesthetic statement. Wildly different ones, mind you!
ReplyDeleteAnother very nice recent Bob Dylan album is "Together Through Life." Deep roots in black American dirt. Lyrics by Robert Hunter, beloved songwriter for the Grateful Dead. I have even more GD concert bootlegs than Dylan. GD and BD...so great I forgive them their use of electricity, which we all know is actually ruining music.
ReplyDeleteElectricity and its horrific cousin--autotune!
ReplyDelete