This was the end of swinging 60s and the world’s biggest band, The Beatles had split at the peak of their career and their fighting best. (In fact, while I write this, Peter Jackson’s documentary on the subject ‘Get Back’, has just been released). And the members started on their individual journeys. John Lennon, the founder of the band released his first solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band on 11^th December 1970.

John (along with Yoko) was going through Art Janov’s primal scream therapy to make peace with the demons from his broken childhood and the affair resulted in one of the most beautiful and honest autobiographical album ever. It has its screams, its cries, its pain…all of it is real, stark and hard-hitting, both lyrically and musically. It’s as if, one by one, song after song, John is baring himself till he is completely naked. The album is like a ‘strip show of the soul’ and after a few focussed interactions with the album, one would feel that he/she now knows John Lennon like a close friend and not like the star that he was. In fact, John had started on this self-searching journey during the Beatles days with songs like In My Life, Nowhere Man and Strawberry Fields Forever.

Musically, the LPs framework is Spartan with just guitars, drum and keyboards and even the chord patterns of the songs are almost basic. While the entire album is one big standout, I’ll talk about my personal favourites. The album opener, Mother with its heart-breaking and haunting refrain, “Mamma don’t go / Daddy come home” sums up John’s childhood. Then there is the social commentary, Working Class Hero covered later by many including David Bowie and Green Day.

Side 2 has got perhaps the most gentle and simple love song ever written. Constructed on just a piano and an acoustic guitar, Love has sublime lines like, “Love is real, real is love / Love is feeling, feeling love / Love is wanting to be loved”. And then comes the outburst of God, a song where John is rejecting all his heroes and ideologies one by one, including Dylan and finally the Beatles. The song begins with the iconic line, “God is a concept by which we measure our pain”.

Garnering largely positive reviews when it was released, today the album has become a profound and landmark confessional album. Figuring in almost every list of top albums, this debut LP is a ‘must have’ in every collection. And December 8^th is John Winston Lennon’s 41st death anniversary, so this one here is a little tribute to the man.

Year: 1971

Genre: Rock / Pop

Length: 39:16

Producer: John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Phil Spector

Label: Apple

By Meraj Hasan

Meraj Hasan is a Dubai based marketing and communications professional, poet and a musician with a passion for listening to music the vinyl way. His 33 years old Technics (SL Q3) turntable along with a humble collection of LPs across genres like Rock, Classical, Blues, Jazz, Indian Classical are his prized possessions. He is also the author of a bestselling book of poems in Hindustani called, 'Khyaalon Ki Tapri'.

He can be reached at +971 522766809 and meraj.hasan@gmail.com.