Latest Breaking News Online News Portal
In 1970, The Beatles came crashing down in a brutal ending. After releasing their 13th and final album, Let It Be, they announced the Fab Four were no more. John Lennon was particularly fed up with how things were going between the group and was feeling even more frustrated by the way his band were treating his wife, Yoko Ono. Just after the band broke up he released his first solo album in collaboration with Yoko.
Lennon released his solo record – John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band – on December 11, 1970. It was a collaboration between him, his wife, and the band they formed together.
Although the record received mixed reviews when it was initially released, Lennon announced the following month (January, 1971) that it was his favourite music he had ever produced.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, he said: “I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I think it’s realistic, and it’s true to the me that has been developing over the years from my life.”
That isn’t to say he hated everything he ever wrote for The Beatles, however. The star was merely hung up on how much he enjoyed writing songs that were wholly meaningful to him.
Lennon went on to give examples of other Beatles tracks that he held in equally high regard.
He listed: “I’m a Loser, Help, Strawberry Fields… they are all personal records.”
The Imagine singer said he “always wrote about himself” when he could. As a result, he found himself disliking some of the songs he wrote with the band throughout their albums.
“I didn’t really enjoy writing third-person songs about people who lived in concrete flats and things like that,” he said. “I like first-person music. But because of my hang-ups and many other things, I would only now and then specifically write about me.”
Lennon added: “Now I wrote all about me and that’s why I like it. It’s me! And nobody else. That’s why I like it. It’s real, that’s all.”
The star doubled down in the same interview: “I don’t know about anything else, really, and the few true songs I ever wrote were like Help and Strawberry Fields. I can’t think of them all offhand. They were the ones I always considered my best songs.”
“They were the ones I really wrote from experience and not projecting myself into a situation and writing a nice story about it,” he continued. “I always found that phoney, but I’d find occasion to do it because I’d be so hung up, I couldn’t even think about myself.”
Later that year, however, he may have outdone himself even further.
In September 1971, Lennon released his seminal record Imagine. This album included such hits as Imagine, It’s So Hard, How Do You Sleep? and more.
While John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band was certified gold for selling more than 500,000 units, Imagine more than doubled that. It was certified 2x Platinum with more than 2 million units sold worldwide.
A year later, in 1973, Lennon released his third studio album, Mind Games, which was (like John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band) hit with middling reviews.
