CLEAN FIGHT : McCartney/John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band

The 1970s began in a threatening way: The Kent State Massacre, The Apollo 13 malfunction, Janis Joplin died, and The Beatles broke up. There was war in Egypt, Jordan, Ireland, Argentina, and Vietnam. There was no way to fix anything or even make it tolerable, but in the 1960s we at least had a cultural parental figure; a group of influencers advocating peace and love that preserved the idealism that exists within each person. So to start off the decade, Mom & Dad got a divorce, and if they couldn't resolve their differences, what chance did the human race have? 

The band had organically broken up in 1969 but it became most public when Paul would announce that he'd be releasing his first solo album in April of 1970. Accompanying the announcement were several indications that "the Beatle thing is over" for him, and that was further solidified when his now-former bandmates insisted he delay the release date of his album as to not coincide with the release of what was to be The Beatles' final album, Let it Be. Paul stubbornly ignored the request and went ahead with his April 17 date. 

Paul and Linda spent the last few months of '69 on a farm in Scotland, secluded from the public eye (which further fueled the Paul is Dead rumors) and out of contact with the other Beatles (which accurately fueled rumors of the breakup). In a LIFE Magazine interview from November of '69 Paul was primarily asked to address the hoax (which he coyly brushed off) but he also added, "I would rather be a little less famous these days... Can you spread it around that I am just an ordinary person and want to live in peace?"

Paul drove The Beatles to last as long as they did, but he'd finally lost that battle and was now left without any direction in a creative sense. He and Linda returned to London in December '69 and from his own home he began recording songs he'd written for the band but never made it onto any album or single. But beyond that he began improvising, jamming, experimenting with partial lyrics and fragmented song ideas, all whilst playing every single instrument on separate tracks as he slowly started to build a song list of catchy hooks and melodic meanderings as only Macca can do.

The Lovely Linda

That Would Be Something

Valentine Day

Every Night

Hot as Sun/Glasses

Junk

Man We Was Lonely

Oo You

Momma Miss America

Teddy Boy

Singalong Junk

Maybe I'm Amazed

Green-Akrore

There are a few on here like "Junk" and "Teddy Boy" and "Maybe I'm Amazed" that are clearly cooked all the way through but they're barely enough to hang an entire album on (especially for a Beatle), and I suppose in hindsight it would've been a stark contrast to the music he'd been creating up to that point. For me, I was very familiar with the Beatles' catalog before I discovered this, and I immediately found it to be refreshing and exciting for many reasons. One of John's ongoing complaints regarding Paul (as there were many) was that Paul overproduced the hell out of everything (up to and including many of John's own creations), adding symphonies and synthesizers and sound effects so that many songs lost their initial simplicity. McCartney embraces that simplicity and then some; songs like "The Lovely Linda", "Man We Was Lonely", and "Oo You" would've fit nicely into the complex mosaic of "The White Album" (and then they'd probably be more widely celebrated). "Every Night" plays like a much better version of "Two of Us" from the Let it Be album. There are several instrumentals on the record including my favorite cut, "Momma Miss America" which demonstrates Paul's always-present genius - not as a lyricist but as a composer. But beyond any clinical or even sentimental approach to the songs or album, what I took and still take from it is its intimacy; Paul's always been very guarded with his emotions and though the mood of the music preserves that, the casual atmosphere and raw craftsmanship and even the album art allows me and you and everyone into a Beatle's home as they create on the fly, and it's cozy and inspiring. 

At the time of McCartney's release John had already put out three non-Beatle albums with Yoko. The first, Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins, came out in November of '68 (ironically alongside "The White Album" though that didn't seem to cause any friction). Like McCartney, it was made in John's home and was entirely improvised in the moment, but otherwise the two couldn't be more different; John & Yoko's album was exclusively a collage of sounds and spoken-word bits as opposed to a collection of pop songs. The second album, Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions, was similar in content, including Yoko's bizarre vocal arrangements as well as the couple reading tabloid stories about themselves out loud. Their third, Wedding Album, was maybe the most aggressive avant-garde approach; it contains a 20 minute sequence in which the two of them repeat each other's names at different volumes. All of these albums were largely disregarded by the public and laughed at by the critics. John's first real solo album would come out in December of 1970, 8 months after Paul's.

The very formal title of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band was to differentiate from the concurrent release of Yoko's similarly-titled album Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band. I mention this to stress that this was, indeed, the first John Lennon solo album - free from the encumbrances of a pop band as well as the abstract expressionism of his collaborations with Yoko, it's as though John more or less picked up where he left off after "The White Album"; he'd faked his way through being Fab for Let it Be and Abbey Road but now it was time to get personal again, and it poured out of him with a raw catharsis that he's never before confronted. 

Mother

Hold On

I Found Out

Working Class Hero

Isolation

Remember

Love

Well Well Well

Look at Me

God

My Mummy's Dead

Regardless of having Phil Spector on as a producer (along with Ringo and Billy Preston as guest musicians) the general tone of the music sounds as sparse and rustic as the McCartney album - which of course was entirely intentional as John felt the lyrics should stand out above all else (and Paul was no longer there to compromise it). But unlike Paul's album of noodling about with guitar chords and and sweet nothings, every inch of Plastic Ono Band was an admission, a redemption, or an abdication. Having endured weeks of Primal Scream Therapy prior to the album, John felt compelled to explore his childhood in "Mother", "Remember", and "My Mummy's Dead". He demonized society and celebrity in "I Found Out", "Working Class Hero", and "Isolation". He exuded confidence of a potential rebirth in "Hold On" and "God". This was a sharp but brief break from songs about world peace and circus performers, but the remarkable accomplishment of this album is that each and every song is strong enough to be a Top 40 contender irrespective of their decidedly dark subject matter. Even back then, Paul was known as the merry melody maker while John was the intellectual lyricist, but now here was the unbridled proof that the Lennon/McCartney partnership was more balanced than we could've imagined. At the time the consensus was that John had gone over to the contemporary abstract art world and that was the end - once this album was unveiled the public quickly championed John as the better musician, but John himself would dispute that observation (in his typical backhanded way) by stating that his own album would "probably scare (Paul) into doing something decent... I can't see him doing (McCartney) twice." 

MY CHOICE: As an angsty teen, John was my favorite - he was more snarky, more badass, more weird, more confrontational, more rock 'n roll. I wanted to be John Lennon when I was 13. And I did a good job of convincing myself that I liked John's solo stuff more than Paul's; it had substance and meaning and purpose. But that's just the thing: there was always too much plot, and I've never been a fan of a lotta plot, and Plastic Ono Band is extremely fucking plot-heavy. Alas I am no longer shameful for being a sucker for silly love songs, and the truth is McCartney has not only always been preferable to me, but it's probably one of my favorite albums of all time. For all its beauty and depth and raw emotion and big ideas, Plastic Ono Band is ultimately a somber experience and demands a certain mood from the listener; not all John's music was as such, but it always (to some degree) had an agenda - one need only compare the two artists' respective Christmas songs to guide you toward whose path to follow. I mean who needs a guilt trip about how little you've accomplished over the past year -- I'd rather remain aloof and just have a Wonderful Christmastime. 

- Paul