Barbra Streisand once covered one of John Lennon‘s songs and released it as a single. Subsequently, it became a hit in the United States. The tune in question is one of John’s most personal and revealing.
Barbra Streisand covered a John Lennon song on an album with songs by important artists
Streisand covered John’s ballad “Mother” for her album Barbra Joan Streisand. The album features recordings of tunes by well-known songwriters like John, Carole King, Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, and Burt Bacharach. Streisand’s cover of “Mother” climbed to No. 79 on the Billboard Hot 100, staying on the chart for five weeks. On the other hand, Barbra Joan Streisand reached No. 11 on the Billboard 200 and remained on the chart for 26 weeks.
Streisand’s “Mother” didn’t perform as well as John’s version of the song, which reached No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 and lasted six weeks on the chart. The tune appeared on John’s album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. That peaked at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 and remained on the Billboard 200 for 34 weeks.
The lyrics of the song weren’t just meant to apply to John Lennon and Barbra Streisand
“Mother” is a song about John missing his deceased mother, Julia Lennon, and wishing his absent father, Alfred Lennon, would “come home.” Fans can feel John’s pain while listening to “Mother,” especially since John’s singing is so intense and labored. “Mother” feels more like a tortured therapy session than a regular ballad. It’s surprising Streisand covered a track that’s so unusual.
The book Lennon on Lennon: Conversations With John Lennon features an interview from 1971. In it, John was asked his opinion on pain. “It’s directly involved with the family,” he said. “I mean, the family’s what shapes you.”
John was asked if he was talking about his family in particular. “No, every family,” he opined. “The extraordinary thing is my father and mother split — I never saw my father till I was like 20 — so I’m an extreme case. But Yoko had her parents there, but she never had ’em. The lyrics of ‘Mother,’ which said, ‘You had me, and I never had you,’ applies to people with parents too.”
The former Beatle said the middle classes felt parental pain more than other groups
John discussed parental pain more. “It affects the middle class even more because they’re so formalized,” he opined. “There’s more middle-class people in this thing [therapy] because they can afford it, and they’re the ones that are cracking up.
“And the middle classes are really repressed; they’re the most repressed people,” he added. “They have all these formalities with their parents, and actually touching is out. It’s like intellectual love.”
“Mother” reflected John’s family, but Streisand made the song her own.
