There were a number of different factors that contributed to The Beatles’ eventual split; however, for the sake of keeping things savoury, let’s just chalk everything down to creative differences. Paul McCartney always wrote with the hit at the forefront of his mind, whereas John Lennon preferred more raw and authentic music. The cracks started to show enough that it became time for the band to call it a day.
Of course, within that group, you had four excellent musicians. Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Lennon and McCartney all had incredible talent as songwriters, so when the band split, it was hardly a surprise that they all went on to have successful solo careers. One of John Lennon’s biggest albums came in the form of Imagine; however, there was solo work that he believed topped it.
The one thing that Lennon always strived for in his music was authenticity. When he spoke about his favourite Beatles songs, he always spoke about the tracks where he laid his soul bare. He would talk about the likes of ‘Help’ and ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ as if they were old friends, tapping into his genuine emotions and memories to make a song that would establish a genuine connection between himself and the listener.
Subsequently, it’s hardly a surprise that when Lennon started writing solo music, he decided to lay his soul bare on a lot of songs in a way that he wouldn’t have previously been able to do with The Beatles. This was present on Imagine but came through a lot more on the album Plastic Ono Band, which featured some of the most authentic tracks of his career.
In a bizarre interview that Lennon did for Andy Warhol, in which he interviewed himself, a stream of consciousness emerged that spoke about parties in LA, UFO sightings, and music. His train of thought is hard to latch on to at times, but one thing that comes across clearly is that he preferred the Plastic Ono Band album, which he refers to as the “Mother/Working Class Hero album,” referencing two of the biggest songs on there.
“I prefer the ‘Mother/Working Class Hero’ then ‘Imagine’ album myself… Anyway, I suppose anything you do is either better or worse than something or other, I mean, that’s how we seem to categorise things,” he writes, “It’s probably the way we remember… It helps us remember… ‘This fish tastes as good as the fish we had in St. Tropez, but not as good as the one Arthur caught off Long Island; on the other hand, do you remember that fish and chip shop in Blackpool…”
Lennon was likely more drawn to the album because he knew he was much more honest on it. When he spoke about the song ‘Mother’, he was well aware that some people would be hurt by the brutally bare lyrics on the track. “Many, many people will not like ‘Mother’; it hurts them,” he said, “The first thing that happens to you when you get the album is you can’t take it. Everybody reacted exactly the same.”
