In celebration of what could have been John Lennon's 85th birthday this week, akin to the Ringo Starr retrospective I posted three months back, I've done one for John himself. Out of the solo Beatles, he's had the most compilation albums released, with only 1975's Shaved Fish being released during his lifetime, and many of the same songs are featured across the majority of them. Moondog385 went with a different approach for his Pure Lennon compilation, wanting to represent all of John's periods as equally as possible, even skipping over some hits like "Give Peace a Chance" and "Mother".
My take on a musical retrospective of John Lennon's solo career uses all of the songs included on Pure Lennon, but I'm including every one of his singles and even throwing in a few extra songs, all in more or less chronological order. I wanted to split the difference between featuring the big hits and focusing on the unfinished nature of John's life and work. Again, I try to keep within a 90 minute timeframe as best as I can, but it wasn't always easy.
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Side A (23:46)
1. Give Peace a Chance - 4:55
2. Cold Turkey - 5:01
3. Instant Karma! (We All Shine On) - 3:18
4. Mother [single edit] - 3:53
5. Working Class Hero - 3:48
6. Isolation - 2:51
Side B (21:01)
7. Love - 3:21
8. Look at Me - 2:53
9. God - 4:09
10. Power to the People - 3:23
11. Imagine - 3:01
12. Jealous Guy - 4:14
Side C (22:25)
13. Gimme Some Truth - 3:16
14. Oh My Love - 2:44
15. How? - 3:43
16. Happy Xmas (War is Over) - 3:34
17. Woman is the N****r of the World [single edit] - 4:38
18. New York City - 4:30
Side D (23:45)
19. John Sinclair - 3:28
20. Mind Games - 4:13
21. Aisumasen (I'm Sorry) - 4:44
22. Out the Blue - 3:23
23. I Know (I Know) - 3:49
24. You Are Here - 4:08
The first disc of the retrospective focuses mostly on 1969 and 1970, and dips a little into 1971 towards the end. For Side A, I've reinstated "Give Peace a Chance", "Cold Turkey" and "Mother", and added "Working Class Hero". Disc two contains the rest of 1971 and goes all the way into 1973. The only new additions to Side C were "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" and "New York City". The overall length, even with single edits, is close to 91 minutes, but if you trim down "Give Peace a Chance" (which is really more of a chant than a song), then that's not a huge deal.
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Side A (22:19)
1. Here We Go Again - 4:50
2. Whatever Gets You thru the Night - 3:28
3. Bless You - 4:38
4. Scared - 4:36
5. #9 Dream - 4:47
Side B (22:04)
6. Steel and Glass - 4:37
7. Nobody Loves You (When You're Down and Out) - 5:08
8. Stand by Me - 3:26
9. Move Over Ms. L - 2:58
10. Free as a Bird (Piano Demo) - 3:16
11. One of the Boys - 2:39
Side C (22:26)
12. Real Love (Piano Demo) - 4:23
13. Help Me to Help Myself - 2:37
14. (Just Like) Starting Over - 3:56
15. I'm Losing You - 3:57
16. Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) - 4:02
17. Watching the Wheels - 3:31
Side D (22:17)
18. Woman - 3:32
19. Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him - 3:18
20. I'm Stepping Out - 4:06
21. Nobody Told Me - 3:34
22. Borrowed Time - 4:29
23. Grow Old with Me - 3:18
"Here We Go Again" seems like an odd inclusion and way to kick off this second half of the retrospective, being recorded in late 1973; however, it was done after the Mind Games period, and was intended for Rock 'n' Roll, released in 1975, so that's where I've decided to put it. On disc one, I've added in "Stand by Me" and its B-side "Move Over Ms. L", originally intended for Walls and Bridges, as well as an additional unfinished song, "One of the Boys". As for disc two, I've added another unfinished song, "Help Me to Help Myself", and John's version of "Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him". Overall, the first half covers 1974-1977, and the second half 1979-1984.
Given how short John's solo career was, I threw in an extra eleven songs, bringing the total up to 47 songs. If I were to throw in an extra three songs to make it 50 even, they would be "Rock and Roll Music" (a Mind Games outtake), "Ain't That a Shame" (the very first song John played on guitar as a teenager) and "Now and Then" (the demo version).
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