THINK about the level of creativity achieved by The Beatles in their relatively brief but stellar recording career. You’d “imagine” that John Lennon needed a long lie-down in a darkened room after The Fab Four went their separate ways in 1970. 3 Following the end of The Beatles, John Lennon set about his solo career at fever pitch Credit: Supplied 3 Before writing solo album Mind Games, Lennon was about to enter an 18-month separation period from Yoko Ono Credit: Supplied But far from it, he set about his solo career at fever pitch.
Freed from the constraints of being in THE band, Lennon’s freewheeling compositions took in his abiding themes of peace and love as well as passionate ruminations on politics, class, injustice and religion. Uncompromising, visceral, authentic, beautiful, antagonistic, profound, experimental. All these words apply at various points to the body of work he was busy assembling.
His first three albums were released within 18 months of each other — John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970), Imagine (1971) and Sometime In New York City (1972 with Yoko Ono) — certainly the work of a man in a hurry. But, by 1973, Lennon’s life had reached a crossroads. Aged 33, he faced deportation from the US for his high-profile stance against the Vietnam War AND the incumbent president, Richard Nixon.
At home, his seemingly unbreakable relationship with Yoko Ono was about to enter an 18-month separation involving his fabled “lost weekend”. Most read in Music.
