Some Time in New York City - John Lennon

'Some Time in New York City is the most overtly (and self-consciously) revolutionary record ever released by a major rock artist' Peter Doggett - There's a Riot Going on

Greatly reviled and ridiculed by all but true believers, Lennon's 1972 album is an odd listen indeed today. From a past that's a foreign country and a point in time when revolution seemed a genuine prospect, at least to those embroiled in counter culture activity and probably equally to the reactionary elites they set themselves up against. It's Political with a capital 'P' but can equally be viewed as an act of monstrous ego on the part of both Lennon and Yoko Ono who features as prominently on the record as he does, writing and singing several numbers and was the object of as much if not more derision as Lennon himself on its release.

'No chauvinist pig engineer...' 'Right on sister!'

It bombed both critically and commercially, particularly in the States. It's raggedly written, played and sung and can easily come across as a couple of hours spent being railed at  in a bar by a sanctimonious couple who finish each others' sentences and don't have the slightest interest in anything you might have to say or care to add to the conversation.

Setting off as it means to go on with Woman is the Nigger of the World, written and sung by someone neither a woman nor - well I'm not repeating it, Lennon soon hands on the microphone to Yoko for the first baton exchange of a bizarre relay race that continues to the end of the record. Some tracks are considerably better than others. Attica State for example, a protest about the Attica prison riots, is spirited and effective and Ono's voice is channeled well in its cause. Elsewhere, both she and Lennon grate considerably.

Packaged in parody of a New York Times cover, the record posits itself as a channel of 'alternative news' presented by two distinctly unhinged newscasters, Lennon's contributions understandably carry more authority than Ono's but the record would not be the odd and specific historical document that it is without her input of shrill, hysterical and utterly tuneless warbling. 

  

Very few critics gave it the time of day when it came out. Not really because of what they were saying as they were playing to a generally supportive audience but because of the way they were choosing to say it. Writing in Creem Charles Shaar Murray called it 'irritating, embarrassing and finally just unpleasant...I find it astonishing that the John Lennon who used to be able to see through pretentious phonies, hip pseuds, and radical chic, should fall into those very same traps.'

Well, he's right. Listen to Yoko warbling about the joys of Ireland and its people on Luck of the Irish. On second thoughts probably best not to. Lennon and Ono rattle through a checklist of radical causes, attitudes and postures; feminism, incarceration, institutional brainwashing,the Irish troubles, their own troubles of being under close state surveillance and  imminent threat of being deported from the States, Black Power and on and on. The sheer piety and bloated, unprickable arrogance is astonishing. Sometimes though the music and Lennon's innate understanding of song construction almost justifies the quite monstrous displays of ego. Almost, but ultimately not quite.

So finally, its not a good record, certainly not by Lennon's standards but it is an interesting one as a cultural and historical artifact from a particular time and place.The time when John Lennon was willingly co-opted by the American counter culture and made a considerable ass of himself. I'll leave the star-studded live record which makes up the double package out of the discussion here. George Harrison, Keith Moon, Delaney & Bonnie and Billy Preston feature on it. But I couldn't listen to much of it when I tried this afternoon. Some moments of the studio record I enjoyed. I'll give them Attica State, Born in a Prison, New York City, Sunday Bloody Sunday, John Sinclair and We're all Water. The rest falls flat and is sometimes just plain risible.

Lennon himself was taken aback by its critical reception and commercial failure. Bit by bit he distanced himself from those he'd fallen in with and returned to what he did best. When Sinclair came round to see them them both after his release he was obliged to pay court to them in their room with them refusing to leave their beds. He was less than impressed. 'It was just like you were the peasant and they were the royalty. It was humiliating. I've been beaten and probed in my orifices (in prison) but this was really humiliating.' Radical chic indeed!