You carry the people who depart before you for the rest of your days. The ones who leave too soon. You do what you can to bear them with you. To carry their joy with you. To live each day with their flames inside you. It's not always easy but you owe them that. As well as those who are also going forward without them.
A very good friend of mine, the music friend of my lifetime, told a story about this album. About how he was going through a religious phase at school and had been listening to God from this album one day when he was at boarding school and had jumped at a key point and he'd wondered whether it was a religiously inspired moment. And then I imagine he then took a toke of his spliff. The stuff that probably went on to kill him. I miss him. Still.
I think about Matt when I listen to this record. But I also think about Lennon. I didn't really know who John Lennon was until he died. I thought Paul McCartney was The Beatles because he'd been the ever present one while I was growing up in the Seventies. 'Someone's knocking at the door on the Mull Of Kintyre on mists rolling in from the sea...' I was a late developer. Musically. And in other ways.
But Plastic Lennon / Yoko Ono Band helps you to catch up and takes your breath away in quick succession. You're shocked then charmed. You smile. Then feel ike crying. At his rage . And pain. And sense of love. And drive to go on. It's an astonishing record . You get the sense that if he was in the same room as you are in now that he would be hard work frankly. But that you'd be sorry when he left the room. Don't be like the folks on the hill. Whoever they are. Turn over the record instead...
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