‘Sometime in New York City’: the album John Lennon thought he almost ruined
When The Beatles arrived in America, they were welcomed with open arms. The press joked with them, and the public was obsessed. Immediately after their debut TV performance, almost everyone in America tried to start their own band to make something comparable to The Beatles.
It’s hard to imagine that in the days building up to The Beatles getting to such a high level, John Lennon was worried that the moment the plane wheels touched down on American soil, he would be met with scorn. He had recently spoken out in support of communism and was worried that the proudly capitalist America would scorn him for it.
In many ways, these worries that followed Lennon overseas set the foundation for a lot of conflict within The Beatles. While there were a number of reasons why tension grew within the band, and they ended up splitting up, one of the largest factors was creative differences. Due to their fame and their standing as a pop band, Lennon felt like he couldn’t be his most authentic self.
“We weren’t as open and as truthful when we didn’t have the power to be,” said Lennon, “We had to take it easy. We had to shorten our hair to leave Liverpool. We had to wear suits to get on TV. We had to compromise.”
John Lennon admitted that while there were compromises at first, he felt as though he had the chance to be truer to himself. “We had to get hooked to get in, and then get a bit of power and say, ‘This is what we’re like,’” said Lennon, “We had to falsify a bit, even if we didn’t realise it at the time.”
While this might apply to the clothes the band wore and the length of their hair, Lennon still wasn’t able to be as honest as he wanted to be with his music. When he was writing with The Beatles, he felt as though melody and catchy choruses came before honesty and vulnerability, which led to the mass of disagreements that pushed the band towards breaking up.
Once each member had embarked on their solo career, they could embrace the style of music that they believed The Beatles should have been making. For Lennon, this meant making songs that felt more authentic to who he was. He created tracks like ‘Working Class Hero’, ‘Mother’, and ‘Imagine’ that reflected his background, his life, and his politics.
While he was likely happier making this style of music, Lennon also discovered that it was a tricky balance to strike. While there were some songs that he was a big fan of, there were other instances where he felt he had made music that was too factual, to the point that it hardly resembled music anymore.
He had this issue with his record. Sometime in New York City, he released it in 1972 and said it felt too on the nose. “It almost ruined it,” he said, “It became journalism and not poetry. And I basically feel that I’m a poet. Then I began to take it seriously on another level, saying, ‘Well, I am reflecting what is going on, right?’”
