The John Lennon song Yoko Ono thought was “before its time”
If we were to go over every single classic that John Lennon brought to the world, we’d probably be here all day.
His solo career with Yoko Ono might not have been for everyone, but the work that he did with The Beatles and beyond still holds up as some of the most iconic pieces of music rock and roll has to offer. But even when he was spitting out classics like clockwork, there were more than a few times where people didn’t actually catch on to what he was saying until much later.
Even before he was out of The Beatles, though, Lennon always wanted to create music that sounded slightly weird. ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ is one of the brilliant pieces that the band ever made, but it’s also incredibly strange for its time, whether that’s because of the various takes that they had spliced together for the final version or the ending of the song that fades back in and dissolves into pure psychedelic bliss.
That wasn’t the same guy who made tunes like ‘She Loves You’, but listening to Plastic Ono Band, Lennon clearly had no interest in making that kind of record. He wanted to make music that could express everyone’s innermost feelings, and while Imagine had a little more sugarcoating behind it, the rest of his solo career was going to be lacking in any more easy-going rock and roll.
Some Time in New York City may have been a fantastic record, but it was also an album that refused to meet the audience halfway, which probably explains why people were so turned off by the opening song on the record. Nothing was necessarily wrong with Lennon’s writing, but it was clear that his partnership with Ono was going in the wrong direction. Mind Games may not have been his first choice to solve the problem, but Ono was convinced that the only way for them to change would be to go on a break.
And while Lennon claimed to write all of the songs for the record in the span of a week, he still managed to come through with the most introspective tunes of his career. Whereas Walls and Bridges chronicles the end of his ‘lost weekend’ years, the songs here capture that initial jolt of realising that Ono is no longer by his side. But it doesn’t forget those looking for his cosmic side, either.
The title track already went back to 1960s Lennon territory with the chorus of ‘love is the answer’, but Ono claimed that her husband’s words weren’t going to catch on until much later, saying, “I think that people didn’t quite get the message because this was again before its time. Now, people would understand it. I don’t think in those days people knew that they were playing mind games anyway.”
Then again, for anyone coming out of the late 1960s, the idea of that utopia love felt like a dream that never got fully realised. The Vietnam War was still raging on, and while Lennon did find time to fight fire with fire on the previous record, hearing his message of spreading love everywhere he goes would have made a lot more sense after coming out of genres like hair metal and grunge later.
The music world had become far more dour as the years went by, so it was nice to always have Lennon there to remind everyone that things were going to be OK. He was no longer there in the flesh to guide us into the next generation, but it’s songs like ‘Mind Games’ that helps remind everyone why every one of The Beatles were so beloved. They had spent years preaching their philosophy, but if there was one message they wanted to get across, it was to bring love to the world.
