“It never got that feel”: The song John Lennon said couldn’t be reproduced
Rock and roll isn’t meant to have the same kind of performance every time a song is played. The heart of the genre revolved around having a little bit of anarchy every now and again, and that sometimes meant someone switching up their approach to a song or trying their hand at taking the kind of risks that might upset some members of the audience. Anything may have been fair game for John Lennon after The Beatles, but he knew enough to realise when a magical take was not going to happen again.
Then again, it was always difficult for Lennon to even appreciate what he was doing at the moment during The Beatles’ career. The whole point behind some of his best songs was to take the crux of an idea and put as much emotion into it as possible, and even then, he would have trouble listening back to his version of ‘Twist and Shout’ or how much ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ didn’t come out the way it should have.
By the time he moved onto his solo career, though, he had admittedly cooled on making everything sound perfect. After all, Paul McCartney had everyone working meticulously to make sure that every tune sounded as clean as it could, and since he had to struggle through songs like ‘Ob La Di Ob La Da’ and ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’, it was more important for him to make tunes that he could relate to a lot more.
But for someone who had vanished into the world of politics on Some Time in New York City, Lennon felt that his hit-making days were behind him. He would always have tunes like ‘Imagine’ and ‘Instant Karma’ to look back on as triumphs, but as he entered the mid-1970s and into his “lost weekend” phrase, his albums did see him in a more fragile state, especially on Walls and Bridges.
In between him being separated from Yoko Ono and his emotional state being at a low point, there was still room for him to make a smash, and he got it with ‘Whatever Gets You Thru the Night’. Although the song is better known today for being the reason why Lennon would get back onstage for the final time with Elton John, the former Beatle was well aware that the take that they used was about as close to perfect as he could get.
There were still pieces that might have been rough around the edges, but the energy on the tape was never going to match in Lennon’s mind, saying, “It’s almost the first or second take, and the musicians are ragged but swinging. We tried to cut it a few times again but it never got that feel.” But it’s that ragged energy that keeps the song from sounding too stale after too many listens.
Outside of Lennon and John trading harmony vocals back and forth, one of the biggest unsung heroes of the song is Bobby Keys on the saxophone. There had been a lot of saxophone coating many solo Beatles records, but this is one of the finest uses in Lennon’s career, almost putting someone on the streets of New York as he’s singing this tune.
While ‘Whatever Gets You Thru the Night’ was never meant to be part of the major touring circuit, it deserves its title of being the one song that got Lennon out of his retirement from live performances when he took the stage with John. Because regardless of how much he loathed the idea of touring, this kind of tune demands to be played to the people directly.
