John Lennon
Mind Games: Ultimate Collection
★★★★
CAPITOL/UME
ON APRIL 2, 1973, John Lennon and Yoko Ono held a press conference in New York City to announce their latest peace project: the birth of a nation. Nutopia was “a conceptual country”, they said in a statement, with “no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people.” Citizenship was awarded by declaring “your awareness of Nutopia.” The statement was actually dated April 1 – April Fool’s Day.
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READ MORE: 20 Ways John Lennon Changed the World
Nutopia was one of the couple’s “mind games”, Lennon admitted to the press corps. “We put the thought out, then we’ll react to whatever the reaction is.” There was underlying tension in the gag. Lennon was effectively stateless, fighting deportation from the US by the Nixon administration. The ex-Beatle was soon homeless as well, evicted by Ono from their newly purchased apartment in the Dakota as their marriage hit the rocks.
Before he left New York in October 1973 for his ‘Lost Weekend’ in Los Angeles, Lennon was apologising profusely, pleading for reunion, on Mind Games, his fourth solo album, recorded at the Record Plant that summer and released in November. One Day (At A Time), Out The Blue, I Know (I Know) and You Are Here were all slow-dance mea culpa, Lennon writing as obsessively about guilt and need as he had about his devotion to Ono on 1970’s John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and 1971’s Imagine. He even tried to get a message through in amateur Japanese, on bended knee in Aisumasen (I’m Sorry).
It didn’t work. Lennon spent 18 months in exile while Mind Games – filled out with peace march tunes and ’50s-rock revivalism in stilted neo-Phil Spector fidelity – barely made it into Billboard’s Top 10, a decent recovery after the radical-chic misfire of 1972’s Some Time In New York City but not enough to dispel the suggestion of a spent force. “It sounds like outtakes from Imagine,” Robert Christgau wrote in Creem, one of the kinder reviews. Quoted in the massively detailed book that accompanies this extravagant reappraisal of his least regarded solo album, Lennon summed up Mind Games as “an interim record between being a manic, political lunatic to back to being a musician again… And my idea of fun with music was to sing.”
That voice is a recurring wonder – a nasal Scouse weapon of verve and candour, just as commanding in near-whispered contrition – across the new, forensic breakdowns of each song on these six themed-mix CDs (Ultimate, Raw Studio, Elements, etc.), produced by Lennon’s son Sean. A recycling of parts from the 1970 home demos Make Love, Not War and I Promise (not here but issued in the 1998 John Lennon Anthology box), Mind Games’ title hit lacked the profound economy of its obvious model, Imagine. Yet an early, skeletal outtake in this set highlights the doo wop in Ken Ascher’s piano triplets, and Lennon sings with defiant assurance even when his lyrics go off the rails (“Millions of mind guerillas/Putting their soul power to the karmic wheel”). In a Raw Studio remix with the band, Lennon’s vocal is up front with no reverb or double-tracking; drummer Jim Keltner spikes his sturdy time with wake-up rolls into the next verse; and guitarist David Spinozza brings the reggae tang in the bridge.
Mind Games’ classic-Lennon ballad was, in fact, hiding in plain sight, over on side two. I Know (I Know) was tenderly articulated revelation (“The years have passed so quickly… I am only learning/To tell the trees from the wood”) with a Liverpool-country guitar hook descended from Let It Be’s I’ve Got A Feeling, in the misted-treble tone of Dear Prudence. Incredibly, Lennon never released it as a single. The song now gets sublime, lustrous resurrection in an Ultimate mix of the album track. And there is a surprising jolt of Cavern-Hamburg swagger in the Elemental version. The guitar is more forward, and Lennon’s singing has a jaunty edge, particularly in the harmonies. Sometimes penance can be fun.
Tight A$ and Meat City still sound like they were on the wrong album. The tossed-off quality of the writing doesn’t help. Yet both ravers, in retrospect, were a dry run for Lennon’s chaotic covers valentine Rock ’N’ Roll, while the remixing here uncovers lively, instrumental details and a spirit of engagement that would have done the later album a lot of good. Ignore the strained punning, and Tight A$ is in the fine ’50s-forward tradition of The Beatles’ 1969 single The Ballad Of John And Yoko and the rockabilly psychiatry in Imagine’s Crippled Inside: a thumping, descending lick straight from Sun Records heaven; the country-rock vengeance of Sneaky Pete Kleinow’s police-siren wails on pedal steel guitar. Meat City is closer to a Captain Beefheart party in the riffing and beat math, more agile and biting in Raw Studio form. There’s no getting around the lyrics – pure nonsense – but Lennon delivers ’em like Revolution.
Warning: the only rarity of note in this reissue, outside the remix narrative, is Lennon running down I’m The Greatest in a near-Beatles reunion with George Harrison and Ringo Starr – and that’s tucked away as a hidden bonus track. The Mind Games you get instead, in this lavish, rejuvenating treatment, is the several brighter, bolder albums it might have been, on the way to the one that fell flat in 1973. “I would love to take the band from Mind Games on the road… It would really be something else,” Lennon says in the book of the crew he dubbed the Plastic U.F.Ono Band, which included saxophonist Michael Brecker and bassist Gordon Edwards from the session-cats combo Stuff. Imagine that tour, if you can.
It’s also striking to see Ono’s constant, supportive presence in photos from the studio and quotes transcribed from tape reels, even as she and Lennon drifted apart. “It’s getting beautiful in the end, you know,” she tells him after a take of Out The Blue, robust gospel-rock gratitude addressed directly to her.
“All my life’s been a long slow knife,” Lennon sings at one point, “I was born just to get to you.” He wasn’t playing mind games. He just wanted to come home.
Mind Games: Ultimate Collection is out now on Capitol/UME.
Listen/Buy: Spotify | Apple Music | Amazon | Rough Trade | HMV
Track Listing:
CD 1: Ultimate Mixes
Mind Games
Tight A$
Aisumasen (I’m Sorry)
One Day (At A Time)
Bring On The Lucie (Freeda Peeple)
Nutopian International Anthem
Intuition
Out The Blue
Only People
I Know (I Know)
You Are Here
Meat City
CD 2: Elemental Mixes
Mind Games (Elemental Mix)
Tight A$ (Elemental Mix)
Aisumasen (I’m Sorry) (Elemental Mix)
One Day (At A Time) (Elemental Mix)
Bring On The Lucie (Freeda Peeple) (Elemental Mix)
Nutopian International Anthem (Elemental Mix)
Intuition (Elemental Mix)
Out The Blue (Elemental Mix)
Only People (Elemental Mix)
I Know (I Know) (Elemental Mix)
You Are Here (Elemental Mix)
Meat City (Elemental Mix)
CD 3: Elements Mixes
Mind Games (Elements Mix)
Tight A$ (Elements Mix)
Aisumasen (I’m Sorry) (Elements Mix)
One Day (At A Time) (Elements Mix)
Bring On The Lucie (Freeda Peeple) (Elements Mix)
Nutopian International Anthem (Elements Mix)
Intuition (Elements Mix)
Out The Blue (Elements Mix)
Only People (Elements Mix)
I Know (I Know) (Elements Mix)
You Are Here (Elements Mix)
Meat City (Elements Mix)
CD 4: Evolution Documentary
Mind Games (Evolution Documentary)
Tight A$ (Evolution Documentary)
Aisumasen (I’m Sorry) (Evolution Documentary)
One Day (At A Time) (Evolution Documentary)
Bring On The Lucie (Freeda Peeple) (Evolution Documentary)
Nutopian International Anthem (Evolution Documentary)
Intuition (Evolution Documentary)
Out The Blue (Evolution Documentary)
Only People (Evolution Documentary)
I Know (I Know) (Evolution Documentary)
You Are Here (Evolution Documentary)
Meat City (Evolution Documentary)
CD 5: The Raw Studio Mixes
Mind Games (Raw Studio Mix)
Tight A$ (Raw Studio Mix)
Aisumasen (I’m Sorry) (Raw Studio Mix)
One Day (At A Time) (Raw Studio Mix)
Bring On The Lucie (Freeda Peeple) (Raw Studio Mix)
Nutopian International Anthem (Raw Studio Mix)
Intuition (Raw Studio Mix)
Out The Blue (Raw Studio Mix)
Only People (Raw Studio Mix)
I Know (I Know) (Raw Studio Mix)
You Are Here (Raw Studio Mix)
Meat City (Raw Studio Mix)
CD 6: The Outtakes
Mind Games (Out-take, Take 7)
Tight A$ (Out-take, Take 6)
Aisumasen (I’m Sorry) (Out-take, Take 2)
One Day (At A Time) (Out-take, Take 18)
Bring On The Lucie (Freeda Peeple) (Out-take, Take 15)
Declaration Of Nutopia (Out-take, Take 1)
Intuition (Out-take, Take 12)
Out The Blue (Out-take, Take 15)
Only People (Out-take, Take 12)
I Know (I Know) (Out-take, Take 22)
You Are Here (Out-take, Take 5)
Meat City (Out-take, Take 16)
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Picture: Library Of Congress/Science Photo Library