(Apple, 1974)John Lennon’s white-boy party jam, but not necessarily in a good way. This cocaine sax-shit sounds a lot like something the Saturday Night Live house band would’ve cranked out during commercial breaks around the same time, and Elton John’s AM-pop presence looms disturbingly large over the chipmunk-voiced proceedings. I don’t begrudge Lennon his chart success – this was his LONE Billboard #1 before he died – but it’s hard to get excited about such gutless, sub-Wings horsepoo. “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night” makes the execrably new-agey “#9 Dream” (also a single off of Walls and Bridges) seem appealing by comparison, and that’s obviously no badge of pride. And “Beef Jerky”? Just a silly early-R ’n’ R throwback instrumental that’s cute only for including the “Let Me Roll it” lick during its breaks.
2 comments:
For those who care, this copy is from Belgium (or Germany?), hence the picture sleeve. The US and UK only got generic Apple sleeves for this single.
yeah, just radio fodder, which Beltin' Elton was good at cranking out in those days and is probably why this made no. 1. But at least it sounds like Lennon is having fun, instead of saving the world from itself or berating former collaborators or dissing us all for our swinish lack of love for the big picture. Nothing much, but nothing pretentious either, and that was a step in the right direction.
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