Let me give you a peak behind the curtain. When I work on these deep dives, like the 1980 albums, I tend to burn out after about 60. I start out with an ambitious list of records I know, records I'm curious about, records that are critically acclaimed, and records I've never heard of. But, about 60 albums in I've mostly locked in my Top 25 and just want to get going on my posts and move on with my life. The first phase of my burn out consists of listening to the first minute of the first few songs of an album. If nothing grabs me I don't bother rating it or listening to the rest of it. The final phase is when I arbitrarily decided the remaining albums on the list aren't going to crack the Top 25, so why bother. This is where Double Fantasy landed for the 1980 dive. After I published my songs list, it dawned on me that I hadn't included any John Lennon songs. Surely, "Watching the Wheels" should have made the cut. Since I haven't listened to Double Fantasy in decades, I decided to give it a spin.
Before I get to the album, let me preface what I'm going to say. John Lennon was, and still is, my favorite member of The Beatles. His development as a songwriter was more advanced than anyone else in the band. His songs were more surreal and acerbic. Even when he was kind of mailing it in at the end his songs were fantastic. However, I started buying records and really listening to music in 1974, so I knew The Beatles as solo artists before I knew The Beatles as a band. As a solo artist, John was good, but not great. His songs tended to be either angry or reflective. And I could go the rest of my life without ever hearing "Imagine" again. So, when I got into The Beatles, "discovering" this John Lennon was an epiphany. Sadly, this was 1978 and in two years John Lennon would be murdered in New York City shortly after the release of Double Fantasy. This led to a revival of John's solo catalog, as well as The Beatles. At the time, there was considerable good will for John's musical legacy. I listened to Double Fantasy on the regular...skipping the Yoko songs, of course. Sorry, I was that guy. But in reality, that's why I didn't bother listening to this album for the dive; it's half Yoko Ono. There was no way it would make the cut. So, today I decided to listen to the whole thing with an open mind and see what "2025 Me" thinks.
Let me start with the John Lennon tracks. To be charitable, he was coming off a five year hiatus from music to focus on being a father to Sean. The songs are either about looking back or looking forward. The only poignancy comes from the fact that he was soon to be robbed of his future. These are songs Lennon had to get out of his system in order to move on with his life. Maybe his next album would have been a contemporary masterpiece. We'll never know. However, his songs on Double fantasy are fine, middle-of-the-road pop tunes. While they are important "personal" documents, they are a step back musically and creatively.
The Yoko tracks are more complicated. Yoko was, and is, a divisive individual. Most of her songs on Double Fantasy are quite contemporary and relevant in 1980. The compositions are interesting and the lyrics are incisive. Unfortunately, she's the wrong vessel. Those tracks could never have been appreciated at that time. She's the weird woman that skulked around in the shadows of the Let it Be sessions and broke up The Beatles. And she sounds like a porpoise on a couple of these tracks. It is notable, on Double Fantasy, that Yoko's songwriting is more advanced and contemporary than John's. It's a reversal of the dynamic in The Beatles.
So, for me Double Fantasy is a 3.5 Star album and I probably wouldn't add any of the tracks to my song list. I'm glad I gave it another listen with an open mind and can acknowledge Yoko's contribution wasn't just John letting his wife put some songs on "his" album. Now I can move on from 1980 with a clean conscience. Peace.
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