Word: lennon
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...minutes to Free as a Bird ... one minute ... 15 seconds ... as if it were a countdown to a very special Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve. Coming at the end of two hours of good music and great vibes, this souped-up, no-muffler megaproduction of John Lennon's wispy little air made the surviving Beatles sound--and their longtime fans feel--very old indeed...
...original 1977 demo tape, widely available on bootleg cassette, Lennon prefaces the tune by announcing, in the terse gutturals of a Brooklyn gangster, "Free. As a boid.'' That larkish spirit, absent in the new version, abounds on the two-CD album The Beatles Anthology (Apple/Capitol)--60 tracks of the group's compositions, cover recordings, outtakes, TV skits and reminiscences...
From the start John had a spooky, modernist poise. His taut mouth, his appraising eyes made him the group's soul and wit as surely as McCartney became its prime musical mover. Cynical, cool, Lennon was the eye of sanity in the Beatlemania hurricane. Asked, during the first U.S. tour, when the Beatles found time to rehearse their songs, he replied, "We wrote 'em; we recorded 'em; we play 'em every day. What do you rehearse? Smilin'--that's all we rehearse." His edginess suggested a roiling interior life; you could write a novel about what you imagined...
...like a Tory spokesman, and Ringo is still the ideal, unflappable pub mate. Even the grating last years, when Paul would rag George about his guitar playing, or sneak in to redub Ringo's drum parts, are events to look back on in sorrow, not anger. From the grave, Lennon has to give perspective to the breakup: "It was a slow death...
Yeah, sure--but wasn't it a wonderful life? It sure looks swell on TV. You'll see the infant Beatles in matching leather outfits (Lennon: "We looked like four Gene Vincents, or tried to"). Lennon talks of his love for Elvis--"a guy with long, greasy hair wigglin' his ass and singin' Hound Dog." Their long slog to the top (John and Paul met on July 6, 1957, so that by the time the Beatles hit the U.S. in 1964, their career together was already half over) gets a brisk treatment, lighting for but a moment on the specters...