Friday playlist: John Lennon, no singles (part 1)

Hello and welcome to the first entry in the “Friday playlist” series, where I post a playlist and talk about what’s in it. On Fridays. But not necessarily every Friday. Sharing music online is illegal, but sharing a sequence of songs is definitely not and it’s just as fun. So please refer to your own music collection for the actual music. Think of it as a mixtape, only without the mixtape. What you really get is the plastic box the cassette comes in and the paper that has the order of the songs written on it.

To kick this off, I decided to go with John Lennon, since I’ve been listening to his solo work almost obsessively for the past couple of months and… not so obsessively for about half a year before that. The songs I choose from for this playlist are those contained in his solo albums, minus the ones released as singles, because who doesn’t know the singles?

Most of Lennon’s solo stuff you should already be familiar with, anyway. What is more, there are many songs that are very popular, despite not being released as a single. But hey, this is my first attempt at a playlist, so I’ll make it easy (end enjoyable) for myself.

Sources used for the making of this playlist:

• John Lennon singles UK (jpgr.co.uk)
• John Lennon UK/US singles (bagism.com)
• John Lennon post-2000 remixed/remastered catalogue: This is what I have, but the original cds are fine, too. Vinyl is even better.

Note: I did not use unofficial releases or official compilations of outtakes (such as the 1986 Menlove Ave. or the 1998 John Lennon Anthology ) as sources for this playlist, as I wanted to keep this simple for myself and you. If you like other versions of these songs better than those found on the albums, then feel free to replace as you see fit. Also, Unfinished Music Vol.1 and 2 & and Wedding Album are also out and you know why if you’ve listened to them (in short: it’s not music).

JOHN LENNON, NO SINGLES

The songs appear in order of release. I decided against proper sequencing, mainly because Lennon’s work has a strong autobiographical, confessionary tone to it. Listening to his solo albums in chronological order gives you a good sense of what his life was about from the late 60s up until his death, much like reading a diary would. There is some shuffling around of songs that belong to the same album, but songs from the same album are not divided.

Arbitrary restriction: The items on this playlist must fit in a CD.

1. God [4:10]

2. Hold On [1:51]

3. Isolation [2:51]

4. Well Well Well [5:59]

5. Give Me Some Truth [3:16]

6. How? [3:45]

7. Crippled Inside [3:49]

8. Oh Yoko [4:21]

9. Bring On The Lucie (Freda People) [4:11]

10. One Day (At A Time) [3:27]

11. Out The Blue [3:22]

12. I Know (I Know) [3:56]

13. Going Down On Love [3:55]

14. Bless You [4:37]

15. Scared [4:37]

16. Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down And Out) [5:09]

17. I’m Losing You [3:57]

18. Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) [4:04]

19. I’m Losing You [3:22]

20. Grow Old With Me [3:07]

Total duration: 77:46

Notes:

Fits in a 80-minute CD. Or even a 90-minute cassette, if you’re so inclined.

Songs 1-4 are from Plastic Ono Band (1970), songs 5-8 from Imagine (1971), songs 9-12 from Mind Games (1973), songs 13-16 from Walls and Bridges (1974), songs 17-18 from Double Fantasy (1980) and songs 19-20 from Milk and Honey (1984).

This is where I would normally post my comments on the songs, their sequence, the reasons why I chose these particular ones, etc. But this post is getting very long, so I’ll compile the comments into a separate entry instead. It should come some time tomorrow.

Update: Here’s part 2.