Official U.K. Albums Chart results from Sunday the 16th to Saturday the 22nd of February 1975
Cut-off for sales figures was up to the end of Saturday the 15th of February
Results counted from Sunday the 16th,
and published on Wednesday the 19th of February 1975.
John Lennon
Walls And Bridges
At No.43, on the “The Top 50 U.K. Albums Chart”, the week of my 3rd Birthday, is John Lennon with Walls And Bridges.
The continuing story…
…of John Lennon, since he visited my birthday chart last year, goes from one side of the USA to the other, with all the terrifying new outlooks, destabilisations, reassessments, appreciations, abstractions, self-absorptions and debauched shenanigans in between.
Out of all the albums of John’s which I’ve met thus far along my own musical road, it’s been this one which seems to have drawn me in and fascinated me the most. It’s such a compelling journey of different directions that it’s sometimes difficult to keep up. So arduous in fact that even he can’t do that himself. There’s a reason why this album is all over the place, and that’s because so is he. Whether that is intentional at this time I wouldn’t know, but then, the way he himself is living his life, even he probably doesn’t know either.
Adding to that, this new wave of interest into his past life with his old band which just will not go away, no matter how often he’s tried fiercely to distance himself from it all in his recent history, it’s now safe to say that he’s experiencing acceptance and reestablishing those connections once again. Even if it is fanning the reunion flames hotter now than they’ve been in years. It’s something he’s now prepared to at least reevaluate, even if it seems at a cost to his own bygone arrogance.
All actual and blatant Beatle throwbacks aside, not only is there the obvious nod to Paul with his guitar accent of “Let Me Roll It” on the instrumental “Beef Jerky” (as well as a little flourish of Henry Mancini‘s Pink Panther Theme, due to the comeback of that film franchise recently, of course starring one of his heroes and now friend, Peter Sellers), but I also hear a very clear appreciation to George‘s “Isn’t It A Pity” all over the penultimate track “Nobody Loves You“; and I wonder if there’s a recognition to one of Ringo‘s licks somewhere within the LP too.
To say…
…he is putting himself willingly through more personal turmoil than he’s ever done before, would be something of an understatement, with the mindsets playing out through the sequence of tracks going up and down more times than May Pang‘s knickers, with his vague but seemingly plausible intention to become the living embodiment of your average archetypal tortured poet in the flesh and soul, alive and as well as can be expected, at thirty-three and a third.
With the decision to include a selection of his own childhood drawings and a deep dive into the history of the Lennon name itself, it is as if he is seriously considering wiping the slate clean entirely and starting from scratch again. Going back from here and regressing to that 11-year-old boy to make a brand new start. For all the life he’s lived so far, and with it all culminating in being exiled into a world where he feels completely out of his depth, it seriously doesn’t seem like such a bad idea at this time in his life.
It has so far…
…been a road that he’s been trying desperately to navigate almost his whole existence, and now it seems things are coming to a bit of a head.
For someone who, after countless years of attempting to become a citizen of the land of the free, has still yet not been formally given his green card, his predicament so many years later must be total exhaustion of fighting for his own cause which now seems to be drowning, and consuming him whole, eating him alive. So long has he been fighting for the rights of others, it is only now that he is realising that most of it is to distract him from looking after his own self. However, now that is all he has to look upon, his own self, his own past, present and future, all bearing down on him at once. I swear that a lyric is written incorrectly when in my opinion he instead muses “Sing about love and peace, don’t wanna see the red raw me”.
If the older sibling of John’s previous album had been witnessing his tentativeness to take a chance and leap into the abyss beneath him he needn’t have worried, as his wife has made that decision for him and kicked him off the edge anyway, sending him clear over to the West Coast, along with all his emotional baggage which ends up crashing down on him as soon as he hits the ground.
His acute self-awareness…
…that perhaps in his own self he’s left his best creative years behind him, the self-deprecating realisation that he seems to sense of, although immediately ensconced in a non-stop party atmosphere with an ever flowing stream of friends and acquaintances surrounding him at all hours of the day or night, it doesn’t take away the fact that deep down he’s having the antagonising feeling of being more alone and sinking within himself even when he is around others, and that he’s preferring these days to be hidden away behind various bonkers pseudonyms, about as many as there are glasses on his head in one of these portraits taken by his firm friend, acclaimed photographer Bob Gruen. Each pair of specs representing a different facet of his character he has, up till now, managed to use to his advantage in most outward situations.
All well and good when you’re trying desperately to claw back that jocular John that everyone misses and wants, just like it used to be all those years ago, wanting so much to be loved again, but in reality a diversion for others which leaves his real inward self to be alone after the spotlight has, in his head anyway, moved on, leaving him to lick his own wounds and wail away in desperation, panic and self-pity, wishing at times that he’d never even been born. All this is of course personal paranoia, and it seems he’s prepared to have to learn the hard way that all the recreational excesses in the world aren’t going to make any of it go away.
Maybe the real John…
…is the one squinting out through all those lenses, not quite ready and not in an ideal comfort zone yet to scratch away at the enigma he’s spent all these years curating, to finally reveal his true identity, The pure unadulterated and aspiring artist whose boyhood drawings are looking back at him as if they have their own voice, and whispering “remember me?”
The tantalising thing about it all is, there is a real sense he’s getting closer. Not as an obscure possibility, but instead shining with a crystal clear ring of inevitability. Through all the excruciating self-persecution, pessimism and self abuse, there’s the vitality, heartfelt essence and gently guiding hand of May, the welcome and long delayed, but immensely welcome, reunification with Julian, a steadfast feeling of optimism, the onward road to the ultimate acceptance of self, and there is undoubtedly, in spite of all excessive things, hope.
It’s all here, correct and present, enthralling and deeply fascinating, and embedded deep within the grooves of these two sides of vinyl.
The album…
…had initially entered the UK Chart back on the 13th of October last year, the same day as the first single released from the LP, and that may explain why that single never got as high as it did over in the States, whereas this had landed safely in the Top 20 at No.14, before bouncing effortlessly into the Top 10 to sit at its highest peak so far of No.6 the following week.
Slipping back out of the Top 10 at the dawn of November, it then made its way back through the Top 50, eventually leaving after the last day of that autumnal month; and after an extended Christmas break, this week it re-enters at the lower end of the chart.
From here…
…it hangs around for one more week to see out this month of February, and with it the winter, then it’s off once again.
The album reappears for one final week just after mid-March, before keeping on down its own dirt road with a nice round 10 weeks of chart action to show for it.
Side 1
Side 2
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