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John Lennon
The U.S. vs. John Lennon:
Motion Picture Soundtrack
(Capitol/EMI)
First Appeared in The Music Box, October 2006, Volume 13, #10
Written by John Metzger
There is no better country in the world than America, but that doesn’t mean
that its government doesn’t have its share of problems. As the old adage goes,
"Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely." In spite of the
best intentions of the United States’ founding fathers, its leaders, on several
occasions, have used fear as a weapon for achieving their own political gain.
After the Soviet Union developed an atomic bomb and China fell to the Maoists,
Senator Joseph McCarthy began labeling anyone who disagreed with him a
communist. His crusade stretched far beyond Capitol Hill, and united with J.
Edgar Hoover’s FBI, he compiled extensive secret files on celebrities such as
Charlie Chaplin. So relentless was the persecution by McCarthy and Hoover that
after Chaplin ventured home to England, his permit for reentry to the United
States was denied.
By the early 1970s, McCarthy’s crusade had become a distant memory in the
minds of the public, but Hoover’s obsession with chasing subversives and
radicals had continued almost unchecked. As the fighting in Vietnam intensified
and the anti-war movement gained momentum, paranoid President Richard Nixon
joined with Hoover in order to thwart the successes of the countercultural
movement. Former Beatle John Lennon’s popularity combined with his uncanny knack
for condensing complex issues into simplistic but highly resonant statements
such as Give Peace a Chance made him a prime target for neutralization.
He was relentlessly pursued and threatened with deportation, but he never backed
down from his beliefs.
Lennon’s persecution at the hands of a government that had run amuck is the
subject of the recent documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon, and
appropriately, 40 of his songs were utilized to score the film. Granted, the
resulting soundtrack — which contains only 21 selections, thus lending credence
to the notion that a second volume is inevitable — hardly provides a
comprehensive survey of his work, and taken out of context, the collection also
fails to tell any semblance of a story. Nevertheless, it is a remarkably strong
assemblage of material.
As an inducement to fans, The U.S. vs. John Lennon: Motion
Picture Soundtrack naturally contains two previously unreleased tracks. The
first is a ragged rendition of the protest tune Attica State that was
culled from a 1971 rally on behalf of John Sinclair, and the second is a version
of How Do You Sleep? that, stripped of its vocals, highlights its ominous
arrangement as well as George Harrison’s razor-sharp, slide guitar
accompaniment. Elsewhere, snapshots of Lennon’s life drift through tracks like
The Ballad of John & Yoko and New York City, while Love and
Oh My Love reflect his devotion to his wife.
Not surprisingly, however, the bulk of The U.S. vs. John Lennon: Motion Picture Soundtrack focuses upon Lennon’s social and political
outrage. Subsequently, it provides a forum where Working Class Hero’s
excoriation of an apathetic society can brush against Power to the People’s
uplifting, gospel-imbued call to arms. Granted, the outing is a far cry from
being a revelation, and, without a doubt, there are better retrospectives
available to both the uninitiated as well as to casual fans. Yet, with songs
that range from the timeless anthem Imagine to the oft-overlooked,
posthumously released nugget Nobody Told Me and from the hypnotic mantra
I Don’t Wanna Be a Solider Mama, I Don’t Wanna Die to the biting
bitterness of Gimme Some Truth, the collection also serves as a potent
reminder of the power that honest, heartfelt music can wield.  ½
The U.S. vs. John Lennon: Motion Picture Soundtrack is
available from Amazon.com. To order, Click Here!
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2006 The Music Box
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