Listening to Lennon #4: Mind Games

Mind Games is usually seen as Lennon backing away from the direct, seemingly (but in actual fact almost never truly) spontaneous engagement with radical and counter-cultural politics and street life that characterized Some Time in New York City, and there's clearly a lot of truth to that take. If nothing else, it fits with Lennon's trajectory in early 1973. He was fighting efforts to deport him from the United States, and thus found it necessary to make himself less of an anti-American lightning rod, and Richard Nixon's re-election to the presidency in 1972--Lennon had strongly affirmed his support for George McGovern--had left him thoroughly depressed and falling back into sexual and chemical addiction and dissolution (not that he'd ever really escaped such, anyway). By the summer of 1973, Lennon and Ono had formally (if not officially) separated, and Lennon was spending most of his time in Los Angeles--the beginning of his infamous "Lost Weekend." But before he left New York, however temporarily, he poured out thoughts and ideas into a new album, writing all the songs in a week's time (though some of the basic tunes he's worked on here and there for years), getting the recording and mixing done--he produced the album himself--in a little less than two months. After more than a year of benefit concerts and political appearances and no new music, this was in some sense a return to form for Lennon, though his "form" was far from at its best. 

Mind Games, while it has its defenders, is also often seen as an aimless, unfocused album, and there's truth to that as well. I actually think it's helpful to think of the album in terms of its original vinyl: the album's A side is actually pretty strong, while the B side is mostly perfunctory at best. I really love the sumptuous, Phil Spector-inspired arrangement for the album's lead single, "Mind Games"; its lyrical substance is slight and hippy-dippy (Lennon was busy pursuing another guru, this time the psychologists Robert Masters and Jean Houston, two key players in the quasi-mystical "human potential movement"), but the resulting recording is wonderfully dreamy, and Lennon's vocal is terrific. "Tight A$," by contrast, is a solid, fun rockabilly song. And the album's stand-out, I think, is "Bring on the Lucie (Freda People)," a rambunctious yet melodic tune whose sharp lyrics and clever political allusions really ought to put it on the same level of Lennon's much more famous "Power to the People" or "Give Peace a Chance." ("Lucie," by the way, is apparently "Lucifer," if you're wondering.) Put those along with "Intuition"--the first song on the B side, a surprisingly McCartney-style pop tune, with its infectious rhythm, its upbeat lyrics, and its jaunty, half-baked vibe--and you have an impressive musical collection, especially coming from someone struggling through depression and an admittedly justified paranoia. Why none of them were released as radio singles besides "Mind Games" I don't understand.

I'm not sure anything else on the album is worth more than an occasional listen, though. "Aisumasen (I'm Sorry)" is a sincere, self-confessional ballad, but whatever the value of continually repenting for one's faults may be, as a musician Lennon is repeating his processing of emotions here in a way that he'd already done much better on Imagine. "One Day (At A Time)" has its fans, and I admit Lennon's high-register vocal is kind of distinctive, but the same could be said for the mellow, steel guitar sound of "You Are Here," the hand-claps of "Only People," or the fine guitar work on "I Know (I Know)"--all are solid but not particularly captivating introspective tunes about love. I'll give credit to "Out the Blue," though--the lyrics there are occasionally bonkers, but maybe that's reflective of Lennon really trying to be original in expressing his conflicted yet enduring feelings for Yoko, similarly running through multiple styles in putting together this genuinely moving and fun ballad. And the aggressive boogie of "Meat City," the album's concluding track, can really get your head bopping, even if it veers into the same "just-jamming" problem that afflicted so much of Some Time in New York City.

So even with Lennon messed up and aimless, his artistry shone through, sufficient to put together on short notice a pretty decent rock and roll album. I give it a B-. Nowhere near his best work, but the greatness is still there, sometimes.