Poll: John Lennon - Some Time in New York City (1972 Album) - Top 5 songs

New York City, Sister O Sister, Woman Is the N**** of the World, John Sinclair, Cold Turkey, All the Live songs, Listen The Snow Is Falling. I like all the early stuff by Lennon and the POB. Plus Yoko's first 3 albums.

 

Along with POB, this is the only other solo Lennon (studio) album I like. The lyrics are sometimes laughably naive, but the music has a rocking rawness.

 

Yes it's unfortunate I or anyone must resort to editing STINYC. But it was well worth the effort.

John's most rocking album, all the songs revolve around a central theme ( a solo trademark ) in spite of some naive or rushed lyrics.

Yes it's true, that unlike most Beatles work or other Lennon solo work STINYC has some dated themes. Just as say Harrison's Gone Troppo or McCartneys Press To Play have some dated keyboard & drum sounds. The Lennon themes are naive & purely a product of the 66-73 scenes in politics, and all that.

But it's a real gem in my collection, after a little pruning with the editing shears. I really didn't want to add Power To The People, but I had too, to get enough songs. I didn't want to insult Yoko by editing her out of Luck Of The Irish, but it's a lot better now. I had to add the non LP Happy Xmas, & learn to accept the pretty good sounding duet "Angela". It's still a little short since I dropped the Yoko tunes.

But now I have Lennon's hardest rocking album, with his wife Yoko 'guesting' with her husband. Before I had a John & Yoko album most people couldn't stand. Including me. Now I have one more solo Lennon album than most people, & that's good. Because he didn't make very many, & now there's one more I can play.

No I don't think Attica State & John Sinclair are as good as Strawberry Fields or Gimme Some Truth. But they're good enough to enjoy them all as a 9 track studio album with 8 Lennon & 1 duet vocal.

I made another album out of Instant Karma & Cold Turkey etc, by adding in God Save Oz & Please Don't Go & all that, that's enjoyable too.

 

Take off all remnants of Yoko and the album is almost decent

 

I have always loved the slide on "John Sinclair", Lennon really gets into the groove in this standout track.

But the really outstanding track on this album is from the otherwise ordinary live disk. "Well (Baby Please Don't Go)" has a slow-burn reinterpretation of blues. Lennon probably had fantasies of being a blues artist, and was able to take some influence but I would never rate him as a bluesman. However, he really pulls it off in "Well".

I also feel it's the album which Yoko's contributions tends to fit well with Lennon's (excepting the live Ono). The cover tends to fit the content as well:

 

The fact that the only songs that even moderately catch my attention are Yoko's speaks more to the overall lackluster quality of the album rather than any huge artistic breakthroughs from Mrs. L.

 

Not as much as The Stones did.
Wasn't the song performed because it was an old B-side that Zappa and Lennon found they both knew.

 

On "Well (Baby Please Don't Go)"
The Beatles Bible: Well (Baby Please Don’t Go)

John Lennon recorded a cover of The Olympics' 1958 song Well (Baby Please Don't Go) during the Imagine sessions, and performed it onstage with Frank Zappa in 1971.

....The Fillmore East show had Lennon and Ono appearing onstage with Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention. They performed four songs: Well (Baby Please Don't Go), ...[+3]...

The appearance was the encore for a Mothers Of Invention concert. It kicked off with Well (Baby Please Don't Go), a cover of the b-side to The Olympics' 1958 single Western Movies. The band was evidently unsure of how to end the song, and it dissolved into a melange of screams by Yoko Ono and members of The Mothers Of Invention. This was cleaned up when it appeared on Some Time In New York City. The entire set was also released by Zappa on a 1992 compilation, Playground Psychotics.

Lennon introduced the song with the words: "This is a song I used to sing when I was in the Cavern in Liverpool. I haven't done it since, so…" His description wasn't quite true. He had recorded the song at EMI Studios, Abbey Road in February 1971, during the session for Power To The People.... I Don't Want To Be A Soldier and It's So Hard.

This studio version of Well featured Klaus Voormann on bass guitar, Jim Gordon on drums, and Bobby Keys on saxophone. It was later released on the 1998 box set John Lennon Anthology as Baby Please Don't Go, and on the highlights disc Wonsaponatime.

The studio version of Well (Baby Please Don't Go) was reportedly recorded for Yoko Ono's 38th birthday on 19 February 1971. A tight R&B performance featuring chugging rhythm guitar, King Curtis-style sax solo and rasping vocals by Lennon, it was one of the sessions' strongest recordings.​

​

 

It's a better album than it's often portrayed, but some of it really isn't good. Luck of the Irish is excruciating - probably his worst solo song.

On the other hand, NYC and Woman Is.....are among his very best.

 

This album has some of yokos best songs but I still didn't vote for any of them.

 

I think Luck of the Irish is good until Yoko chimes in. Her lyrics are excruciating. Edit those verses out

 

I did that sounds great ! A tad short at around 2.20, but sounds nice !

There is a pretty clean live version actually a few of them by Lennon solo.

Likewise pretty easy to use some demos, acetates & alternates to do a mostly John Only -Attica State. Throw the legitimate non LP Happy Xmas in there & Power To the people, & throw in New York City, John Sinclair, Woman is The , & you have yourself a good rocking Lennon studio album. I also keep the duet Angela, because I need another song, & actually it's good !!! There's one particular mix & or mastering, I think it's the original CD version, or maybe it's the original 72 vinyl. Whichever it is, Lennon cuts through a whole lot better in the blend, it's roughly a 55-45 Lennon, wheras other mixes or masterings sound 60-40 Yoko which I hate of course. But that one version , somehow it's better. Still I'd give nearly anything for Angela with a mix either muting Yoko or pulling him up about 4-5 dbs & her down 3-4.

What was that again said the sleepy reader

1-New York City
2-Woman is the N#$&
3-Luck of Irish w edit
4-Attica State
5-Power To People
6-John Sinclair
7-Angela
8-Happy Xmas

That's essentially a Lennon solo album. Sun Bloody Sun can be added for a ninth track OR Baby Please Don't Go

Here's a clue for you all, The milkman was Paul, Elementary Penguin, singing in a frying pan.

My copy has 10 songs, all Lennon lead vocals except Angela a bonafide duet.

Edit- it's not Yoko's lyrics on Luck of Irish.

Because before I ever get to the point of listening to them as lyrics, I'm beaten senseless by what bad singing it is, cringing behind the sofa, from the texture, shrillness, bad pitch, how out of context it is for an Irish folk song...then after all that, maybe the words are bad, but I've turned it off by then.

I'm not a Yoko hater, trying to be mean, trying to be disrespectful none of that. It's just really bad musically. I don't want to have to edit albums I buy. But she sounds awful to me. At the best of times I'm not a big fan of her singing. But on We're All Water, I'm You're Angel, Kiss Kiss Kiss, Born In A Prison, she's ok.. not my cuppa tea, but ok... But on Irish my eyes are pinned back like a beam is pushing me backward into my chair

 

Here's the other thing, there are 2 versions of Baby Please Don't Go, recorded at nearly the same time.

The live version that we hear on the bonus disc. But there's also a studio version cut "technically" during the Imagine sessions. ..

But not really, it was cut for whatever reason during the Power To The People non LP single session...

Which itself, Power TTP, could be considered either an Imagine or STINYC track, it doesn't appear on either album. But could appear with justification on either one, & that's when the studio Baby Please Don't Go originates from...

I kind of like the studio version better.. God I wish that Lennon-Zappa-Flo & Eddie line up had cut it in the studio, the guitar is a lot better on the live, because of Zappa I suppose.

 

Definitely up there with the worst solo Beatles albums...I like "Woman Is..." and "New York City" and basically nothing else

 

...and I love Zappa, but the second record is a complete waste...

 

Lennon's lyrics are at least as bad and without getting political they are laughingly naïve. Nice tune though.

 

That live workout on "Kyoko Don't Worry" is the reason I own the album. I love that.

 

It's a pretty sorry album. I'd say, though, one of his best sentiments is "Woman is the N... of the World." Not quite there, though. He could have used a collaborator. But, without getting too political, he's dead on with what he's saying and I really dig that. Not surprisingly, my wife thinks it's good too.

For me, it shows the duality of the Lennon/McCartney dynamic. I see something like "Another Day" being just as pro-woman as the track of note. Different approaches. I like both.

 

New York City
Luck of the Irish
John Sinclair
Angela
Well Baby Please Don't Go

The Zappa tune shows that if those
cats had wanted they could have been
the most dangerous band on the planet.

 

I dunno. I'm irish . His lyrics wrre certainly topical. Yokos on the other hand paint a very bland stereotypical shamrock stained picture of ireland. Cringeworthy

 

There are a couple live 1971 versions from benefits in Michigan & New York City with just John, it's a fully formed song without anything from her.

Ironically if you edit out Yoko's verses or play the solo Lennon live versions. The structure is almost the same !

Just the tempo, instrumentation, Sonic's vary, but as a song it's about the same.

I just found an Irish folk group doing a cover of Sunday Bloody Sunday...if I can cut out their chorus and fly it into the Lennon verses it'll be great !

There is a good 10 song solo Lennon album there, with a little TLC, editing & care. It's worth it, the guy only had time for 5 studio albums. So improving STINYC is just the Greatest thing.

 

New York City - all the people that rag on Elephant's Memory need to give this track another listen-- it cooks!
Sunday Bloody Sunday - love the groove, especially the percussion bed that serves as the intro.
John Sinclair - quality protest song, I don't even mind the "got-ta, got-ta"'s anymore.
We're All Water - my fav Yoko jam. great lyrics.
Attica State - this one is kind of a jam as well.

I don't think the studio side of STINYC is as dire as people make it out to be.

 

I still stick up for this album. Then again, I think Mind Games is his best pop solo album.

 

Unless one counts The Concert for Bangla Desh, this album was the third (after Imagine and Wild Life) that I had of the solo Beatles. A gift for Christmas 1972. About 10 years later I discovered the above postcard inside - it had been caught in the fold of the gatefold all that time. In Australia the two album package retailed for $7.98 which a large red removable sticker proclaimed. (The second album "Live Jam" was not free - it added about $2 to the price.) In addition to the text in the box about Live Jam being free being changed, some of the lyrics on the cover were removed as well as they were most likely considered to be a bad influence on the record buying public.

I've always quite liked most of Some Time In New York City, my liking for Live Jam has varied, though the two side openers have been consistently liked (Cold Turkey and Well).

From the ten tracks of STINYC my faves are both sides of the single (Woman/Sisters), the two Yoko songs (Born in A Prison / We're All Water) and to a lesser degree, John Sinclair.

 

As I've said before. I made a personal edited version of STINYC, turning into basically a solo Lennon album. It's fantastic to hear.

Nothing against Yoko, I think some of her art exhibits are Fab. She's written some good tunes & helped John as his primary muse. But I prefer listening to Lennon.

Anyway my personal copy is a bit short, I added Happy Xmas the bonus track & edited out her segment of Luck of the Irish, did some editing to mostly remove her from Attica State. Presto voila ! 6 Lennon lead vocals instead of 3. Plus 2 remaining duets with Yoko makes 8 ! I'm toying around with Power To The People, God Save Oz & a few others Trying to find a legitimate 9th track. Sure Yoko is still there co-singing 2 tracks, but it's more like his wife guesting on his solo album, more than being a John & Yoko album, and I like it a lot better. Although I'm kinda stuck choosing a bonafide 9th track. Somehow I lucked out into an alternate mastering or mix of Angela, where Lennon cuts through a bit more & Yoko doesn't mask his vocal as much.

Her songs & even her singing is good on STINYC, some of her tunes equal or surpass his on STINYC. In the opinion of some fans.

Certainly most of us can agree, adding Happy Xmas is most welcome. It's from the same sessions & makes it better.

I've been dying for someone to get a look & report on what, if anything else is recorded on the multis or unreleased mixes. Alternate vocals with John singing solo on one of the duets, or a live in studio of John singing lead on an alternate unreleased song.

Anyway some people really end up digging STINYC if they listen

My top songs are

1 New York City
2 Woman is the Ni$$$r of World
3 John Sinclair
4 Happy Xmas
5 Luck Of Irish
6-Attica State