John Lennon was always known to get to the point regarding his songs. Either he would be upfront when he told people he made something unprecedented, or he couldn’t stand the thought of listening to one of his Beatles classics ever again. While most of his best material tends to be fairly cut and dry when viewed objectively, he admitted that there was a certain amount of beauty in the song ‘Love’ that he had never done before.
After Lennon had been fresh out of therapy, there were bound to be some songs that had to be extracted from him. No one comes out of that traumatic experience without a couple of stories about finding themselves, and Plastic Ono Band was Lennon’s excuse to let out all that aggression in one go.
For an album about the frail ends of his mind, Lennon’s first proper solo album is a harrowing listen from back to forth. It’s nowhere near the caustic sounds of death metal or anything, but hearing him speak so candidly about his issues on songs like ‘Mother’ and ‘Working Class Hero’ makes him sound like he’s right there beside you sprawled on a couch.
Whereas Lennon had many awful back pages, he did at least know that he had found solace when he met Yoko Ono. As much as people incorrectly label her as the woman who dismantled The Beatles, Ono may have indirectly saved Lennon from himself, helping him out of his fragile mind and giving him the drive to make music again.
Although most of the album features some of the most blunt lyrics Lennon ever wrote, ‘Love’ feels like the kind of song anyone could relate to if they’ve felt something in their heart. By keeping things totally abstract, the whole thing reads like a kind of tone poem about what love means to him, all while a gentle acoustic guitar plays with him in the background.
Even for someone who was about making something aggressive whenever they played, Lennon admitted that he shocked himself with how pretty the melody was, saying, “I think it’s beautiful. I’m more of a rocker, that’s all. I originally conceived of ‘Mother’ and ‘Love’ as being a single, but I want to put one out with her [Yoko]. Then I have to get rid of one. But I think ‘Love’ will do me more good.”
Despite the idea of ‘Mother’ leaving every single listener in shock if they had heard that song first, ‘Love’ is the kind of tender ballad that most could get behind. It was hardly as dense lyrically as some of Lennon’s other songs, but the folksy spin on devotion is something that feels like the blueprint for artists like Elliott Smith decades later.
More than anything, this was Lennon reminding us that he was still doing well after coming off one of the harshest periods of his life. He had seen his band fall apart, his wife being disrespected by everyone, and eventually had to confront his troubled past, but ‘Love’ was where he could melt all of life’s bullshit away and know that he could do anything as long as Ono was by his side.
