Ask the elephant! (Yoko Ono) (LP 3417 - 3425)

Yoko Ono  Season of Glass (Vinyl, Geffen Records, 1981) *   

Yoko Ono  It's Alright (I see rainbows) (Vinyl, Polydor Records, 1982) **  

Yoko Ono  Starpeace (CD, Polygram Records/Ryko, 1985) **

Yoko Ono/IMA  Rising (CD, Capitol Records, 1995) ****    

Yoko Ono  Blueprint For A Sunrise (CD, CapitolRecords, 2001) ***

Yoko Ono  Yes, I'm A Witch (CD, Chimera Music, 2007) **  

Yoko Ono/ Plastic Ono Band  Between My Head and the Sky (CD, Chimera Music, 2009) ****  

Yoko Ono  Yes, I'm A Witch Too (CD, Chimera Music, 2016) *** 

Yoko Ono  Warzone (CD, Sony Music, 2018) *** 

Genre: Synth pop, pop/rock, experimental rock

Places I remember: Marbecks Records, Fopp, HMV, Real Groovy Records.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Warzone (Rising)

Gear costume: Waiting For The D Train (Between My Head and the Sky)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: I really struggle with listening to Seasons Of Glass. It's too harrowing for me. I understand why Yoko felt the need to do it and, at a pinch, I even understand her need to release it as an artistic statement, but, from John's bloody glasses on the cover to the sound of gunshots on one song, it's just too raw. 

 

Yes, this is still, in 2025, more than I can process (it's not only his murder but the effect on Yoko and Sean that resonates). Hence the one star - for collector's only, rating. I've played it once and that was tough. I have no desire to ever play it again. 

For some reason I've kept collecting her post John albums (although I have missed a couple of the latest ones and the remix collections).

It's alright (I see rainbows) is at least a little more upbeat, but John's ghost is literally on the back cover. All very natural catharsis but it doesn't make for great art.

Starpeace is Yoko starting to reclaim her more singular vision, via some great session musicians. It adds up to some goodish synth-pop and some reawakening of the old Yoko. 

The reawakening would see full bloom on Rising with Sean taking over John's supportive role (his count into a song at one point is eerily like his dad). Yoko reprises her primal scream sound to great effect and Sean emerges as a creative force for his mother in a stripped back trio approach.

In one sense, Blueprint For A Sunrise is a step backward from Rising's new material, as it features live tracks, samples, and remixes of previous recordings, but it continues to utilise Sean's and others' creativity. 

In terms of subject matter, it returns to Feeling The Space's feminist theme. Unfortunately, it was still a relevant subject matter in 2001, and 2025 for that matter.

Yes, I'm A Witch and Yes, I'm A Witch Too are interesting. I've added them to this post because they are Yoko-centric in that Yoko collaborates with others by providing vocals to a variety of backing bands (some famous, some not) on both albums.

It's okay but even Porcupine Tree can't add much to Death Of Samantha. The thing is - Yoko's vocals are an acquired taste at the best of times. Without John or Sean providing instrumentation, there is not a lot for me to grasp on to. 

The most interesting songs are on Yes, I'm A Witch Too: a slowed down orchestrally lush Walking On Thin Ice , a slightly revamped Move On Fast (one of my favourite Yoko moments) with Jack Douglas at the controls, and Hell In Paradise is nicely Moby-ised.

Against all odds she returned to the Plastic Ono Band name and released Between My Head and the Sky at age 76! And it's a big time return to form. 

Sean is again at the heart of things with a few guests from sympathetic bands like Cibo Matto.

The AllMusic review sums it well - This is a deeply focused, wonderfully colorful, and deeply expressive work that showcases a collaboration between mother and son and displays depth, strength, creativity in spades, and intense beauty.

The final album in this list is Warzone from 2018. It's her latest album, which she released when she was 85 years old. What a remarkable achievement. 

She uses the occasion to re-record songs from her past and sounds vital, interested, and still inventive. Even if, like Macca, her vocals have morphed into a new sound in old age, she's still recognisably Yoko. Like Macca and Joni, her voice has taken on a new resonance at age 85. 

What a life. What a remarkable body of work that she has amassed during her life. John would have been so proud of her (and Sean's input) in the years since he was cruelly taken from us (yes - us - he belongs to the world).

Although she is not my wife's idea of a singer, I still love a lot of her work, in particular Yoko Ono/ Plastic Ono Band, and Rising. Two great albums.

If only she'd leave Imagine alone, though. On Warzone she revises history by adding her name to the composition - something John suggested was right and proper given her Grapefruit inspiration. But her singing of this iconic song is a bridge too far for me. 

Where do they all belong? A couple of her post Between My Head and the Sky albums have passed me by to this point: Yokokimthurston is a collaborative album with Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, released in 2012; and Take Me To The Land of Hell is from 2013. If I see them, I'll grab them. She's always interesting!

Why (Yoko Ono) (LP 3412 - 3416)

Yoko Ono/ Plastic Ono Band  Yoko Ono/ Plastic Ono Band (CD/ vinyl, Apple Records/ Secretly Canadian Records, 1970) *****  

Yoko Ono  Fly (CD/ vinyl, Apple Records/ Secretly Canadian Records, 1971) ****  

Yoko Ono  Approximately Infinite Universe (CD/ vinyl, Apple Records/ Secretly Canadian Records, 1973) **** 

Yoko Ono  Feeling The Space (CD/ vinyl, Apple Records/ Secretly Canadian Records, 1973) **  

Yoko Ono  A Story (CD, Ryko, recorded 1974. released 1997) **   

Genre: Apple Records, Avant garde, experimental rock, rock 

Places I remember: Slow Boat Records, Real Groovy Records, Marbecks Records.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Why (Yoko Ono/ Plastic Ono Band)

Gear costume: Looking Over From My Hotel Window (Approximately Infinite Universe); Mindtrain (Fly) 

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: I've divided the Yoko collection into two parts. First part (this one) - the albums when John was alive, and second - the post John years.

I love each of these albums from the seventies. Yoko and John's albums were recorded with similar personnel and released at the same time, so they are often yin yang of a creative whole.

I lost all of these albums (on Apple Records) during a traumatic house move, so I bought new re-released copies with a lovely Grapefruit replacing the iconic Apple. All of the lavish packaging remains the same.

Yoko Ono/ Plastic Ono Band is the sister album to John Lennon/ Plastic Ono Band (the covers are similar with their positions reversed under that tree). Both were done as a response to their primal scream experiment. Both, for me, are their best albums because of the raw, naked delivery. Both have Ringo on drums and Klaus Voormann on bass (both take a suitably minimal approach).

Whereas John's album uses lyrics and has aspects of primal scream in his delivery, Yoko is all in, and John is all in on primal guitar. It's an extraordinary album with each track distinctive and effective. 

Why, the lead off song, is breathtaking. John's guitar is a howl of emotion and a mimic to Yoko's screaming WHY over and over. Her finest moment on record for me. I've played this song to countless people over the years, and no one gets it as I do. It's beautiful and frightening at the same time.

Fly is a double, recorded around the same time as Imagine. It's a transitional album - featuring some rock singing (Midsummer New York is brilliant), some traditional ballad styles (Mrs. Lennon is terrific) and Yoko's primal vocal gymnastics (Fly, the 'song', can be hard going, even for me). Mindtrain is an extraordinary 16+ minute track featuring John's mind-bending guitar again, and vocals by Yoko.

Approximately Infinite Universe, another double album, moves much more to a traditional pop/rock sound. It was recorded post Sometime In New York with Elephants Memory. They play with a lot more subtlety on Yoko's album.

It's sprawling and the quality varies over the four sides, but she gets credit for the high points. 

Her final album for Apple Records was Feeling The Space (concurrent with Mind Games). It's a stridently feminist album and worth your time, but it's not one of my favourites. John contributes but only on a few tracks.

A Story was recorded in 1974 without John (during the so-called 'lost weekend'), who was also at work - on Walls And Bridges. The style is again traditional pop/rock with Yoko trying a variety of styles similar to Feeling The Space. It went unreleased until after John's murder and is an interesting footnote.

Where do they all belong? The post John albums are next. Deep breath, because there are a lot of them!

Watching the wheels (John Lennon) (LP 2055 - 2062)

John Lennon and Yoko Ono  Double Fantasy (Vinyl and CD, Geffen Records (vinyl), Capitol Records (CD), 1980 (vinyl) 2000 (CD) ***  

John Lennon and Yoko Ono  Double Fantasy Stripped Down (CD, Capitol Records (CD), 2010) ***  

John Lennon and Yoko Ono  Milk And Honey (Vinyl and CD, Polygram Records (vinyl), EMI Records (CD), 1983 (vinyl) 2001 (CD) ****  

John Lennon and Yoko Ono  Heart Play - Unfinished Dialogue (Vinyl, Polygram Records, 1983) *  

John Lennon   Bedism (CD, Dressed To Kill, 1999 *    

John Lennon  In My Life (Triple CD, Dressed To Kill 1998) *  

John Lennon   Testimony (CD, Live Gold Productions 1990) *

John & Yoko Lennon   The Interview (Double cassette tape, BBC Productions, 1990) *   

Genre: Beatle pop/rock 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records for the vinyl, JB Hi-Fi for the CDs. Cassette tape from music shop in Cambridge.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Beautiful Boy

Gear costume: Grow Old With Me

Active compensatory factors: Early in December 1980 I was working at Marbecks Records in the Queen's Arcade in downtown Auckland, as I was on my varsity break. 

I'd just got home and the phone rang - I went to my parents' bedroom to answer the call - it was my friend Greg Knowles. He said John Lennon had been shot in New York and was dead. I sagged to the floor in shock.

I was numb for days. I observed Yoko's call for silence on a bus ride into Queen Street.

Of course I'd bought Double Fantasy on release day, nabbed a spare poster from work (it's still on my music room wall) and bought the Playboy with the interview in it from the Queen's Arcade magazine shop.

I watched as the album climbed the charts, I bought all the singles and I listened to the album throughout that Christmas period.

Full disclosure: I don't play these albums these days. Two reasons - it's profoundly painful hearing them and thinking about those events and what could have been (Grow Old With Me tears me up every time), and secondly - he and Yoko made better records that I prefer to remember him by.

That said, after listening to them again for this blog review, they've actually aged reasonably well - especially the Lennon songs. Yoko was going for state of the art 1980 production and that means they are anchored more in time. Lennon didn't appear to care so his songs aren't of a specific time. They are laid back and sparse.

Watching The Wheels captures what he needed to say brilliantly. Only Lennon could get away with that one.

I continued to collect the stuff Yoko released in the aftermath of John's murder, but that was hard too. Same reasons, plus it somehow didn't seem the same - a kind of morbid fascination didn't sit right and a whiff of that is still attached to Milk And Honey (although John was clearly back in prolific mode) and Heart Play.

John on Milk and Honey sounds looser than Double Fantasy, sounds a bit more casually happy. I suppose because he didn't have the luxury of time to finesse them more. Boogie babe!

Yoko's songs do have the time to sound more produced, but that also means they are more of their time again.

Before I get to the interview discs/tapes: Double Fantasy Stripped Down. It's actually a double CD package - the original album and the 'new' version. 

Overall I prefer the original version. The stripped down one feels more like high quality demo recordings. I guess it's what you're used to. I also prefer the Let It Be version that was released, even with the Spector embellishments, because that's what I heard for years.

Heart Play is an album of interviews done in 1980. The other CDs and cassette listed above are all interview albums. I've listened to them once - strictly for collectors 0nly. They are especially painful to listen to post murder.

Where do they all belong? My decision not to include compilations on this collection countdown means I won't include all of the various collections that have come out since 1983 as Yoko determines to keep John's memory alive.

New York City (John Lennon, Yoko Ono) (LP 1049 - 1050)

John & Yoko/ Plastic Ono Band with Elephant's Memory  Sometime In New York City (Vinyl and CD, Apple Records, 1974) ****  

John Lennon with Frank Zappa  The Fillmore Tapes (CD, Master of Orange, Bootleg) ****  

Genre: Pop, rock, Apple Records

Places I remember: DJ Records (for the vinyl); Real Groovy Records (CD) for the 2010 double CD version.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: New York City

Gear costume: Well (baby please don't go)

Active compensatory factors: After Imagine I was really keen for more Lennon and so the vinyl version was bought on release in 1972. Dad brought it home for me from Otahuhu's DJ Records.

I had Zappa's Fillmore East live album from 1971 so I was familiar with him and the art work which SINYC takes as a source material for the second (live) album in this package.

I genuinely loved this record in 1972. I pored over the artwork and I loved many of the songs on the studio set: John Sinclair; The Luck Of The Irish; We're All Water; Woman is the Nigger Of The World; and New York City were often on my teenage turntable.

Then there's the live stuff - a relentlessly intense Cold Turkey is amazing and I loved the Zappa side. John and Yoko just slot right into the Zappa universe.

The second of these albums, The Fillmore Tapes, is for collectors only I suspect. It's a bootleg and features three different versions of the Fillmore tapes. First up is a non edited version direct from the mixing board (it sounds terrible), then Zappa's mix and finally Lennon's original mix (from SINYC).

The Zappa mix is also available on his album Playground Psychotics. I like his version as it pushes the music more to the fore (it would though wouldn't it), but overall the Lennon mix is better.

BTW The Wikipedia entry for this collaboration effort between Lennon and Ono is fantastic.

Where do they all belong? On to some Mind Games next in the Lennon countdown.

Love (John Lennon) (LP 985)

John Lennon  John Lennon/ Plastic Ono Band (various Vinyl and various CD formats, Apple Records, 1970) *****  

Genre: Beatle pop/ rock; Apple Records

Places I remember: DJ Records; JB Hi-Fi; Real Groovy Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Love

Gear costume: God

Active compensatory factors: Every song on this extraordinary album, my favourite album of all time, is, in its own way, a masterpiece.

It has an amazing after life too - its ripples continue outwards. Only last week I was in the Kinokuniya bookshop in the Dubai Mall buying a very expensive, very heavy book about this and Yoko Ono/ Plastic Ono Band (her 1970 companion album).

Imagine (the song and album) were my entry point, and I backtracked to find John Lennon/ Plastic Ono Band. I approached with caution because all the stories of primal screaming had me thinking this was an Avant Garde collection of screaming.

I still remember the shock of discovery - that this was brilliance unconfined. I was a Beatle fan and now it was in full focus: I was now a John Lennon fanatic as well.

Apart from the harrowing end section of Mother and Well Well Well, it's a calmly considered series of incredibly open and honest ruminations on love, life, relationships, and music. Everything important basically.

Only John Lennon could have written and performed these songs. That he did so at the end of the sixties after eight years of continual peaks and ground-breaking sounds and songs is nothing short of super-human.

Listening to it again now, I'm struck by how timeless it is. It's stripped back to essentials in approach too - just Ringo, Klaus and John for the most part. Absolutely - less is more.

Sequencing is perfect as well. There is a healthy mix of the visceral (Well Well Well, I Found Out) with the tender and loving.

Love, gentle and vulnerable, follows Remember. My Mummy's Dead ends the album - John's pain fully evident. The Mother/My Mummy's Dead tracks bookend the album - it's back to the start, back to the womb for John and he's freed up in the process.

Then there's this albums' A Day In The Life song - God. It's a new start, a newly reborn John that emerges from this song - reality- wow, what a concept!

Remarkable. Just remarkable.

The iconic cover is perfect as well. John and Yoko at Tittenhurst - together under that spreading tree. 

I commissioned my mother to paint the scene - and her result sits in my music room at Maple Grove. I treasure it for many different reasons but the calming influence of the painted scene stays with me wherever I am.

Where do they all belong? Imagine is next.

No bed for Beatle John (Yoko Ono) (LP 950 - 953)

Yoko Ono/ John Lennon  Unfinished Music #1: Two Virgins (Vinyl and CD, Apple Records, 1968) * 

John Lennon/ Yoko Ono  Unfinished Music #2: Life With The Lions (Vinyl and CD, Zapple Records, 1969) * 

John Ono Lennon & Yoko Ono Lennon  Wedding Album (Vinyl and CD, Apple Records, 1969) * 

The Plastic Ono Band  Live Peace In Toronto 1969 (Vinyl, Apple Records, 1969) **** 

Genre: Beatle pop/rock

Places I remember: Vinyl: Noel Forth helped me get Two Virgins, Wedding Album (from Japan), and Live Peace. Life With The Lions came from Marbecks before I knew Roger and all the CDs are from Real Groovy.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Blue Suede Shoes (Live Peace)

Gear costume: Yer Blues (Live Peace); No Bed For Beatle John (Unfinished Music #2)

Active compensatory factors: These first four albums outside of The Beatles will severely test your resolve and commitment to both John and Yoko. I passed that test but it was a close thing at times.

Unfinished Music #1 (and yes my vinyl version came in a brown paper sleeve with cut outs for the faces and the album name as pictured above) is more infamous for its cover (the pair celebrating their union with a frontal nude shot - as you do) than its contents. 

It's not music as such - more a continuation of the sound collage they started with Revolution #9 on The Beatles.

Except, I really like Revolution #9. Two Virgins is much less effective as a collage.

Unfinished Music #2 collects an appearance the two made at Cambridge University - John on squawking feedback and Yoko on screaming for 26 minutes and 31 seconds, with material from a hospital stay in 1968 during which Yoko tragically miscarried.

She sings No Bed For Beatle John, the baby's heart beat is recorded, followed by a 2 minute silence and then a track where John flicks restlessly around a radio dial. Shesh.

By comparison, Wedding Album is relatively straight-forward with a side of John and Yoko repeating each other's names and a side of various press conferences from their bedisms.

Finally, there is some music on Live Peace in Toronto 1969! Wahoo, and for the most part it's spirited and remarkably coherent - given the band (Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, Alan White and the Lennons) rehearsed on the plane ride to Toronto.

Side One's a fab mix of old rock'n'roll numbers, a Beatle song (Yer Blues) and a couple of solo singles. I love it!

The second side is Yoko doing her thing (all over you) on two songs. Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow) has its moments with John and Eric supplying some grunty guitar but the lengthy John John (Let's Hope For Peace) again tests that resolve.

Where do they all belong? After he got those four albums out of his system, our hero put out a five star classic and only my favourite album of all time (coming soon).

The hippie from New York City (David Peel) (LP 621)

David Peel & The Lower East Side  The Pope Smokes Dope (Vinyl, Apple Records, 1972) * 

Genre: Apple Records 

Places I remember: From Noel Forth back in the seventies

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: The Ballad Of New York City - John Lennon/Yoko Ono

Gear costume: The Hippie From New York City

Active compensatory factors: If not for the Apple Records/Lennon/Ono connections I would not be interested in this stuff. I mean - F Is Not A Dirty World, Everybodies Smoking Marijuana, MacDonald's Farm, Birth Control Blues - it's all pretty juvenile. And it hasn't aged well at all.

David Peel wasn't real, John! He was a chancer who somehow connected with the Lennons with his acoustic street music. - maybe the skiffle element reminded John of the Quarrymen but The Lower East Side (the group) are a pretty ragtag bunch. Here's John explaining how he and Yoko got together with them.

The few (and I stress 'few') bright spots come when he dispenses with the scatalogic 'humour' and sings songs - The Ballad Of New York City and The Chicago Conspiracy are almost songs (mainly they are populist chants).

Where do they all belong? A one off for Apple Records (thank goodness).

Local Plastic Ono Band (Elephant's Memory) (LP 333)

Elephant's Memory Elephant's Memory (LP, 1972) ****

Genre:  Apple/ Dark Horse/ Ring O'Records

Places I remember: George Courts (K Rd)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Power Boogie




Gear costume:  Chuck 'n Bo, Liberation Special

Active compensatory factors: John was obviously drawn to the gritty Nu Yawk power boogie essentials of Elephant's Memory. For a time there (March to November 1972) they were his go to backing band for his and Yoko's albums. 

They are competent on Lennon's stuff, fantastic on Yoko's and (at times) awesome on this 'solo' album. Maybe John as sideman (guitar, vocals, percussion, piano) and producer freed him up to have a good time!  

Whatever, the songs are infectious, the delivery is spot on with in-yer-face production from John and Yoko.

Not sure what they were thinking with the cover though!

Where do they all belong? John and Yoko would use them again for Yoko's Approximately Infinite Universe, released in 1973, and that was it - didn't use them again.

Living in a glass house, having fun (Yoko Ono) #507 - 508

Yoko Ono/ Sean Lennon Love '90/ Asian Flowers/ Dear Prudence/ Love '90 (dub mix)/ Love '90 (ambient mix)  (GOW, 1990)
Yoko Ono Talking To The Universe/ The Source/  Ask The Dragon/ Where Do We Go From Here/ Rising/ Franklin Summer (Capitol, 1996)

Yoko and Sean commemorated John's 50th birthday in 1990 with this CD single released in Japan. 

You have to hand it to Yoko on many levels. She keeps the flame alive and she does so with cutting edge art. It's not to everyone's taste, I'm the first to acknowledge that, my wife, for one, can't stand her work.

As you can tell from the inclusion of these CD singles, I am a Lennon/Ono completist [and a huge fan of her first three Apple albums and Rising]. Love '90 is a redo of the classic song from John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Yoko remakes it in her own image and I can't fault it!

The second title above is a.k.a. Rising Mixes - where some key songs from the album underwent a makeover in various musician's hands. I love the restless spirit Ono has. She's always moving forward and always looking to innovate!

Lead off song Talking To The Universe is a relatively conventional song in the Ono scheme of things. Or, at least, it starts out that way.



Hidden gems: Dear Prudence is the Beatle song given some interesting flavours by Sean and Yoko.

All of the Rising remixes present different sides to Yoko's style. My preference would be something like The Source which twists and turns with a surprise at every corner.

And when our hearts return to ashes it'll be just a story, it'll be just a story (Yoko Ono) # 234 - 236

Yoko Ono  Woman Power/ Men Men Men (Apple Records, 1867, 1973)

Yoko Ono  Walking On Thin Ice/ It Happened (Geffen Records, GEF 49683, 1981)

Yoko Ono  My Man/ Let The Tears Dry (Polydor, 2095 494, 1982)


The last few Yoko singles bridge John's murder in 1980. 

Walking On Thin Ice is the song he was working on the night he died so it has an extra poignancy. It's okay but it's dated a little, as anything that is aiming to be state of the (dance) art is. It's still far and away the best song of this bunch though.

Give me the more visceral early Yoko any day. Woman Power isn't that either unfortunately (although the music is pretty good, Yoko's performance is embarrassingly naive). By 1973 the pressure of being ubiquitous as a couple, literally together 24/7, told. They entered the so called 'lost weekend' phase and the music duly suffered.

My Man is also not for the uninitiated. The terrible synth sound of the early eighties is painful and Yoko's vocals don't help.

Hidden gems: Men.. is a coquettish trifling; It Happened is heartfelt but taken out of the terrible 1980/1981 context it's only a pleasant strum along. Let The Tears Dry starts with gunshots and a hint of Amazing Grace before a chorus about John. Somehow, strangely, these kinds of things from Yoko don't have any emotional resonance. Weird.

Husband john extended his hand, extended his hand to his wife. and he finds, and suddenly he finds, that he has no hands (Yoko Ono) # 230 - 233

Yoko Ono  Open Your Box/ Power To The People (Apple Records, R 5892, 1971)

Yoko Ono  Mrs Lennon/ Midsummer New York (Apple Records, 1C 006-92940, 1971)

Yoko Ono  Death Of Samantha/ Yang Yang (Apple Records, Apple 47, 1973)

Yoko Ono  Run Run Run/ Men Men Men (Apple Records, Apple 48, 1973)

And so to Yoko. 

I know I'm a little way away from O in the countdown but Yoko's singles are a natural adjunct to Lennon's, particularly as she appeared regularly on his B sides. And I've catalogued them in my collection with John's singles.

So it's Yoko in a spotlight, and it's well deserved. Yoko is an acquired taste, I admit, but I love a lot of her stuff.

She challenges pre-conceptions, provides a freshness and an innovative vibe. She has great conceptual ideas and she is unique. So there!

Mrs Lennon is an exceptional song. That lyric in the title is jaw dropping. She was never afraid to get stuck into John. That honesty is refreshing.



Death Of Samantha and Run Run Run are less obviously singles material but they come from strong albums. In fact her first four Apple albums are amazingly varied. Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band , Fly, Approximately Infinite Universe and Feeling The Space are all corking albums that range from experimental noise to blistering rock and roll.

She's funny as well.

Hidden gems: John lends a hand on most of these B sides (in 1973's Feeling The Space he appeared on a couple of tracks only and not on the damning Men Men Men). Midsummer is a great rock song. It kicks off the first side of Fly in a super duper way.

Yang Yang is impressive too and to my mind would have been a better A side.