John Lennon Sometime In New York City CD

While Lennon claimed to have always been politically minded, given his working-class upbringing in class-conscious England ("I've been satirizing the system since my childhood," he once mused), rock-pop sensibilities, clever wordplay, or matters of the heart usually took precedence in his musical output. But here Lennon and Yoko, accompanied by New York's Elephant's Memory, sing and scream freely against sexism in "Woman Is the Nigger Of The World" and "Sisters, O Sisters." They protest incarceration in "John Sinclair," "Attica State," and "Born In A Prison," colonialism in "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "The Luck Of The Irish," and racism in "Angela."

The richness of Phil Spector's production fills out the danceable grooves on nearly every track. Also featured is Lennon's paean to his adopted home, "New York City," with allusions to doping clerics and transsexual rockers as well as the highly quotable line, "What a bad-ass city!" On the bonus disc, Lennon and Ono get it on with Zappa and the Mothers in live sets from London and New York. Things heat up considerably with "Cold Turkey," freak out with "Don't Worry Kyoko," and veer into the ridiculous with audience participation on "Scumbag." SOMETIME IN NEW YORK CITY is some of the groovin'-est, most tuneful agit-prop ever committed to disc.

The first album co-billed to John Lennon and Yoko Ono to actually contain recognizable pop music, Sometime in New York City found the Lennons in an explicitly political phase. This was understandable -- at the time, Lennon was neck-deep in his struggle to remain in the United States, a conflict rooted in his antiwar and antiestablishment politics and the enmity of the Nixon administration. At the same time, having written, recorded, and released the music on the Plastic Ono Band and Imagine albums -- and musically exorcising many of the emotional demons associated with aspects of his past, and working out a musical and publishing "divorce" from Paul McCartney -- he was now reveling in the freedom of being an ex-Beatle and exploring music and other subjects that he'd never felt fully free to delve into during the first decade of his career. This album was actually a long time in coming, as there had been hints of Lennon moving in this direction for years. He'd long looked upon Bob Dylan with unabashed envy, emulating his sound at moments ("You've Got to Hide Your Love Away") and striving for some of the same mix of edginess and depth, once the group got beyond its original two-guitars-bass-drums and love songs sound. "Revolution" (and "Revolution No. 1") and the anthems "Give Peace a Chance" and "Power to the People" saw him trying to embrace outside subjects in his work, and Sometime in New York City carried his writing a step further in this direction, introducing John Lennon, protest singer. True, he was ten years late, in terms of the musical genre (even Joan Baez and Judy Collins were doing pop-style records by then), but it was a logical development given the time in Lennon's life and the strife-filled era with which it coincided.

Seeking his own voice in all of its permutations, and living amid the bracing pace of New York City (which mad

Recording information: London, England; New York, NY.

Photographers: Bob Gruen; Joe Sia.

Arrangers: John Lennon; Yoko Ono.

Personnel: John Lennon (vocals, guitar, National guitar); John Lennon; Ian Underwood (vocals, keyboards, wind); Bob Harris (vocals, keyboards); Frank Zappa (guitar, background vocals); Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Wayne "Tex" Gabriel (guitar); Bobby Keys (saxophone); Nicky Hopkins, Billy Preston (keyboards); Don Preston (synthesizer); Jim Pons (bass instrument, background vocals); Gary VanScyoc (bass instrument); Jim Keltner, Rick Frank (drums, percussion); Keith Moon (drums); Yoko Ono (vocals, drums); Howard Kaylan, Mark Volman (vocals); Stan Bronstein (flute, saxophone); Adam Ippolito (piano, organ); John Labosca (piano); Aynsley Dunbar (drums).

Audio Remixer: Paul Hicks.