A couple of weeks ago we announced a giveaway of David Bowie’s Station To Station box, our first since February. Today we randomly selected our winner: “Tumble And Twirl” fan Lindsay Jones, you are one lucky soul. Since people were so into the last contest, we figured we’d try another. John Lennon would have been 70 this Saturday. To commemorate the milestone, EMI worked with Yoko Ono to put together the 11-Disc Signature Box. All the albums have been remastered by Allan Rouse and team at Abbey Road. Here’s a rundown of what’s on it:
- The digitally remastered studio albums (Plastic Ono Band, Imagine, Sometime In NYC (2CD), Mind Games, Walls & Bridges, Rock n Roll, Double Fantasy, Milk & Honey) plus 2CD bonus set featuring 13 previously unreleased home recordings and more.
- Personal essays from Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon, and Julian Lennon.
- A 60 page hardbound book with rare photographs, drawings, never before seen collages, & handwritten lyrics.
- The cover art for the new titles includes original drawings by Sean Lennon for Double Fantasy Stripped Down, while the cover of 1974’s Walls And Bridges is restored to its original artwork.
- A commemorative art print and new career essay by Anthony DeCurtis.
It came out yesterday and retails for $129.99. To be eligible to win, all you have to do is be a fan of Stereogum on Facebook, and submit a comment on this post with your favorite solo Lennon song after logging in via Facebook Connect (do not use your ‘Gum user account on this post — we’ll have to be able to check if you are a fan of Stereogum on FB when the sweepstakes ends). We’ll pick a winner from the comments posted here, at random. Deadline to enter is in two weeks: 10/20 at 5:30PM EST. Have your comment logged by then, and you’re in.
More info is available at johnlennon.com. Also, there’s more 70th Anniversary Merch on the way.
UPDATE: We have our winner! Congratulations “Instant Karma!” fan, Lane Fielder.
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TIE: Working Class Hero / Jealous Guy
moment it would have to be Instant Karma
Instant Karma!
‘Watching the wheels’
Love the writing!
I have a real soft spot for his cover of “Stand By Me”. It’s not the best version of the song, nor Lennon’s best vocals, but seeing him sing someone else’s words, something magical happens.
“God”
Oh Yoko!
Gotta love “Oh Yoko!”.
Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down and Out)
I have always loved ‘Jealous Guy’..
‘Oh Yoko!’ is the perfect testament to love. Happy birthday, John!
watching the wheels.
Jealous Guy
“Mother” kills me every time I hear it.
“Oh Yoko!” Though i know some Ono haters gonna hate.
My favorite John Lennon song is either “Working Class Hero” or the acoustic version of “Watching The Wheels”
How do you sleep?
Is that a mean song to love? I like Paul McCartney, I swear. It’s just a good song.
Instant Karma, i love the message.
I’ve always loved Instant Karma, myself
Like others, the favorite song changes daily. Today, it’s “How?” from Imagine.
“Whatever Gets You Thru the Night”
Sitting Here Watching The Wheels Go Round
Cold Turkey, but my actual favorite is an unreleased demo called A Case of the Blues. Happy Birthday John!
Instant Karma!
Al Capp<<<Instant Karma is gonna get you
“Oh Yoko” would definitely be one of my faves! Love John Lennon!
Oh, My Love
‘Imagine’ makes me do just that.
Oh Yoko!
Why I Like The Beatles and John Lennon: To answer this in one easy step would be a really neat trick. Can’t be done.
I remember having a dollar in my sweaty palm and someone gave me the idea to buy a 45-record. I ended up with Let It Be / You Know My Name (Look Up The Number). I think I chose the 45 because I liked the look of the Apple label and I had heard of The Beatles through one of my brothers. I got home and put the 45 on and listened to it again and again. I was mesmerised. The music was extraordinary. Special. After all, I grew up in the country and until that moment, I had only heard Buck Owens and twang-twang music on the local AM station. I didn’t know what good music was. I thought Roy Clark was the definition of Fab.
I listened to the 45 until one of my brothers kicked the crap out of me.
The next purchase was the LP, Hey Jude. I was so nervous that I almost wet myself. I remember telling the saleslady that it was my first LP purchase and she looked at me like I was nuts.
From there, it was like an addiction. I started skipping lunch at school to buy more Beatles albums. When I came home with a new record, my mom would ask where I got it from and I’d make up a story about a phantom job mowing lawns or that I had traded in two hundred thousand pop bottles. Of course, I wasn’t the smartest kid. We lived three miles out of town. To trade in that many pop bottles, I’d have had to make over one hundred round trips with my Red Flyer wagon in tow. That was impossible. My mother never let on, though.
I snuck money out of my two brothers’ change jars. My mother’s purse was fair game. I even took cans of soup back to the store with a fake note from my mother stating that she wanted a refund.
I had to have more Beatles albums. It was the first taste I had of addiction until I got to be about 12 and then sneaking the Sears catalogue into the bathroom became my second addiction.
When my brother subscribed to Rolling Stone in the early 1970s, I learned about the classified ads in the back. I began to purchase bootleg albums: Beatles At The Whiskey Flats, Beatles Sing The Beatles (that sort of thing). It didn’t matter to me that I couldn’t hear any music on the LP. As long as I could almost possibly hear what may have been John Lennon telling the audience to “Shuuurup,” I was happy.
Then came the picture-disc craze, which was followed closely by the coloured vinyl and the Pete Best crazes. I skulked about in dark alleys waiting for the postman to bring my next Beatles fix.
By the age of 17, I started participating in trivia wars with other like-minded addicts and was voted three years in a row Sullivan, Missouri’s King of the Beatleholics. I should be proud of that, really, but the others in the contest were sons of pig farmers and named Elmer, and I think some of them had even been struck by lightning.
Sometimes I went to the local record store and, no matter what time of the year it was, Winter, Spring, or the dog days of Summer, I wore the same coat. It was my coat of many pockets. I went into the store looking like an anorexic fence post, only to leave a few minutes later looking like Dom Deluise. All Things Must Pass and Concert For Bangladesh were way out of my price range, what with my weekly allowance at only $1.50. How else was I going to feed my addiction? There were no jobs in Sullivan. Not really. The choices were limited to scooping up cow splarps and swatting flies of other people’s pets. But, I had no time for a job. I was too busy waiting for the mailman to bring me a package from somewhere in England. Either that, or I was at the library clipping Beatles articles out of old Life Magazines.
I guess I was hooked on The Beatles. I know that if I went a week without listening to one of my albums, you know, because the local hardware store didn’t have the right record player needle, I would get cranky. Not just cranky, but sort of crazy cranky. It was a malady not too unlike that PMS stuff that ladies sometimes get.
In August of 1980, my parents shipped me kicking and screaming off to college. It wasn’t so bad though. After I smoked my first left-handed herbal jazz cigarette, I noticed a lot more colours than there used to be.
What’s more, I couldn’t get enough peach pie and chocolate. Whatever was left in the vending machines by the other animals in the dorm was fair game. Even stale tortilla chips smeared with lard were good things.
At about this time I noticed people began asking every couple of days where I was from. I figured it had to be because I was from the country and the University was in a big city. Maybe I had a hick accent or something. Maybe I smelled like cows and farm equipment. When I explained about my life in Nowheresville, US of A, they thought I was pulling their leg. “No, you’re from England. You sound like Mick Jagger or one of them people.” This happened time and again.
My dad would holler at me on the phone when I called home for more money, but not because of the money thing. It was because he was upset that I had a new and improved English accent. He would yell at me saying things like, “You’re NOT a Beatle. Start talkin’ like an American. Jeeez, you make no sense, some times!” A guy in my Math class said he thought he was somewhat of an expert on accents and pegged me for being from some place called North Umbrella [Northumberland?] in England, if that’s how it’s spelled. I laughed and told him the secret was out and not to tell anyone. I got a couple of free cups of coffee and everything was all right. I told him I knew Prince Andrew.
My only explanation for this accent thing, strange as it is, is that I had listened to one too many Beatles albums and those bootleg things with all the shouting and joking and muckin’ about.
Then, my own private Pepperland came crashing down about my ears in December of 1980 when I heard that John Lennon had been assassinated, at first, I was angry. I figured Howard Cosell was full of it. Then I was sad. Then I smashed a few things. Then I took a very long walk. At that moment, I stopped loving The Beatles (or so I thought) because I realized they were human beings. They were mortal.
Then, one day, I discovered I didn’t have enough money to finish college. It was my last year, too. I was up a creek without a submarine, yellow or otherwise. I had no alternative but to sell my prized Beatles records. At least I sold them to my older brother, who still has them. Give them back, please! I had 230 of them by this time; different labels; Band On The Run on pink vinyl.
I lost touch with my addiction. Girls took the place of Beatles records for a time. Vienna sausages, Pop Tarts, Smack Ramen noodles . . . there were too many addictions. To list them here would be a task of almost Herculean proportions.
And yet, through all this addiction stuff, whenever I heard a Beatles song, the world stopped for me. It was like some sort of strange magic calling me from somewhere wonderful and magical, maybe from Pepperland itself. Real love never dies. It just gets temporarily misplaced.
And then the Anthology albums began coming out and the fires were re lit. Now, I find myself, as an adult, or someone who very much looks like one, again skulking about the dark alleys of the city, searching for my next Beatles fix.
My wife has to lock up the kid’s piggy-bank. Once again, I am on an allowance. Gas money and lunch money. So, I park my car in the neighbour’s garage and I take the bus. So, I skip lunch and spend my lunch hours scouring the city for my next Beatles fix. I guess I should join a 12-step programme or something, but I’m having way too much fun.
The mere mention of the words submarine, pepper, and apple cause me to lose control of some of my more important bodily functions. The number nine has a similar effect on me. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not a bad thing. It’s like that wiener dog my Aunt had. All us kids were instructed never to pet the poor little guy because he would pee all over the place from all the excitement. Needless to say, someone always snuck in a quick pet and then my Aunt was cursing up a storm as she searched around for the mop.
I guess the point of this all is to tell my story and to thank those guys for learning all those chords and sticking it out through all that craziness and helping to make the world a better place. Salute!
Rick Mason
Somewhere In The U.S.A.
Seriously, good story. Thought it was pretty funny, and can relate cause my dad’s a Beatles nut too. Oh yea, and for most people…
TL;DR – Dude loves the Beatles
I like My Mummy’s Dead and that’s that.
Hey I really love ‘Out of the Blue’ off Mind Games. The verse and chorus are very different and it’s a touching song.
“Working Class Hero.”
Imagine…me winning this contest and doing a Ninja on all the swag and lewts!
MIND GAMES
Great prize! I like “Imagine”
“Watching the Wheels” gets my vote.
Imagine.
My favorite John Lennon song is also my dad’s favorite: “Mother”. Amazing song!
“Working Class Hero” is frostified.
Oh Yoko
easily “Cold Turkey”
I want it!!! :P
Jealous Guy.
Crippled Inside from Imagine.
Oh Yoko. (Yoko may be annoying as all get out, but it’s one of the best love songs ever.)
oh yoko!!!
oh, my love…brilliant
Instant Karma!
“Mother”
Imagine
Instant Karma!
Out The Blue off of Mind Games is one of his most underrated ballads.
I feel super mainstream. Like a tween who only knows the radio hits. But Imagine is still my fav. And maybe this box set will help me appreciate the deep cuts.
Mother. I was going to say Julia, but that isn’t Lennon solo. thanks for the chance to win the box.
Watching the Wheels
Well Well Well
mine would be “GOD”
Isolation from Plastic Ono Band.
Be My Baby,
but if it has to be written by him I’ll say Woman.
Awesome.
Look at Me
My girlfriend loves ‘Oh, Yoko’, and turned me on to a lesser-known Lennon classic. I’ll take ‘Watching The Wheels’ and ‘Instant Karma!’.
“Mother”
beautiful song.
I hold out no hope of winning; the last thing I won was a Tom and Jerry race-set age 4.
Working Class Hero.
I don’t wanna face it !
Hw do you Sleep ?
Woman… (Just Like) Starting Over is up there too.
Watching the Wheels!!!!!
How? One of JL’s most overlooked tunes.
Oh Yoko!
“How Do You Sleep?”
Always changing my answer for this, today it would have to be Instant Karma
Working Class Hero.
John Lennon real humanist
Nobody told me it will be man like him
He was so beautiful i could eat him !
WELL WELL OH WELL TO DOU DOU….
Ballad of John and Yoko
John Sinclair.
Also, the entire Plastic Ono Band album.
Looks like a cool set.
Jealous Guy
Donnez une chance à la paix !
Personne ne m’a dit qu’il y aurait des jours comme ceux-ci !
Je ne crois plus en les Beatles !
For me, that’d be “Jealous Guy”, w/o a doubt. Thx!
Jealous guy!
Instant Karma!
Happy Xmas (War Is Over) Would love to get this as the ultimate Xmas gift for my cousin.
Imagine