1969 The Beatles: The Ballad Of John And Yoko

After three straight McCartney penned entries it's fitting that The Beatles' final number one should come from John Lennon. Fitting, though there's shame in it not being a more worthy send-off; singer/songwriters making themselves the focal point of their own tunes is nothing new either now or then, but they're usually presented in a suitably couched removal that allows the listener to say on their own terms "Yes, I know exactly what you mean". 'The Ballad Of John And Yoko' is 'about' John Lennon and no other and as such belongs to a select subset of autobiographical songs written by bands about themselves (a subset that Mott The Hoople - 'The Ballad Of Mott', The Clash - 'Clash City Rockers', Deep Purple - 'Smoke On The Water', Felt - 'Ballad Of The Band' etc also fall into).*

So what's it all about? Well in March 1969, John married Yoko Ono and took her to Europe on honeymoon, a chain of events that 'The Ballad Of John And Yoko' documents in the voyeuristic detail associated with overly keen Tweets or Facebook updates in these latter days. "Standing in the dock at Southampton", "Finally made the plane into Paris, honey mooning down by the Seine", "Caught an early plane back to London" - it goes on. And like the majority of Facebook updates, it takes a certain self cantered chutzpah to think that anybody gives a toss. I know I don't, and you won't need me to tell you this is not The Beatles at their best; Lennon pins his tale to a simple busker tune with the augmenting of guitar fills and some recurring "Christ you know it ain't easy"s to sharpen the edges. But it's never sharp enough I'm afraid - 'The Ballad Of John And Yoko' is ephemera, a B side at best, and if it was a 'this is my life' pen portrait from anyone other than Lennon, then nobody would give a toss.


* Actually, Mott provided two entries in this field - their 'Saturday Gigs' covered the same ground.