John Lennon With Cheap Trick

It is a known fact that John Lennon and the rest of the Beatles were focused on making hit records. Contrary to our romantic visions of artists toiling solely for the sake of their art, from the beginning the Beatles set their sites on commercial success. The fact that their records were both extraordinarily successful and sublime works of art is just one of the many examples of their brilliance. I remember reading one time that when John met Joni Mitchell he advised her to record some strings on her records if she wanted them to be hits. (Glad she didn't take his advice!) Lennon was of course a bundle of contradictions. On the one hand, he competed with McCartney for the A-Sides of singles. On the other hand he insisted on releasing “Revolution Number 9.”

That’s John.

During the recording “Double Fantasy,” John mentioned that he hoped that the record would appeal to women as well as men. He wanted to soften the edges. Excuse me for saying so, but one thing he could have done was keep Yoko away from the microphone. The fact that half of “Double Fantasy” was marred by her horrendous recordings is just another one of those contradictions that we Lennon fans have to accept. For a long time I tried to reconcile my feelings toward Yoko. After all, you don’t want to have opinions that would effectively make you an enemy of one of your heroes had he gotten wind of them.

What can I say? Yoko sucked.

John recorded an alternate version of “I’m Losing You” with Cheap Trick (minus singer Robin Zander) which in my humble opinion is vastly superior to the official version released on “Double Fantasy,” and the best side that Cheap Trick ever played on. I suspect that he thought it was too “hard” for the record, so he re-recorded it with the house band that was featured on most of the other tracks. I love hearing demos and alternate takes from my favorite artists, but after hearing them I usually end up agreeing with the final decision. Not this time.

From “Wonsaponatime” (and “Anthology”) here is a killer version of “I’m Losing You.”

Stay tuned. In the next few days I’m going to feature a beautiful alternate take by George Harrison.