Glass Onion: On John Lennon

1967 is a year that has gone into legend for various reasons. Was it the year of peace and love? Was there any real love in it at all? Or was it just like any other year, a heady mix of everything good and bad about the human race and society? Before looking at what was undoubtedly a ground-breaking and life-changing year for John Lennon and The Beatles, myself and my guest, writer Tony Green, hav...

Ken McNab and I complete our discussion about his new book 'Shake It Up Baby!: The Rise of Beatlemania And The Mayhem of 1963' and the general atmosphere and events of that breathless year. This time round, we cover the second half of the year as our four intrepid musical explorers continue their furious work rate and have their first proper brushes with the British establishment. They also record...

Following the shows on 1962, we seamlessly move to 1963 with the welcome return of Ken McNab to talk about his new book 'Shake It Up Baby!: The Rise of Beatlemania And The Mayhem of 1963'. After Ken gives some thoughts on Peter Jackson's 'Get Back' (his previous appearances on Glass Onion were prior to its release), we cover the events of the first half of the year and the slow creep of Beatlemani...

We complete our deep dive into 1962 in the outer world and in the Beatles family psychodrama, picking up from late July with Beatles events including a historic change of drummer, John Lennon's marriage, the group's first radio interview, their more than troublesome experience recording the simplest song in the world (Love Me Do), gigs with one of their biggest musical heroes Little Richard, and t...

In this episode, Antony and Ghosty start discussing the Beatles/Lennon events of 1962, covering January to June. Particular focus is put on the Pete Best issue and the death of Stuart Sutcliffe, not to mention John Lennon's contentious and highly unique reaction to that death. Every year in the Beatles story from around 1960 was packed with activity and full of psychodrama, and 1962 is no exceptio...

Our latest Lennon odyssey starts with a review of the events of 1962, a tangential conversation in which Antony and guest David 'Ghosty' Wills freewheel into all kinds of other territory before setting the listeners up with some pre-1962 context on the Beatles' progress on their own journey to musical and cultural world domination. 1962 was marked by a massive historical event, the Cuban Missile C...

We complete our latest Lennon journey with the conclusion of my analysis of some of the more telling quotes from the series of interviews conducted in September 1980 for Playboy magazine by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. This episode contains a lot of clips from the original audio of the interviews and focuses mainly on John's comments about who wrote what in the Lennon-McCartney catalogue, including J...

This episode starts with a 'short intro' of around 45 minutes, with yet more Coleman vs Goldman material, before continuing our in-depth look at John Lennon's series of interviews for Playboy magazine in September 1980, which also included Yoko Ono. The interviews offer a fascinating and multi-layered study of a highly eccentric artist and also form an integral part of the official narrative of Jo...

John Lennon's series of interviews for Playboy magazine in September 1980, which also included Yoko Ono, are not only a fascinating and multi-layered study of a highly eccentric artist but also form an integral part of the official narrative of John and Yoko's relationship in 1980 before his death and of the genesis of the songs for their joint album 'Double Fantasy'. This episode is the first of...

Compilation albums come in many shapes and sizes and some can be justified while others rely on good marketing and glossy packaging to persuade consumers to part with their hard-earned money for the same material. This is an appearance by your humble host on the 'When they Was Fab' podcast back in December 2020 discussing the mind-boggling number of John Lennon compilation albums that have been fo...

John Lennon and Paul McCartney are inextricably linked, and what more is there to say at this point? Well, I give it a shot in a podcast of 3 sections, looking at common Lennon/McCartney tropes and assumptions, giving a guitar & vocal lesson on the song 'Two Of Us' and then walking you through the highly entertaining 2000 TV film 'Two Of Us', directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg and starring Aiden Qui...

The completion of Luke and Antony's discussion of John Lennon, originally recorded for 'Luke's English Podcast' last year. We complete our description of John using adjectives of personality, and then discuss his lyrics, including his lyrical progression, and offer numerous examples courtesy of Antony's voice and guitar and Luke's deep knowledge of Beatles songs. This and the previous episode are...

Luke Thompson, a fellow English teacher and podcaster, hosted Antony on his podcast back in June 2021, and this is the Glass Onion version of that talk, split into two parts. This part of the discussion centres on trying to describe John Lennon using adjectives of personality, so this episode is especially recommended for students of English and non-native speakers. There are some warm-up question...

Jon Stewart, author of 'Dylan, Lennon, Marx & God', makes a quick and very welcome return to the podcast to further discuss Lennon themes from his book. We talk Lennon origin stories, Freudian analysis, Aunt Mimi, Liverpool and the Dylan/Lennon superduo that never was. The last third of the show has host Antony reading a couple of stories about his musical origins and early Beatles fandom Enjoy! P...

Turning our attention from 1968 itself to the Lennon/Beatles events of the year, what emerges is an epic Glass Onion journey into a year that weighed heavily on John Lennon's psyche and the world-famous group that he'd originally formed. The main events include the trip to India, the Apple launch, the recording of the White Album and John and Paul's very tangled and drama-laced romantic lives. And...

1968 was among the most turbulent years in living memory. As a forerunner to our look at the Beatles/John Lennon events, Matt Williamson joins the show to dissect the year itself in terms of major events, films and (non-Beatles) singles and albums. This is prefaced by host Antony doing a brief comparison of The Beatles and Monty Python's Flying Circus 'groups' and some of the curious similarities...

Chris Purcell and I complete our 2-part look at John Lennon's live career and also some of the films and video clips surrounding his performances This part takes us from 1966 to 1975 as we look at such events as the Our World broadcast, Hey Jude & Revolution on the David Frost show, the rooftop gig and John's two most high-profile and substantial solo gigs, namely Toronto in 1969 and Madison Squar...

John Lennon was a unique live performer, both with The Beatles and in his solo career, though following his split with the Fabs he showed a reluctance to play full concerts and so we should cherish what little we have in that regard. This 2-parter on John's live career sees documentarian Chris Purcell make a welcome return to the show. In this part, we look at the Beatles' live work up to Candlest...

Jon Stewart, former and current guitarist with 'Sleeper', is the author of a fantastic new book that offers a unique new take on the fascinating John Lennon/Bob Dylan relationship, and this is the conclusion of Antony's talk with him and returning guest, radio DJ and Bob Dylan podcaster extraordinaire Ben Burrell. In this part, we touch on the role of nature in Dylan's work, John Lennon and the Br...

This time around, Antony is joined by Jon Stewart, the author of a fantastic new book that offers a unique new take on the fascinating John Lennon/Bob Dylan relationship, and also welcomes a returning guest, radio DJ and Bob Dylan podcaster extraordinaire Ben Burrell. Before diving into the main topic, we talk a little about Jon's previous (and current) incarnation as guitarist with the Britpop ba...

Having set the scene of 1969 in the first part of this 2-parter, Scott and I go through the John Lennon-related events of the year, one dominated by John & Yoko's sincere quest for world peace. Join us for bed-ins, bags, billboards, Give Peace A Chance, Live Peace in Toronto, Abbey Road and more... The conversation is complemented by a smorgasbord of related audio clips Enjoy! Please (x many) like...

1969 was, even by the standards of the tumultuous decade of the 60s, a remarkably eventful year both for John Lennon and the world at large. Scott Phipps makes a welcome return to the podcast for a 2-parter about John in this year. I should come clean and say that there is very little John Lennon/Beatles in this part, so call it a build-up to the main event. There's plenty of gold here though as w...

James Corbett joins the show to discuss the 2006 documentary about John's political activism and his fight against the Nixon administration to stay in the U.S. We also take some time to look at the political landscape of the time and the difference between then and now in terms of how much the public is shown about what is really happening in the world. A link to James's website can be found below...

For this episode, we take you back to a couple of my proto-podcast adventures in Beatleland way back in November 2013. Firstly, I answer a few questions from friends and then I'm joined by schoolfriend and (then budding) musicologist Edmund Holliday as we take a casual look at the tracks from Revolver and discuss other Beatle/Lennon matters Enjoy! Please (x many) like, follow, share, subscribe, ra...

Another guest appearance by your humble host, this time back in October on the wonderful podcast 'The Mindbuzz'. The host Gill and I get into some Lennon/Beatles topics, such as John's progressive attitude to drugs, him as a victim of 'cancel culture' on social media, 'Paul Is Dead' and a few other things... Enjoy! Please (x many) like, follow, share, subscribe, rate, review etc… Feedback and volu...