JOHN LENNON - WALLS & BRIDGES

WALLS & BRIDGES - ROCKSPEAK '74

(CD-R 2001 UNICORN UC-086)

1. Interview On New Album
2. Going Down On Love
3. Whatever Gets You Thru The Night
4. Old Dirt Road
5. What You Got
6. Bless You
7. Scared
8. John Says A Few Words About Side 2
9. No.9 Dream
10. Surprise Surprise
11. Steel And Glass
12. Beef Jerky
13. Nobody Loves You (When You're Down & Out)
14. Ya Ya
15. Outro

Tracks 1-15: Radio 2 4/10/74 'Rock Speak' Hosted By Michael Wale

Rear Cover Notes:

"Walls and Bridges" evolved from the chaos and drunkenness of Los Angeles. It came
bursting out, surprising even John who was depressed that he had not been writing:
"Everything was up in the air and it must have been affecting me although you don't
know it at the time. You think you're still functioning. You don't realize what is
happening to you. You think, 'I'm doing this and i'm doing that,' but I wasn't doing
anything. I wasn't writing anything, I only wrote one song during that whole period."

Like "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band," "Walls and Bridges" was a catharsis for John,
full of autobiographical references. Several lines in "Scared" sum up the problem,
expressing John's anxieties about age creeping up on him and of being alone with "no
place to call my own." "I got the title," John explained, "from one of those public
service announcements that I'm always watching on TV. I was flicking through the
channels as I usually do-and I heard the phrase 'walls and bridges,' and filed it in
my head because I liked it."

"Whatever Gets You Thru' The Night" was John's hit single off the album, and featured
his new freind Elton John on organ, piano and vocals. The song was an upbeat rocker,
it's title from "whatever gets you thru the night is alright." As John remarked: "You
can put it down to which night with which bottle or what night in which town..."

The day before he started on "Walls and Bridges," a deal had been made on the L.A rock
'n' roll tapes, which Phil Spector then sent back to John. Since he couldn't deal with
them at the time, John put them aside until the end of the "Walls and Bridges" sessions.

Musiclly, "Walls and Bridges" was a surprise, almost a relief. Many people expected to
hear music as morbid as the subject matter, but it was the reverse. There was pleasure
and a vitality in the music that excelled anything John had ever recorded on his own.
The dark cloud over his thinking and his creativity had lifted. Able to understand what
he had been through, he could feel and think clearly and make good music again. The
record was a triumph for John's musical credibility.