Amid all the hoo-ha about the new Beatles single ‘Now and Then’, it’s worth noting that another modern-day collaboration between the two surviving Fabs slipped out comparatively unnoticed in recent weeks. Ringo’s latest EP, Rewind Forward, features the first McCartney song written specifically for his old drummer in more than 40 years. While Paul has performed on a number of Ringo’s releases over the past decade or so, ‘Feeling The Sunlight’ is the first custom-made Macca tune to feature on a Starr solo effort since ‘Private Property’ and ‘Attention’ adorned Stop and Smell the Roses all the way back in 1981. True, they did co-write (and, as far as we know, record) a song called ‘Angel in Disguise’ for 1992’s Time Takes Time album but, in one of those baffling decisions which litter Beatles history, it remains in the vaults (a snippet of Paul’s demo is available on YouTube, and it’s not bad at all). So, for those of us who care about such things, the emergence of this track (put together by Macca at his home studio in England, with Ringo then laying down his vocals and drum part in Los Angeles) was something of a big deal, the nearest we can get to brand new, fresh-out-of-the-box Beatles music in 2023. But is it any good? Well, I’ll come to that in a moment.
The cover of the new EP. A radical departure from recent cover art it is not
Rewind Forward is Ringo’s fourth EP in the four years since his last album, What’s My Name. As I’ve said here before, I really don’t understand Ringo’s logic in releasing material in dribs and drabs like this. He claims that recording fewer songs in batches is less daunting then a longer series of sessions to produce enough for a full CD. But then, why not wait until you’ve got an album’s worth of songs and then put them out in one go? I wrote in my review of his last EP that, if you sequence all the tracks he’s released on EPs so far, you’d have a pretty decent album – and they actually sound better when devoured together rather than split into three smaller portions. It’s not like he’s under pressure from anyone to rush new material out. And considering Ringo has announced he already has another two EPs in the can and ready to go (including, intriguingly, a country-flavoured one), I don’t know what’s stopping him doing it. If you were inclined to cynicism, you might point to the fact that each physical EP retails for the same price as a regular CD, despite containing only around a third of the music, and so yields three times the profit. But surely he can’t be doing it for the money at this stage of the game, right?
Regardless, that’s the way Ringo is choosing to release music now, so I guess we just have to get used to it (and with the wonder of playlists, we can always configure our own albums from the material in any case). Encouragingly, the EPs so far have shown a willingness to venture away, if only modestly, from his pop-rock comfort zone, with splashes of reggae (‘Just That Way’, ‘Waiting For The Tide To Turn’), country-folk (‘Coming Undone’), power ballads (‘Here’s To The Nights’) and even Latin-flavoured jazz (‘Free Your Soul’). The material on Rewind Forward is more conservative, but the main problem is that it’s just not that strong; for my money, this is comfortably the weakest of his EPs to date.
Onstage with guitarist and now-regular collaborator Steve Lukather
Things start promisingly enough with ‘Shadows On The Wall’, the now customary contribution from All-Starr Band regular Steve Lukather, who co-wrote it with his Toto bandmate Joe Williams. This is powered by a great guitar riff and no-nonsense drumming, making for a nice driving song. You can imagine Ringo singing it behind the wheel while motoring down a desert highway had it been released back in the MTV age and, indeed, it would’ve fitted snugly on one of his 1970s or ‘80s albums. Moreover, it has a moody, slightly troubled feel to it, a welcome contrast to the relentlessly upbeat peace, love and positivity refrains which run through almost all his songs these days. The only problem is, you’re waiting for it to kick up a gear at some point but the shift never really comes, so there’s an air of anti-climax by the end. Nonetheless, it’s a solid (if unexceptional) opener. Sadly, that’s as good as this disc gets.
A shot of Paul and Ringo in the studio from a few years’ back
As you might expect, there’s no shortage of optimism and feel-good vibes about the McCartney song, ‘Feeling The Sunlight’ (Ringo even shouts out ‘peace and love’ just before the instrumental break, as if he’d just realised he hadn’t mentioned it anywhere else on the EP). Let’s start with the positives: apart from a couple of overdubs, this is a full-on Paul-and-Ringo show, with some cute guitar playing from Macca. It’s the kind of chirpy, bouncing tune he specialises in, and you have to smile at the opening line: “It’s me, I’m checking around/Trying to make sure everybody’s safe and sound.” And there’s something touching about a man in his 80s penning a tune for his lifelong pal. But all that is not enough to give the song any real substance. I really wish I liked it more; it’s not bad, exactly, just not especially memorable. And it may be because he had to overlay parts already put there by Macca, but the drumming sounds a little clumsy to me towards the end. In an interview with Uncut magazine in 2015, Paul said he wish he’d given Ringo better songs than the aforementioned two on Stop and Smell the Roses. Well, I’d take either of those over this one, any day of the week.
The Ringo/Macca collaboration
The opening bars of ‘Rewind Forward’, written by Ringo and engineer Bruce Sugar, are quite arresting, indicating Ringo might be trying his hand at a bit of 1980s-style synth-pop. Sadly this is a feint, as normal soft-rock service is soon resumed with the kind of mid-tempo, chugging self-help number he seems to have done a thousand times over the past 20 years. You know the kind of thing: “mountains to climb”, “lessons to learn”, “reach for the stars” and so on. It really stumbles on the “rewind forward” chorus, though. Ringo likens it to the kind of non sequiturs he came up with for ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, but I think he’s pushing it there. In this instance, it doesn’t rhyme, it doesn’t scan, and it certainly doesn’t make any sense in the context of the lyric. As I read in an online review, it sounds more like an awkward translation from a foreign language. The song itself is slickly produced and pleasant enough, with some pretty guitar from Joe Walsh. But, ultimately, it’s bland and completely forgettable. There’s nothing about it which says it was made by a Beatle, it could’ve been done by anyone. If this is the sort of stuff Ringo is going to record, I’d rather he didn’t put out anything at all.
The last track, ‘Miss Jean’, is a little better, but not much. Penned by Mike Campbell of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers (and also featured another All-Starr Band alumni, Ian Hunter), it’s a throwback barrelhouse-style rock ‘n’ roll number. Ringo provides some nice swagger from behind the drumkit and there is an agreeably meaty guitar riff, but that’s really all there is to it. The riff is repeated over and over and over, and the song goes nowhere before eventually staggering to a halt. It reminds me a little of ‘Red and Black Blues’, the outtake from Stop and Smell the Roses which eventually appeared on the 1994 CD reissue, but isn’t as much fun. Kudos to Ringo for trying something a bit heavier, and I do like the line “Here she comes again/With that nothing but trouble grin”. Overall, though, there’s nothing to write home about.
A recent publicity shot without him flashing a peace sign. Not easy to find, let me tell you
So there we have it. I feel kind of obligated to trot out the “we’re lucky he’s still making music at his age” line again but, at the same time, recent efforts have shown he’s capable of better. Aside from the opener, the tracks here are B-side material, at best (also, what’s happened to his romantic declarations for wife Barbara? His albums always had a big ballad for her, often pretty good, but recent releases have dispensed with his soppy side). Still, we have a couple more EPs to look forward to next year, so – once that little matter of a new Beatles single is out of the way – we’ll have to wait and see what else he’s cooked up for us. I would hope, though, that the Starr bar will be raised a little higher next time out.
After becoming a full-on Fabs fan in the mid-1980s, I lapped up not only all the music I could get my hands on but also any visual product which cropped up on the UK TV schedules or fledgling home video market. That said, the first few programmes I saw which focused on John Lennon were somewhat peculiar, to say the least. At the end of 1985, the BBC broadcast John Lennon: A Journey in the Life, a very odd effort featuring Scouse actor Bernard Hill as a 40-year-old John quite literally walking and talking us through his life against rudimentary painted backdrops and clumsily dramatised scenes from the story. There was the odd bit of archive footage of the real John here and there, but not enough to make it more than a frustrating (and for a newbie like me, confusing) watch. The following year I found myself watching an episode of ITV arts flagship The South Bank Show which featured the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album set to ballet. And, despite a more generous helping of interview snippets sprinkled in between songs, this was every bit as bizarre as it sounds.
Even when I did get hold of a genuine film produced by John and Yoko, the 1972 Imagine TV movie, I was no less baffled. Sure, the music was fabulous (I actually saw the video before I bought the accompanying album), and there was oodles of footage of the Lennons capering about Manhattan, London and their Ascot estate, but not much of it made any sense. I guess it works as a kind of early ‘video album’ long before such things came (briefly) into vogue; it does feature the iconic ‘white room’ performance of the title song which became John’s posthumous solo calling card, and it is great to see him in his post-Beatles prime. Nonetheless, in keeping with the duo’s ‘anything is art’ ethos of the period, the whole thing looks like it was thrown together at random, with only sporadic attempts to match the images with the music. Thankfully the project necessitated the shooting of acres of film around this time, which proved a boon not only for the various promo videos pieced together in the wake of John’s death, but also for future, rather more focused documentaries on his life.
The poster for the 2018 re-release of the ‘Imagine’ film
It’s just as well that the cameras followed the Lennons almost everywhere during their early years together, because from 1973 onwards film of John (aside from a few TV interviews and snippets of home movie footage) is much more thin on the ground. While this is partly due to his self-imposed exile of the late ‘70s, even his big 1980 comeback with Double Fantasy featured little in the way of visual promotion. And therein lies the problem with documentaries about his career, in that there isn’t always a lot of raw content to work with. There is reams of footage for certain years and next to nothing for others, forcing filmmakers to rely a lot on talking heads – often, people reminiscing many years after the event – to plug the gaps, with variable results. Through no fault of his own, John missed out on the MTV era, which I’m sure he would have exploited to the full with lots of videos, chat show appearances and TV specials.
Nonetheless, this hasn’t stopped people putting together Lennon films, authorised or otherwise, and a new one is joining the ranks with the commercial release of The Lost Weekend: A Love Story, which recounts May Pang’s relationship with John in the mid-1970s. That definitely falls into the ‘unauthorised’ category, and so could have some interesting tales to tell. Regardless of that, there are already several worthwhile documentaries out there, and the following list outlines which ones I think are the best. I must admit, it’s a few years since I’ve seen some of these, so my memories are a bit sketchy in places. There’s also a fair bit of overlap between some of them, both in terms of narrative and source material, but – kudos to Yoko, Sean and the Lennon Estate – they still seem to periodically uncover canisters packed with hitherto unseen film gathering dust in neglected corners of their Dakota Building apartment, so there’s more variety than you might think. Anyway, until more new stuff comes to light, here’s my rundown.
10. The US v John Lennon (2006)
This one charts John’s political activism, starting with his 1969 peace campaigns with Yoko, but for the most part concentrating on the more radical, confrontational causes he adopted on moving to the US in 1971 – activities which ultimately led the Nixon administration to begin covert (i.e. illegal) proceedings to have him booted out of the country. While his politicking of the period has never appealed to me much, the fact that a federal government went to such lengths to silence him is a remarkable story and one which is fairly well told here. There’s a nice mix of Lennon interviews alongside rare footage from the period (notably the 1971 John Sinclair Freedom Rally concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which I don’t think I’d ever seen before) and latter-day input from some of the people he sang about (John Sinclair, Angela Davis), mixed in with the obligatory newsreel clips of Vietnam, student riots, protest marches and the like. On the downside, it tries a little too hard to convince us how worthy it all was and make a link with the reactionary, post-9/11 climate of the early 2000s (which, ironically, makes it feel more dated than if it had just focused on the 1970s). It rarely questions some of John’s own dubious political choices of the time, with a tendency to portray him as a secular saint while self-regarding bores like Gore Vidal get to pontificate and grind their own axes on his behalf. Nonetheless, the film is still a nice reminder of a time when the opinions of an elite-level rock star were not always just glib virtue-signalling, but rather carried enough weight and sincerity to make the leader of the Western world quake in his boots. Available on DVD.
9. John Lennon: A Life in Ten Pictures (2021)
Part of a BBC-TV series which examined the lives of iconic 20th century figures through the lens of ten photographs taken at key moments in their story, this is a thoughtful, slightly different approach to the biography genre. Mixing contributions from writers (Hunter Davies, Mark Lewisohn, John Harris), Liverpool friends (Mike McCartney and art school classmate Helen Andersen) and colleagues/confidants (personal assistant Anthony Fawcett, lawyer Leon Wildes and photographer Bob Gruen), it brings a range of different perspectives on John, fleshed out with well-chosen newsreel clips and interview footage. Admittedly, some people offer little in the way of insight, and the choice of photographs is sometimes perplexing, omitting a few world-famous images and skipping over important aspects of his career. But, as a whistlestop tour of the varied chapters which made up the incredible Lennon life, it works pretty well. Read my full review. At the time of writing, it’s currently available on BBC iPlayer in the UK.
8. The Real John Lennon (2000)
Shown on Channel 4 in the UK as part of a night of programmes devoted to John, this 90-minute bio is surprisingly decent, though it does have its limitations. While covering John’s whole life, the Beatles’ fame period is raced through – perhaps to the film’s credit – and the director instead focuses largely on his years in Liverpool and New York. The first half examines the traumas and tribulations of Lennon’s youth, with testimony from the likes of half-sister Julia Baird, art college pal Bill Harry and first wife Cynthia, while the second half (featuring additional interviews with John’s lover May Pang, personal assistant Fred Seaman and recording engineer Dennis Ferrante) is pretty much a hatchet job on Yoko. The lack of balance (Yoko was approached but ultimately declined to take part) is somewhat jarring, but it does make for a nice counterpoint to the authorised (some might say sanitised) documentaries which abound elsewhere. And stand-out moments like Cynthia’s emotional return to John’s childhood home in Menlove Avenue and Seaman’s story about Lennon’s reaction to the 1980 McCartney hit ‘Coming Up’ more than justify its existence. At the time of writing, some excerpts are available to watch on YouTube.
7. John Lennon Live in New York City (1986)
This one’s a bit of a cheat, really, as it’s less a documentary and more just a straight concert performance, clocking in at less than an hour. There has been talk of an expanded reissue with remastered, remixed audio and bonus film featuring rehearsals, interviews and the like, but the 50th anniversary of the original 1972 show passed last year and there’s still no sign of it. A real pity, because the film we do have captures John in his agitpop pomp, all social conscience, combat fatigues and peace slogans. Backed by New York rockers Elephants Memory, he rips through his early solo hits (the scorching rendition of ‘Cold Turkey’ is especially good), plus ‘Come Together’ and Elvis homage ‘Hound Dog’, with real verve and vitality. Yoko’s contributions won’t be to everyone’s taste and some of the blurry film perhaps betrays the dope-drenched atmosphere of the time, but Lennon looks and sounds fabulous. His sideburns, in particular, are enjoying a career peak. Sadly, there’s no DVD available at the time of writing, but you can watch it on YouTube.
6. John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band – Classic Albums (2008)
Part of the UK documentary series examining the making of critically-acclaimed rock albums, this one takes a deep dive into the creation of John’s seminal first solo LP in 1970. It helps that the sparse, stripped-back nature of the music means few people were involved in the recording, and that Yoko, Ringo and Klaus Voorman were all still around to give their insights into the sessions (Ringo is on particularly good form). Producer Phil Spector was inevitably otherwise engaged (and about to begin a lengthy prison spell), but archive interviews help to fill the gap left by John himself. The likes of Rolling Stone magazine editor Jann Wenner and Arthur Janov (the man whose ‘primal scream’ therapy treatments inspired Lennon’s soul-baring songs on the album) help to flesh things out further, but a big draw of the film – certainly when it first came out – was the airing of outtakes and early versions of tracks from the album. It is available on DVD, which boasts an extra 30 minutes or so compared to the original version of the programme I saw on the BBC.
5. Bed Peace (1970)
A wonderful slice of cinéma vérité documenting John and Yoko’s (in)famous ‘bed-in’ for peace at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal, in the spring of 1969. Despite the 70-minute film being largely set in one room, it is gripping throughout, as the Lennons’ crusade against conflict reached its apogee in front of the world’s puzzled-but-hypnotised media corps. The rough and ready footage captures John in full-on peacenik messiah mode, naive at times but displaying wit and charm to spare as he raps with the likes of Timothy Leary and crosses swords with odious humorist Al Capp. There’s not a lot of music, but it does build to the classic live recording of ‘Give Peace A Chance’. Read my full review. ‘Bed Peace’ is available on DVD and (at the time of writing) YouTube, and it’s companion piece 24 Hours – another fly-on-the-wall film following the hirsute pair around the UK later in 1969 – is available on streaming services and is also well worth seeing.
4. Imagine: John Lennon (1988)
When this came out – in cinemas, no less – it was a rather big deal. Just a few years after John’s death, the 100-minute film was the first real excavation of his film archives, pulling together stuff that either hadn’t been seen in years or had never been aired at all. In particular, the liberal use of unseen footage shot during the making of the Imagine album at Tittenhurst Park was a revelation at the time (though it was just the tip of the iceberg, as later documentaries were to show). Featuring Lennon interviews and home movies a plenty, it’s a slick and engaging canter through his entire life, beefed up with contributions from his nearest and dearest (though not the other Beatles – a curious omission, especially in the light of Paul’s and Ringo’s input into the later film on George, Living in the Material World). It does feel a little whitewashed in places – contrast the comments of Cynthia and May Pang here with what they had to say in The Real John Lennon (above), for example. But as an all-encompassing primer/overview of John’s whole story, it’s still probably the best one out there. Available on DVD.
3. Gimme Some Truth: The Making of John Lennon’s Imagine Album
Perhaps realising the 1971 Tittenhurst Park footage unearthed for Imagine: John Lennon was something of an untapped goldmine, Yoko commissioned that project’s director Andrew Solt to turn some of it into a fully-fledged documentary in its own right. Whereas the above Plastic Ono Band making-of programme was a little hamstrung by the lack of actual studio footage, cameras were thankfully ever-present for the recording of the follow-up album. This hour-long film was the end result, and it’s just a joy to see John and his team of crack musicians (including a certain George Harrison) lay down tracks for what would become one of the very best Beatles solo albums. The main focus is on the music, but we do get to see the Lennons attending to other business on their sprawling Ascot estate, notably an extended cut of the mesmeric scene first seen in 1988 when John patiently explains he is not a super-being to a stoned fan who had made the pilgrimage from the US to meet him. This is a very fine film, available on DVD, but there was still plenty more where that came from…
2. John and Yoko: Above Us Only Sky (2018)
This sumptuous 90-minute film takes another look at the Imagine album (it coincided with the expanded Ultimate Collection box set release of 2018), but takes a wider view of the circumstances behind its creation than the studio footage which made up most of Gimme Some Truth. Taking an even deeper trawl of the Lennons’ 1971 celluloid archive (the cameras really were following them everywhere around that time, even to the bathroom), it’s basically a snapshot of the couple’s lives, interests and inspirations during that period, providing the context surrounding the music. And it’s not just the footage which tells the story – there are rare photographs, unheard audio and modern-day interviews with some of the people who were there (including Julian Lennon, Klaus Voorman, journalist and Lennon confidante Ray Connolly and studio engineer Jack Douglas). But it is that precious, intimate film which really brings the story to life, ranging from clips of Julian at play in Tittenhurst Park to John strumming his newly-composed song ‘New York City’ in a Manhattan hotel room, all artfully woven together and beautifully restored with a vibrancy that makes it look like it was shot yesterday. Yes, there is stuff here we’ve seen before, and some may baulk at the level of Yoko content, but overall this is a terrific document of an amazing time in John’s life (though was there ever any other kind?).
1. LennoNYC (2010)
Above Us Only Sky almost topped the list, but this brilliant film – covering a longer period and encompassing some less celebrated aspects of John’s career – just edged it out. Running just shy of two hours, this is a veritable feast of words, music and images tracking John’s life after he relocated to New York in 1971 through to his death there nine years later. It spotlights his political activism (rather more succinctly than the aforementioned The US vs John Lennon), his separation from Yoko and subsequent ‘lost weekend’ period (where the action temporarily relocates to Los Angeles) and the later househusband years, when the Lennons withdrew from the public eye to raise son Sean before re-emerging in late 1980 with the Double Fantasy album. There’s the usual mix of interviews with pals and associates, Lennon audio soundbites and archive clips, but what really adds crackle and pop are a healthy sprinkling of studio outtakes and lots of film showing Manhattan itself in the 1970s. Pulsating with grime, glamour and energy, you can see why John was so keen to make it his home. Available on DVD, watch this after Bed Peace, the Plastic Ono Band Classic Albums episode and Above Us Only Sky, and you’ll have a pretty good overview (albeit an ‘authorised’ one) of John’s entire solo career.
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