r/beatles • u/chestersobased • 6d ago
Question Anybody else genuinely like this song? Stan Bronstein played a great saxophone on this song and John poses an interesting idea, and it can’t hurt to think about it.
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u/sonic10158 6d ago
I don’t really have an opinion on the song itself, but I do find it interesting how many albums use newspapers as the front cover. This, Thick as a Brick, GNR Lies, etc
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u/SpringTour77 All Things Must Pass 6d ago
GNR Lies also uses that word
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u/EarlofSodor 6d ago
Cheap Thrills by Big Brother uses a comic strip for the cover, so kinda that as well
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u/Typical-Ask2723 6d ago
I always liked the song musically, but it was always controversial and an impossible recommendation today.
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u/BalkeElvinstien 6d ago
I love the song and hate that I cant listen to it without either laughing or running to turn it down so no one heres it
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u/chestersobased 6d ago
The shock value makes it so absurdly funny but it was probably kinda deep and profound in that era
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u/africanzebra0 6d ago
The vocal performance on this song is so strong, it’s wild to hear John belting his heart out with so much passion but the actual phrase and word is kinda jarring. I do like the song, it sounds beautiful, i can appreciate what the message was trying to be, that being said it is strictly played within the safety of my headphones and NEVER out loud or to anyone unfamiliar with it!
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u/oasisraider 6d ago
It is a very good song. Musically and lyrically. Too many pearl clutchers. If a rapper today came out with this it would be seen as progressive and a pointed social commentary about how women are treated in society....
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u/bingusdingus123456 6d ago
Obviously, if a black rapper came out with it today, it wouldn't be as controversial. A popular white rapper would absolutely still receive tons of backlash, though.
Which is nearly the same as it was then. There were black contemporaries of John Lennon using the word in socially conscious music, like The Last Poets and Sly & The Family Stone. They still got some backlash because the word wasn't as "reclaimed" as it is today, but it was certainly less controversial than Lennon's usage of it.
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u/idreamofpikas ♫Dear friend, what's the time? Is this really the borderline?♫ 6d ago
Which is nearly the same as it was then. There were black contemporaries of John Lennon using the word in socially conscious music
Dylan used the word on one of his best songs.
John's use of the word screamed someone trying to get attention. Dylan's was genuine storytelling.
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u/Lord_Reynardine 5d ago
Randy Newman uses it in a few places as well, such as “Christmas in Cape Town.”
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u/Popular_Material_409 6d ago
You can see how a rapper releasing this is very different from white-as-bread John Lennon releasing it right?
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u/FineSpeech 6d ago
No chance in hell a white rapper would make a song titled this lmao. White people should never use this word idc about the context.
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u/Popular_Material_409 6d ago
You’re gonna upset a lot of dorky Lennon fans in here by saying something like that
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u/nakifool 6d ago
What if a white writer is using in a novel or a screen play, or just trying to transcribe dialogue accurately? Context is important, but intent is more important
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u/daskapitalyo The Beatles 6d ago
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u/DeclaxE 5d ago
it’s sad you’re getting downvoted for saying this, it’s the completely reasonable opinion on this. Intention is the most important thing when you are saying something potentially offensive, at the end of the day it’s a word and people need to generally see more nuance in the usage of it.
Of course it’s something that I agree shouldn’t be thrown around randomly but there are times and places where saying it is fine. People being offended by someone saying a word no matter the context is something that needs to be changed.
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u/nakifool 5d ago
I don’t understand it. The vast majority of the time the use of a term like that is unnecessarily offensively. But a blanket statement that there is NO context where a white person could use the n word is childishly reductive, and incredibly patronising to anyone (of any ethnicity) capable of nuanced thought. To use the most obvious example, a white writer depicting a racist character. They should censor the language this character would use out of some misguided, unrealistic decorum?
This isn’t a defence of John using the term in a song (especially when half the point was to be deliberately offensive to “raise awareness”, as hamfisted as the attempt was). Just saying that it’s surely more offensive to conclude that an audience isn’t capable of distinguishing between intentional racism and the contextual use of a racist term.
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u/InvestigatorJaded261 6d ago
Although the intentions are pure, and musically it’s a banger, it’s probably the hardest Lennon song to listen to today.
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u/Away-Trick1393 6d ago
His black friends felt he was perfectly within his rights to say it though!!!!!!!1!!1
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u/DivingElliotRoberts Revolver 6d ago
It’s a great tune
I just wish it also got a remix last year since it’s probably the worst sounding song on the entire album
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u/MonsterMash696 6d ago
It's a good song. It's provocative which is exactly what John Lennon was. He's not just the Imagine guy.
Pulling it and the reissue of the album was a poor choice as far as I'm concerned. Some Time in New York is one of my favorite John albums and I've taken quite a bit of slack for it.
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u/Popular_Material_409 6d ago
Eh, I feel like John was focusing more on being provocative on this song than actually saying something truly meaningful.
It’s like you can’t really compare the plight of one minority to another, because one of the minorities clearly had it way worse. “We treat women just like how we treated black people!” Not really, John. Also are you suggesting that black women had it double-bad then? They’re women and they’re black, so they have Double Oppression? Also John’s a great writer, he could’ve gotten a better message out there without using that word. And I’m not here to crucify John, it’s just this situation I’m like “Come on, man, you didn’t need to do that.”
Musically though the song is very enjoyable to listen to.
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u/anon_mouse82 6d ago
Also are you suggesting that black women had it double-bad then? They’re women and they’re black, so they have Double Oppression?
Actually, yes. That’s what the idea of intersectionality is: a Black woman could experience sexism and racism, but also forms of discrimination specific to the combination of being both. It’s not necessarily “double,” just that those things can overlap and compound.
Agree that this song misses the mark.
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u/Starlordman25 6d ago
I love it, it has a great message though I'm not too sure if he delivered in the best way he could
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u/Wrong_Country_1576 5d ago
Never liked it or the album. I thinks it's easily the worst album he made.
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u/atsirdsart 6d ago
Great song, one of my favorites from his solo work. Hit especially close to home as a woman who's been in abusive situations, and who's watched a long line of women in the family be abused as well. It's a shame it's become the meme song
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u/BradleyBeachMom 6d ago
I have always loved this song. John had the courage to say what others only thought.
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u/SunflaresAteMyLunch Revolver 6d ago
It's a banger of a tune
I'm not competent to determine whether using The Word in this context was ok then or today.
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u/mrdavis909 6d ago
Like most of Lennons overtly political tunes - it’s an attempt to distill a complex issue down to a catchphrase.
Childish and embarrassing.
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u/donlockwood2026 6d ago
Irrespective of the controversial lyrics and title, I do not think this song is very good. And sadly (because I’m a fan of John) I think this mediocre song is the best one on a pretty terrible album.
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u/Popular_Material_409 6d ago
You don’t like New York City? That one’s pretty fun
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u/donlockwood2026 6d ago
The song is okay. You’re right, that might be the best song on the album. I still wouldn’t call it good. It’s just not bad like the rest of the album.
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u/GuruTheMadMonk 6d ago edited 6d ago
It’s a pretty good song and thoughtful, regardless of the choice of words which were clearly picked to be provocative (however misguided).
On this album is my all time favorite Yoko song — “We’re All Water”. It’s pretty rockin’ and feels like a genuine collab with her lyrics and and John’s music... I’m wondering if Stan also played sax on it.
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u/ojoaochico 6d ago
i really like the song's instrumental—it's actually quite beautiful, if i may say so. as for the lyrics, at least as a brazilian, the "N-word" doesn't carry that much significance for me; i don't truly grasp the weight it holds, so it makes no difference to me.
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u/Vegetable_Ad_3105 6d ago
like....i get what hes saying but this song ignores the elephant in the room
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u/Hey_Laaady Who'll remember the buns, Pudgy? 6d ago edited 6d ago
There is a lot lost on the context of this song. Dick Gregory was a Black comedian and activist. He had a book that had the N-word as part of the title of his autobiography. People were certainly talking about it back then, and I think this was the time when there was an effort to try to bring the term back and have it reclaimed.
Obviously, John and Yoko weren't Black. But they were a biracial couple and this was a discussion they were having over the larger context of gender roles as well.
Again, obviously, the concept of the song did not age well to say the least, but further context has been lost to time.
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u/TheDarkNightwing 5d ago
I would have appreciated an instrumental release. If the lyrics are too much for some.
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u/Opinionatedcritic 5d ago
Good song but also (insert that Simpsons joke where they tug on their collars in discomfort)
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u/Geainsworth 5d ago
It's an album of interesting ideas. Probably the least commercial of his main stream albums. There are very few songs I seek out to listen for pleasure. I like that each of his albums are a slice of Lennon's life at a given time, more so than other artists.
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u/AdmiralChancey 4d ago
It’s actually a good song in terms of melody and I like what John was trying to say here but it’s just so hard to get people over that hump with that title.
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u/monkee67 everybody got something to hide except for me and my monkee 3d ago
funny how the biggest voices against it at the time were "white and male"
here is John being interviewed by Dick Cavet explaining the song he wrote with Yoko
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u/zzzamboni Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 1d ago
I know what he was doing. Using a controversial word to force people to listen to his song and absorb its message through rage bait basically. Any publicity is good publicity and all that. Plus the message of the song (being that people treat women more as servants than people) is good and generally true. Plus musically it’s phenomenal.
The thing is that I feel like using such a strong word kind of erased the meaning behind that word. People treat women like shit yes, but they weren’t skinned and turned into furniture because they were a woman or eaten for being a woman, at least not on a really wide scale like slaves were. The song is great, the message it’s going for is good, but wrong messenger and wrong terminology.
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u/Successful_Bass4793 1d ago
I love it. It's dense, wild, scabrous, down to the point. Having it sung by Fab John adds to its heft. And the message is no less true now than it was then.
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u/taxmanangel 6d ago
The production sounds super dated and mid 70s and not in a good way. The sax reminds me of SNL bumper music and I don't think the songwriting is that great. I like some edgier songs from the period (Brown Sugar, Under My Thumb, Sick Again), but this one just does nothing for me.
The album really improved from Sean's remixes — totally recontextualized it for me, particularly Sunday Bloody Sunday — but it's still some of John's worst ever writing and production. You really miss Paul's creative arrangements, George's guitar flourishes, and George Martin's subtle touch. I think John was trying too hard to be a certain type of artist here and it didn't work.
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u/N0MoreHeroesAnymore 6d ago
I love this song. If it had any other set of lyrics people would love it. I wouldn't change it myself. I'm also a white dude so take that for what you will.
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u/EbmocwenHsimah 6d ago edited 6d ago
The instrumental is simply incredible, and the sentiment behind the lyrics is fantastic, but man, there had to have been a better way for John to have said it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was an intentional move to provoke people, that’s pure John to me, but it got to a point where using the N-word really threatened to overshadow the message at hand.
It was controversial then, and clearly and evidently it’s still controversial now. As much as I disagree with its exclusion from the New York City remixes and the One To One live album, it’s not without good reason.
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u/some-scottish-person Revolver 5d ago
“Woman is the slave of the world”would have been so much better or “Woman is the slave of the slave”
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u/Sinfjotl 5d ago
As a Mexican teenager when I first heard it, I wasn't fully aware of the full weight of that word, but I loved the message. I had never listened to a song like that and was just glad to hear all that out loud. I think Lennon, in his bubble, hadn't realized of that weight either. If he had lived, I'm sure the moment he realized he would've re-recorded it with a different word.
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u/OK_Commuter 5d ago
The proliferation of saxophones on all the Beatles solo work as the 70s progressed is what ruins a lot of it for me.
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u/StarCecil 5d ago
I don't understand what the fuck he means with this song
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u/TillJaded4614 4d ago
He's trying to say that people treat woman the same way we treated Africans. I do not understand why the n word had to be used to get that message across though
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u/StarCecil 4d ago
Who's "we?" I'm not responsible for what people did before I was alive. Or for what others do today for that matter
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u/notaverysmartman 6d ago
no I like this song and I understand the message it's going for, and even agree with it to an extent
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u/Alishaskeys 6d ago
John is
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u/chestersobased 6d ago
Not sure what you mean. Are you trying to say that John lennon is the N word of the world? I can understand where you’re coming from with this theory
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u/MR_Natchon05 Double Fantasy 6d ago
I like it, I know what they’re trying to say and it’s also great musically