On September 26th, 1974, John's busy day began at Capitol Records'
offices, where he spoke with EMI's British managing director, Bob
Mercer.
The recording was meant for the ears of EMI's sales staff, to inspire the troops in promoting the new single and album; it was pressed as a white-label promo single (with "Whatever Gets You Thru The Night" on the flip) and included on the remastered Walls And Bridges CD.
Walls and Bridges is the fifth album by John,issued on 26 September 1974 in the United States and on 4 October in
the United Kingdom. Written, recorded and released during his 18-month
separation from Yoko Ono (June 1973–January 1975), the album captures Lennon in the midst of his "Lost Weekend". Walls and Bridges was an American Billboard number one album and featured two hit singles "Whatever Gets You thru the Night" and "#9 Dream",
the first of which was Lennon's first number one hit in the United
States as a solo artist, and his only chart-topping single in both the
US and Britain during his lifetime.
The title of the album refers to the barriers that John had
constructed between himself and others and to his hope that those
barriers could be surmounted. John said, "Walls keep you in either protectively or otherwise, and bridges get you somewhere else."
Walls and Bridges has a variety of musical stylings and many
of the lyrics make it clear that Lennon both enjoyed his new-found
freedom and also missed Ono."Going Down on Love", "What You Got" and "Bless You" address his feelings toward Ono,the last one the most explicitly,
while the first track that Lennon wrote when he and Pang went to New
York, "Surprise Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradox)", was about Pang."Steel and Glass" included a sinister riff reminiscent of "How Do You Sleep?",John's audio argument with Paul from the Imagine album, though the digs this time were directed at former Beatles manager Allen Klein."Scared" is a haunting track exploring Lennon's fear of ageing, loneliness and the emptiness of success.The album also includes some of Lennon's most uplifting songs, namely its two singles "Whatever Gets You thru the Night" (which features Elton John on piano and harmony vocals)and "#9 Dream" (the instrumentation evokes a dream, as well as reflective Beatles songs such as "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Sun King"). Another is "Beef Jerky", an R&B-inspired instrumental. "Old Dirt Road" uses the road as a metaphor for a point of stability in an unstable world and a life subject to variability.
The lyrics of "Going Down on Love" reflect John's feelings during his so-called "lost weekend" separation from wife Yoko Ono.The song's title incorporates a sexual pun.After the release of Walls and Bridges, Lennon called the jazzy "Bless You" the "best piece of work on the album ... that seems to be the best track, to me."
The lyrics of "Nobody Loves You (When You're Down and Out)" describe
the emptiness he felt as well as his disillusionment with show business.
Recalling the recording of the album, in an interview the following year with Pete Hamill in Rolling Stone, John recalled: "Elton sort of popped in on the sessions for Walls and Bridges
and sort of zapped in and played the piano and ended up singing
'Whatever Gets You Thru the Night' with me.
Which was a great shot in
the arm. I'd done three quarters of it, 'Now what do we do?' Should we
put a camel on it or a xylophone? That sort of thing. And he came in and
said, 'Hey, I'll play some piano!'" Another notable track is "Nobody Loves You (When You're Down and Out)", although written in 1973 shortly after John was in Los Angeles, was later remembered by John in an interview for Playboy magazine as expressing his feeling for the whole lost weekend period. John imagined Frank Sinatra
singing it: "I don't know why. It's kind of a Sinatraesque song,
really. He would do a perfect job with it. Are you listening Frank? You
need one song that isn't a piece of nothing. Here's one for you, the
horn arrangement and everything's made for you. But don't ask me to
produce it."
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