The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 11

Tfe lennan tegpcy 'Double Fantasy' Frustrating, Interesting Album love song to his 5-year-old son Sean; "Watching the Wheels" explains his five-year absence from music; and "Dear Yoko" is a sprightly declaration of total love to his wife The album is not all sweetness and light of Ono's material carries a bite reminiscent of the 1970ish Lennon, and his own "I'm Losing You," featuring a really nice guitar hook, addresses the communication problems that sometimes spring up in the best of mar- riages. But for my money, the best thing on the album is the beautiful ballad, "Woman." Here Lennon admits he's been responsible for some of the couple's past problems and apologizes forthrightly. Let's hope that the album Lennon was working on at the time of his death is near enough completion to be released. mUmmwi iSSigS i 1 ill A Review By BiU King Gxulllullon SMI Writer I don't think it would have been quite so hard to take had he been leading a miserable existence. But the fact that John Lennon seemed to be happier at the time of his death than at any other time in his long career just makes Monday evening's tragedy thai much worse.

Lennon was at peace with himself and the world when he died is immediately evident from 'be music on his comeback album, "Double Fantasy" (Geffen Records Actually, "Double Fantasy" Is only half Lennon's album; Seven of the songs in what is subtiled "A Heart Play" are written and sung by him, and seven are by his wife, Yoko Ono. the couple's songs alternateforming a sort of male-female dialogue focusing on their rela tionship over the last few years. This makes for an interesting exchange of ideas and emotions. Unfortunately, it doesn't make for the most pleasant listening experience. It may be true that rock's New Wave has caught up (somewhat) with Ono's early '70s avant-garde recordings.

But her music is still a very acquired taste, and after all these years, I still haven't acquired it Her overtly sexual "Kiss Kiss Kiss" (sounding rather like Lene Lovich, Patti Smith and The B-S2s combined) is about the best of the bunch. Her attempts at Hollywood show-tune and gospel-influenced styles fall flat Her lyrics are at times touching Times Are -Over," for example), but suffer from her almost total lack of a sense of melody. As a result, the fact that you cannot listen to Lennon's first new recordings in five years straight through makes "Double Fantasy" a frustrating album: Especially since Lennon's own work is delightful. Those who were expecting (unrealisti-cally) for the 40-year-old ex-Beatle to) come out sounding like New Wave or the cynical composer of a decade ago are going to be disappointed. The John Lennon of "Double Fantasy" raises the comforts of home, marital love and atherhood.

Sounds like Paul McCartney's musical turf, doesn't it? But Lennon handles the themes with a minimum of cloying sentiment and a great deal of honest, exhilarating emotion; His single and the LP opener, "(Just Like) Starting Over" (currently No. 4 on Billboard's Hot 100) is a catchy, midtempo '50s-styled rocker with wonderful backing vocals. "Cleanup Time" is a rhythm blues-influenced tract on the Joys of role reversal by America's most celebrated househusband. "Beautiful Boy" is a gentle, Oriental-sounding It was so good to have him back; we ve just got to have some more. 'Double Fantasy! Album Cover For Lennon's Fab Flicks: Screams On The Silver Screen List Of Albums ft 4V i out 15 years earlier with the distributor, United Artists.

Shenson told Variety he planned to take the films out of circulation for a year, then re-release them, possibly in Dolby Stereo. ji. si Let's hope he does so sooner if possible. nd let's hope the revival houses bring back the extraordinary "How I Won the War," especially given this tragic incentive. That way, at least we'll have -our John Sack for a few hours, our John of the wire-rimmed; glasses and muttered puns.

A generation has lost something that had meaning in this meaningless world; "It is the dying of the Age of ill I A Lennon Filmography By Eleanor Ringel Conttitution SMI Wrllw The movies, like the rest of us, weren't immune to BeaUemania. At tie height of their popularity in the mini-mod 1960s, the Beatles made "A Hard Day's Night" with director Richard Lester. The high-brow film critics, set to sneer at what they figured would be a Liverpool version of "Viva Las Vegas," instead sank to their knees and succumbed. Totally. Bosley Crowther, then a critic for The New York Times and as close to a voice of film authority as existed at the time, dubbed the movie "a whale of a comedy." He then likened the Fab Four to the Man Brothers and named their movie one of the 10 Best Films of 1964.

The BeaUes collaborated with Lester the following year on "Help!" which added color and a cast of superb British character comics (Eleanor Bron, Victor Spinetti, Roy Kinnear, to name a few) to their antics. For a while, everyone (i.e. those of us betwixt 12 and 20) argued over which was the better film. "A Hard Day's Night" for purists; "Help!" for sophisticates. Of course, they were both wonderful.

Then John Lennon broke away from the others and' made his solo acting debut in Lester's surreal master-. piece of black comedy, "How I Won the War," playing a World War soldier who gets his guts blown out knew this would happen," he says to the camera, barely holding in what's left of bis stomach. 'You knew this would happen." The scene, like "Happiness is a Warm' Gun," now takes on tragic as well as satiric overtones. Lennon has said that it was while working on this film that he first had thoughts about life after BeaUe-dom and began to consider quitting the group. But the "In the Beginning" (1970) "Let It Be" (1970) "The BeaUes 1962-1966" (1973) "The BeaUes 1967-1970" (1973) "Rock and Roll Music" (1976) "The BeaUes Live at the Star Club, Hamburg, Germany, 1962" (1977) "The BeaUes at The Hollywood Bowl" (1977) "Love Songs" (1977) "The BeaUes RariUes" (1980) Lennon "Two Virgins" (1968) "Unfinished Music No.

2: Life With the Lions" (1969) "Wedding Album" (1959) "Live Peace in Toronto 1969" (1970) "John Lennon-PlasUc Ono Band" (1970) "Imagine" (1971) "Sometime in New York City" (1972) "Mind Games" (1973) "Walls and Bridges" (1974) "Rock 'n'Roll" (1975) "Double Fantasy" (1980) BiU King Here is a list of albums released by the Beatles in the United States and by John Lennon individually: The Beatles: "Meet the BeaUes!" (1964) "Introducing. the Beatles" (1964) "The Beatles Second Album" "A Hard Day's Night" (1964) "Something New" (1964) "Songs, Pictures and Stories of The Fabulous Beatles" (1964) "The Beatles Story" (1964) "BeaUes "65" (1964) "The Early BeaUes" (1965) "Beatles VI" (1965) "Help!" (1965) "Rubber Soul" (1965) "Yesterday and Today" (1966) "Revolver" (1966) "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1967) "Magical Mystery Tour' (1967) "The BeaUes" (The White Album) (1968) "Yellow Submarine" (1969) "Abbey Road" (1969) "Hey Jude" (1970) Beatles In 'Magical Mystery TW boys were still together in 1968 for their cameo appearance at the end of "Yellow Submarine," the delightfully imaginative feature cartoon based on their songs, in which the Blue Meanies are vanquished by Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Their last film together was the documentary "Let It Be," a journey behind scenes at Apple Records in which the stress of being together for 12 years was. Commentary beginning to show. However, the film won an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score of 1970.

After leaving the BeaUes, Lennon made sporadic film, appearances on bis own, in something called "Superstars in Concert" and in "Oh Calcutta!" to which he contributed one of the skits. Variety reported last summer that the rights to "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!" bad reverted to producer Walter Shenson under an agreement worked With the Beatles: "A Hard. Day's Night" (1964) 1 "Help!" (1965)' -cn "Pop GearGo Go Mania" (a compilation ofitock-concert footage, 1965). i "Magical Mystery Tour," (1967). "Yellow Submarine," (cameo and music, "What's Happening" (documentary about 1970).

"Let It Be" (1970). the Day the' Music: Died" ''(cQ'mpilation film, Lemon in his own right: "How I Won the War" (1967). "Diaries Notes and Sketches" (a Jonas Mekas "film diary" with McCartney, 1970). "Superstars in Film Concert" (1971). 1 "Oh, Calcutta!" (1972).

Beatles Legacy Continued From Page 9-A Jut jjj i HOW: I 1 i f-r i the time on a drunken binge that he referred to as his "lost weekend." They reconciled in late 1974 and, after three previous miscarriages, Ono gave birth to a son, Sean, on Lennon's 35th. birthday in 1975. He won bis deportation fight, receiving his permanent resident alien status in 1976. He then retired to, as he explained in recent interviews, spend time with his son Sean. He and Ono reversed roles, with Lennon staying at home to care for the child and Ono taking over management of their considerable musical and real estate empire.

It seemed be wa destined to become the Howard Hughes of rock when all of sudden he and Ono entered the recording studio this past August to record their return album, "Double Fantasy." Despite continuous, overtures from' promoters offering big bucks, Lennon and the other ex-Beatles never showed any interest in a reunion. His own solo career started off extremely well with the critically acclaimed "John LennonPlastic Ono Band" LP in 1970, a startling musical exorcism of his BeaUes demons. After that it was Dp and down, with successes The long hours of playing in front of rowdy crowds under trying conditions Gid off. When The BeaUes returned to verpool, they were playing a harder-edged brand of music than any of the other local groups. And they were wearing their hair in what was then called a "French cut" (combed forward).

Later we would call it the "BeaUe cut" Still, what really set the BeaUes apart from the crowd even at that early stage was the songwriting of Lennon and McCartney. After hooking up with a young Liverpool record store owner named Brian Epstein, who became their manager, the BeaUes landed a recording contract during the summer of 1962. Their first record, "Love Me Do," came out the following fall And then in January 1963, they topped the British charts Please Me." From there it was a rather rapid rise. All of Britain, including the royals, fell under their spelL Then Europe. And in February 1964, America, followed in quick order by the movies.

The BeaUes dominated pop music for the next five yean in a totally unprecedented manner. They may have started Yoko, John At Peace Demonstration, 1972 surely it must Yank. The grown-ups of our town, presumably immune to maladies such as Beitle- manlaf, shobk their 6eadifl-wotiderand disbelief. Some, such as my 'outspoken Aunt-Margaret thought 'it was just so much foolishness and told us so. Mother and Daddy didn't understand, really, but they tolerated my madness, tried not to cringe when my everjpiher word was "gear" (meaning fantastic in BeaUetalk), wished my bedroom, wasn't plastered in Beatle photos and jbosHers, and secretly prayed the mania wsuld go away without scarring my psyche.

Adults could earn our love, respect, and the right to (piled gear by not only humoring us but helping us with the attendant rituals of Beatle- mania. For example, Maxine Palitiouf 4 our eighth-grade math teacher who in Febru-ary 1964 allowed us to throw a George Harrison 21st Birthday Party complete with cake, punch and favors, during class. As expected, the boys made fun of us while irreverently 'gobbling up ithe lovingly prepared refreshments. For the party, we all attired ourselves in our best mod Beatles clothes that is, the apparel the well-dressed English dolly bird would wear. I decked out in black knee-high boots, black fishnet stockings, black turtleneck sweater, a black and white herringbone plaid vest and skirt, black teathersboul-der bag and a black leather -caplike John Lennon used to wear.

My hair was straight with thick, eyelash-tickling bangs, eyes lined in black, stark makeup Interview 'It's better to fade away like an old totdier than to burn out. I don't appreciate worship of dead Sid Vicious or of dead James Dean or of dead John Wayne. JohnLennon and frosty white lipstick. (I musrtnily Continued From Page 9-A Johnpaulgeorgeandringo transported a slightly chubby, pimply-chinned 13-jrear old who was taller than the toys her age and warmed the bench a lot at Junior Teen Town dances to a musical land where someone wanted to hold her hand and someone's heart went boom when he crossed that room to ask her to dance. It was excitement It was magic Yet, when I heard there's a resurgence of BeaUemania on the horizon, I decided I'd sit it out this time around.

I just don't have that old teen-age vim and vigor to go through it again. So, as a reformed BeaUemaniac with no desire for relapse, to my once-beloved Fab Four I say. Thanks for the memories, boys. It was great while it lasted. And I don't blame you for not wanting to reunite.

Call this "Confessions of An Ex-Bea-tlemanic," if you will And promise you won't laugh. The story begins in December Five or six of us girls bad stopped in for cherry Cokes at Jackson's Drug Store soda fountain after school on our way to Girl Scout meeting, when in rushed Angela Amos with a 45 rpm record that would change our lives. It was the BeaUes' (the who or the what? we asked) new single, "I Want to Hold Your Hand," with "I Saw Her Standing There" on the flip side, just-arrived at Dodd's Record Shop. We hurried to the meeting room to play it It was like nothing we'd ever heard before. A different beat, raucous' screams and something about the way they crooned, And when I touch you I feel happy inside," and Oh, please, say to me you'll let me be your man." We weren't sure what it was, but intuitively we knew this was something that was going to matter: 1 And matter it did.

By February 1964, the Girl Scouts-turned-Beatlemaniacs would be propped in front of the telly to watch our hairy-beaded heroes on the Ed Sullivan Show. Oh, how we screamed, tears streaming down our faces, our love measured by the decibel level of our howls. The BeaUes had arrived in America. And none too soon. For my friends and roe, who were too young to get weak-kneed over Elvis in the '50s, needed idols of our own.

The next two years or so were a non-' stop BeaUes fan club meeting for a devoted gang of us who affected English accents, used BeaUe slang and, like the martyrs of old, bore the persecution of the boys who made fun of us. (They were just jealous, we reckoned.) I was elected president of the local chapter of BeaUes (U.S.A.) Limited, the national fan club, headquartered in New York, from which we received for our 85-a-year dues monthly newsletters, exclusive recorded messages from the Beatles and special offers for 8-by-10 glossies of the Beatles and penpals from England. What a thrill it was when the Beatles' first movie, "A Hard Day's Night" came to the Tooga Theater for what must have been an unprecedented run (in Summer- ville) of four big nights. Over the years, I must have seen that flick two dozen timps, which probably is no record, but have looked a fright.) Angela Amos' folks took a' carload of "What are they doing? Lennon answered. "This Japanese witch has made him crazy, and he's gone bananas.

That's what they said. But all she did was take the bananas part and take it out of the closet that bad been inhabited by the other part "Before I met her," Lennon continued, "she was protesting against war in a black bag in Trafalgar Square. And when we met and discussed what we wanted to do what we wanted to do was to carry on me and my love-love-love, and ber and her peace-peace-peace." i Lennon's new album is with Yoko, and as be put it "If I couldn't have worked with ber 1 wouldn't nave bothered. I wouldn't enjoy just putting an album out by myself, having to do this by myself, having to go to the studio by myself. "After all we're presenting ourselves as a couple, and to work with your best friend is joy, and I don't intend to stop Talking about his beginnings, Lennon said, "I started out doing rock 'n' roll because absolutely liked doing it.

So that's why I ended up doing a track like Starting It's kinda tongue-in-cheek, it's kinda hoo-de-hoo-de-bo-ho sort of la Elvis. I went back to my roots." But as for taking another shot at being a male vocal star again, Lennon said, "I've had the boyhood tiling of being the 'Elvis' and doing my own thing and getting my spot on the show. Now I want to be with my best friend my best friend is my wife. Who could ask for anything more?" The thing that one remembers about talking with John Lennon so shortly before his death Is the excitement he expressed about his and Yoko's new beginning: "We feel like this is just start now. You see, 'Double Fantasy this is our first album.

I know we've worked together before, we've even made albums together before but this is our tint album. We feel, I feel, like nothing bas ever happened before today." And, almost prophetically, be looked at us and said, "I hope I die before Yoko because if Yoko died I wouldn't know hc to survive. I couldn't carry on." Continued From Page l-A been through together, the '60s group that has survived the war, the drugs, the politics, the violence on the street the whole shebang," John said. "That we survived it and we're here, and I'm talking to them and the women's song is to Yoko, and it's to all women. "I'm more feminist now than I was when I sang Woman Is the I was intellectually feminist then, but now I feel as though at least I've put not my own money, but my body where my-mouth is and am living up to my own preachings, as it were." "You know," Lennon said, "the words, 'All we are saying is give peace a literally came out of my mouth as spoken word to a reporter, after, being asked millions and millions of times, 'What are you "Well all I am saying is give peace a chance, not that I have the answer, or I have new format for society because I don't and I don't believe anybody else has.

Show me the plan, as 'Revolution' says." Until his just-released album, "Double Fantasy," Lennon hadn't produced one in five years. Why? "It's like the channels on the radio were jammed. I wasn't getting clear signals," Lennon answered. "After 10, 15, almost 20 years of being under contract and having to produce two albums a year and a single every three months, in the early days, regardless of what the hell else was doing, or what your family life was like or what your personal life was like, nothing You just bad to get those songs up! "I tell you," Lennon added, "I don't want to have to sell my soul again, as it were, to have hit record. I've discovered that I can live without it and it makes it happier for me, but I'm not going to go back in and try to create persona who would not be myself." On the subject of being oneself, Lennon said, "One cannot bo absolutely oneself in public because the fact that you're In public, you have to have some kind of defense or whatever it is." Lennon's taking up with Yoko Ono in 1968 changed the Beatles.

Some say it ended the Beatles and changed his life. What did people say then? out as a teen favorite with rattier simple, straightforward love songs, but their music progressed at an amazing pace. The fact that they never stood still artistically is to a large degree responsible for their long-lasting popularity and on-equaled reputation. Lennon, meantime, was building quite a reputation for himself with his Lewis Carroll-influenced books "In His Own Write" and "A Spaniard in the Works," and his quick wit But the, former art student tired quickly of the rat race. He said in a recent interview that he wanted to leave the group as early as 1966 but didn't have a reason or the resolve until he met Yoko Ono.

Lennon never seemed really comfortable with his success. As be said recently, "Part of me suspects that I'm a loser and the other part of me thinks I'm God He was divorced from first wife Cynthia Powell (mother of his 17-year-old first son, Julian) in 1968 and married Ono in March 1969. Their honeymoon became a much publicized European "bed-in" for peace as Lennon launched himself on a five-year period of one protest campaign after another. Not everyone was pleased with this activist side of Lennon. In 1972 he was ordered out of the country after being denied a visa extension, supposedly because of a 1963 drug bust in London.

Later it was alleged that the Nixon administration wanted him out of the country because of his anti-war efforts. During this time he and Ono were separated for 18 months. Lennon was miserable without ber and spent most of like the "Imagine" LP and "Walls and Bridges' (his last studio LP before bis retirement) and a couple of relative flops such as his politically radical "Sometime in New York City" album. -The new Lennon album was eagerly waited. Many welcomed its upbeat, melodic tunes while others were disap- pointed to find the former angry young man singing about the joys of fatherhood, marriage and family life in general It was a mature Lennon singing to as this time around.

In Playboy, he dismissed worship of rock stars who burn out at an early age as "garbage. "It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out I don't appreciate worship of dead Sid Vicious or of dead James Dean or of dead John Wayne. I worship the people who survive." And in an age where you can hardly void hearing a BeaUes' song on elevator Muzak, he had little patience with those who would Insist he and the other, ex-BeaUes return to the scene of their past glories. "Everyone talks in terms of the last record or the last Beatle concert," be told Playboy, "but God willing, there are another 40 years of productivity to go." For whatever reason, God was not willing. And so it is that John Lennon lives now only through his music.

To the end, be was amazingly astute, even when he didn't know it. In the new song "Beautiful Boy," written to son Sean, he sang "Life is what happens to youWhile you're busy making other us to Atlanta in August 1966 for. 'the long-awaited Beatles concert, "during their second American tour a -dream come true that when it was over, slip- ped mysteriously back into dreamland, almost as if it never happened, But mere are the mementos, carefully taped into my now-yellowing Beatles scrapbook, the tangible evidence that once upon a time my shrieks and tries mingled with thousands of others one hot summer night in the Atlanta -stadium: my ticket stub, an Isodettes throa lozenge wrapper, the wad of shredt.ihat was the Kleenex I cried on, and th fUtle nametag I wore. About the nametag: On the insjde was 1 information in ease of emergency. ostensibly to heftf-the police or medics after we fainteand got Amos was sure we would.

We didn't Not that it matters much but I can't help growing a bit sad when I realize that I don't even remember Paul's favorite color anymore 'or Ills' fa-1 titers occupation or Paul's birtbdafe. I knew all those things and much" more once, my information garnered from the pages of "16" magazine and the proliferation of Beatle magazines 'featuring "exclusive" stories and designed to-cash in on the Beatles' success. Once I knew all the words to aU, the Beatles' songs. Now I can't even remember exactly how "I Want to Hold Your Hand" starts. Maybe I'm: being overly sentimental, but it seems the least I could have, done was remember that mugh.

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