(The hits and songs written by or featuring Lennon)
Ask Me Why
There’s a Place
This Boy
It Won’t Be Long
All I’ve Got to Do
Not a Second Time
A Hard Day’s Night
I Should Have Known Better
If I Fell
Anytime at All
I’ll Cry Instead
I Call Your Name
A Hard Day’s Night (half)
You Can’t Do That
No Reply
I Feel Fine
No Reply
Yes It Is
I’m a Loser
I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party
Mr. Moonlight
Help
You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away
You’re Gonna Lose that Girl
It’s Only Love
Norwegian Wood
Nowhere Man
Girl
In My Life
I’m Only Sleeping
She Said She Said
And Your Bird Can Sing
Doctor Robert
Tomorrow Never Knows
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Good Morning Good Morning
A Day in the Life (half)
I Am the Walrus
Strawberry Fields Forever
All You Need Is Love
Dear Prudence
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
Happiness Is a Warm Gun
Julia
Everybody’s Got Something to Hide
Cry Baby Cry
Come Together
I Want You
Because
Don’t Let Me Down
Dig a Pony
Across the Universe
The Ballad of John and Yoko
Instant Karma
Cold Turkey
Give Peace a Chance
Mother
Isolation Working Class Hero
Crippled Inside
Imagine
Woman
Watching the Wheels
Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
(ps/ plus many more songs: Please Mr. Postman, Money, Twist and Shout, et al)
…………………………………………..
The McCartney concert was, indeed, the concert of a lifetime, easily. But then I recalled all Lennon had done before he was assassinated some three decades before. Lennon was definitely my favorite in the Beatles–the voice, the delving within, the wit, the irony, the great lyrics, the humor. He did most of the Beatles’ early hits.
Macca certainly kept that band together. If it wasn’t for his concepts (Sgt. Pepper’s, Magical Mystery Tour, and Let It Be), his love of being in a band (which was coming apart for the last four years) and holding it together, his songwriting (which saved the last 2 projects mentioned), his work on Abbey Road, his obsessive love of playing and performing, his endless energy–there would have been no Magical, no Let It Be and a good chunk of Abbey.
But take another look at Lennon’s credits above, and ponder what role he played in the Beatles’ success and songwriting, and how those songs named affected you when you first heard them. Not surprisingly for me perhaps, most of the Beatles songs I sang and learned were his. He definitely spoke to me more in terms of subject matter, poetry, and language.
That all said, there are likely more pop song classics for the majority in Macca’s work. It would be interesting to pose a question for audiences everywhere: If you had a chance to go hear Macca or Lennon at 70 (we’ll have to imagine the latter–the concert we’ll never get to see), which of the two would you go to see? (Assuming Lennon was intact and had done several more albums and had regot the performer’s bug, too.)
I’d bet Macca despite everything I’ve said in this entry. But I’ve been wrong often and before.