The distance between us cynical infamous violent inhabitants of the planet in 2024 and the mad utopian sage John Lennon in 1973 can be measured by listening Mind Games. It is one of the great pieces of his songbook, with and without the Beatles. Inside there are theories on the raising of consciousness (sorry for the hippie stoner jargon), the word games and mind games typical of John & Yoko, the call for peace inherited from the first version of the song which was called Make Love, Not War. Lennon had changed the lyrics by putting the slogan “make love not war” in less prominence, convinced that it was old even then, let alone today. After all, he had been the one to sing about the end of the 60s, about the Beatles and even about God. In the end, however, he had given in to idealism again and started singing about a “druid dude” who pulls back the veil of knowledge and about an unspecified “guerrilla mind”, which is a bit like a Che pin and a bit like a magic potion. He even intoned an embarrassing line like “love is a flower that you have to make grow”. But you forgive Lennon this and more. You forgive Lennon everything.
Sean Lennon, who has now effectively inherited the management of his father's archive as his 91-year-old mother is no longer in top form, says that the album containing the song and which is also titled Mind Games It is a masterpiece, which is underrated, which we must rediscover. In order to do it properly, he has re-edited it in various versions, including extra-large ones. They are both a tribute to Lennon's writing and the skill of the musicians who accompanied him, and an in-depth exploration of the work for fans with a level of obsession worthy of Mark David Chapman, and a collector's item that can be purchased for the modest sum of 1570 euros (there are obviously versions that are affordable even for those who have not collected decades of royalties from Strawberry Fields Forever).
Unlike Sean Lennon, I don't think that Mind Games whether it's a masterpiece or underrated. It came out in the fall of 1973, making fans who were scared by the turn of events of the former Beatle, who was going around with “some questionable characters” (Sean again to Mojo) and had released an album of so-so, but very radical songs called Some Time in New York City. It's to be clear, the album it contains (I hope the moral police don't come and get me) Woman Is the Nigger of the World. It was all fists raised, Troubles, feminism, anti-racism and solidarity with comrades in prison. It wasn't exactly the stuff that many very bourgeois Beatles fans wanted to hear, who already blamed Ono for having ruined their favorite group because she was a woman, a slut and, what's more, an oriental (clearly feminism was needed). And anyway Some Time in New York City it was a memorable album more for its courage and spirit than for its songs. “It wasn't poetry anymore, it was journalism,” Lennon said in hindsight, having in fact had the cover laid out like the front page of a newspaper.
Coming a year later, in the period of crisis between John and Yoko that would lead to the Lost Weekend, Mind Games it was more like Imagine with its mix of post-hippie idealism, old rock'n'roll and love songs. Title track aside, it lacked the brilliance of the best moments of Imagine and debut. It was welcomed as a homecoming for the bad boy who had gotten lost due to bad company and who knows what else. This in hindsight, because the chronicles say that in England the 33 rpm did not go beyond the 13th position in the charts, beaten by the seventh place of Ringo of his friend Ringo Starr, to whom Lennon had given in I'm the Greatestnot to mention the results of Living in the Material World by George Harrison and by Band on the Run by Paul McCartney.
The great thing about Mind Gamesthe album, is that it contains Mind Gamesthe song whose title is taken from the book of the same name by Robert Masters and Jean Houston. Since the richest version of the reissue that will be released on Friday contains the same album in six different versions, reaching the remarkable figure of 72 tracks without a single unreleased song (but there are some gems), the box set also includes six Mind Games: the new Ultimate Mix (the album had already been remixed in 2002); the Elemental Mix which offers a sort of more stripped-down reinterpretation of the album; the Element Mixes which lets you hear only a few instruments, a maximum of three at a time, isolating them and removing the vocals; the Evolution Documentary conceived as a sort of audio documentary on the evolution of the song starting from the stage where the chorus was “make love, not war”; the Raw Studio Mix; take number 7. If this seems crazy to you, it's because you have a life.
However, comparing the Elemental Mix that makes you float weightlessly in the air and the Ultimate Mix of 2024, the joy, the unbridled spirit, the almost religious ecstasy that the song transmits emerge even more clearly in the latter, managing to bridge the distance that separates us from 1973, from the post-hippie dream, from the conceptual guerrilla warfare of John & Yoko. It is cosmic gospel full of (misplaced?) faith in humanity, with a touch of reggae inside. He said that just as man thought of flying to the Moon and then actually went there, the same thing could be done with peace. You think it, you make it happen. “A dream you dream alone is a dream, a dream you dream with others is reality.”
Sean Lennon is right about a couple of things: Mind Games It's the album where the father's voice has a notable presence, enhanced by the new mix, and the Element Mixes allow us to test the sensitivity of the musicians, ranging from guitarist David Spinozza to bassist Gordon Edwards, from keyboardist Ken Ascher to drummer Jim Keltner, but also Sneaky Pete Kleinow on pedal steel, Michael Brecker on saxophone, Rick Marotta on percussion, the backing vocalists Something Different. Excuse the boring list of names, but they are really cool people.
Keltner says he doesn't like remixed or remastered albums because he wants to hear the originals. He's absolutely right. The nostalgia market has reached the point of repeatedly reworking the masterpieces of the past, in some cases altering the balance between the original sounds, which may also be improvable or revised according to the sensitivity and technical means at our disposal, but it is still a piece of pop history and should not be altered. For example: the choice to delete Brecker's brief saxophone solo from the new mix of One Day (At a Time) brings us one step away from historical falsehood. What was the need? Why remove the mustache from Dalí's self-portrait? Ok, it's an exaggerated comparison, but we understand each other.
Keltner says that listening to the new version Mind Games it felt like he was back in the control room listening to the tracks again and deciding what to keep, what to change, what to eliminate. That's the point. Listening to the album again, diving deeper into the record made me appreciate it more. I fell for it. The rock'n'roll pieces still seem too scholastic to me, even if they now have a fuller sound, but I re-evaluated the magnificent presence of John's voice in Aisumasen (I'm Sorry) or the surrendered sweetness of Out of the Blue. I was pleased to hear Lennon mention One Day (At a Time) in his usual register in the Evolution Mix and I found myself screaming in unison with him in front of the stereo the “stop the killing!” of Bring On the Luciestuff I've never done before. Sorry for the pun: by listening to modest music so much, modest records by great artists seem like great records to us.
Until now many people thought that the sound quality of Mind Games was Lennon's fault and his inexperience, it is in fact the first album he produced himself. Listening to this reissue makes you think that this is not the case: the performances are remarkable, the sound too. But it is still a crazy operation, this super Mind GamesI say this with affection. I think of Beatley Tone, who has a YouTube channel on the Beatles and made a video review of the box set that lasts 75 minutes, almost double the length of the 1973 album, or Andrew Dixon, another Beatles creator, his lasts only 49 minutes. If you have a life, you're even more shocked than before, right?
Album reissues are becoming more and more a matter for connoisseur purposes or, if you look at it another way, for lunatics who wonder where the sax has gone. One Day (here I am). It happens because the over somethings are the ones most inclined to spend money, and a lot of it, on physical media that is not just a vinyl to frame and then continue listening to the album on Spotify. And it also happens because there aren't many roads left to take other than maniacal in-depth study after you have, in order, printed an old album on CD for the first time, remastered it as God commands since the first digital editions were not flawless from a sound point of view, re-edited it once again adding demos and alternative versions to the end, put it back on the market in a deluxe edition full of content and liner notes, remixed it changing the balance between the instruments. All you have to do is do what has been done with Mind Gamesputting in rich liner notes, vintage photos, old and new interviews, illustrating details of the recording, asking the fan to take apart the toy with you listening to various versions of the same songs. The innocence of when you first heard these songs is lost and compensated by the abundance of content. Hearing and reading the box set of Mind Games It's like watching a magician explain a trick to you. Perhaps it's no coincidence that Lennon's heirs entrusted the unboxing to magician Chris Ramsey.
It will go down in history, or rather it has already gone down in history. Mind Games original, which wasn't a great record in 1973 and isn't in the improved version of 2024. But being written and recorded by someone like John Lennon it's full of ideas that ultimately remain, because a good song from an idealist is always better than a bad activist song full of “right” slogans, because his dedications to Yoko were vibrant even if the two were momentarily separating, because if the usual rock'n'roll is played by a band like this it's fine anyway. And because we listen to certain records also for the world they evoke, which is the reason why Lennon is Lennon and that is something more than a “simple” musician.
To give you an idea, on April 1, 1973, in the midst of a complicated legal case surrounding Lennon's stay in the United States, John and Yoko announced the birth of a conceptual country, Nutopia. The declaration was printed in the album booklet. “It is possible to obtain citizenship by declaring oneself aware of its existence. Nutopia has no territory, no borders, no passports, only inhabitants. Nutopia has no laws other than cosmic ones. All citizens of Nutopia are also ambassadors. As ambassadors of Nutopia, we ask for diplomatic immunity and recognition of our country and its people by the United Nations.”
The flag was a white handkerchief, the national anthem, or rather the international anthem of Nutopia is contained in Mind Games: it's four seconds of silence (thanks, Mr. Cage). I prefer it to most of the songs by honest, committed, courageous activists I've heard in recent years.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM