The Ballad Of John And Yoko | Page 3 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

TheWalrusWasBrian said

its way more lennon than Beatle

If you look at it in the context of its original form, being that it is the A-Side of a single which also featured ‘Old Brown Shoe ‘ on the flipside, it’s a pretty concise group effort all around…  George & Ringo dominate the B-Side to offset this latest Lennon/McCartney showcase to the world…

Of course it had to be John who makes ‘The Ballad of John & Yoko’ the statement song that it is…  Only 3 years had passed since John had first made his “Jesus comments” which had rocked the Bible Belt and many other faithful worldwide…  comments which he had to reluctantly apologize for publicly (and ultimately had him killed, in my opinion)…  here he is in 1969 now, not only declaring to his inner circle that he IS Jesus Christ, but immortalizing it forever on a Beatles’ single…  while there were many radio programmers who were not too keen on airing it, it still became a HUGE hit…  seemingly vindicating his controversial views of Christianity…

and as if that wasn’t enough…  just over a year later he uncategorically states to the world “I don’t believe in Jesus” on, what many believe to be his greatest solo work, the ‘Plastic Ono Band’ record…  all of this making his 1966 remarks to Maureen Cleave seem tame by comparison…  yet, Lennon’s legendary status as a genius only escalated afterwards…  the “family album” portrayal of his union with Yoko on this single is really just a side show to what was really going on with John at the time…  I love the “what do you got to tell me this time old man in the sky!?” attitude that comes across…  excellent…:-)   

My favorite lines are

“Made a lightning trip to Vienna, eating chocolate cake in a bag”

and

“Think!”

Ahhh Girl said
Yep, I like that first line too. I like it so much, I named my dog Sacher Torte.

https://www.beatlesbible.com/1…..to-vienna/

Lennon and Ono spent the night at the Hotel Sacher, where they enjoyed the famous rich chocolate cake Sacher Torte.

My Sacher Torte…

  

beautiful dog!  How do you call out to her? “Here, Sacher”?  Do you pronounce it in German fashion?

looks like it would sound like “Soccer” which would be cool

More thoughts on this song. I’m still working on the 2-note guitar lick I think should replace what John does every third time in the “Christ you it ain’t easy” sections.

Also, they should have invited Mick Jagger to shake the maracas and provide some backup vocals towards the end as it gets more rompy — not too overtly but just enough so you can make his voice out (like in “You’re So Vain”)

Found a guitarist who does the 2-note guitar lick EXACTLY like I imagined it should be — only difference is he puts it as the 2nd of the 4 licks of the “Christ” refrain.  I still think it should be 3rd, but at least I can feel the satisfaction of hearing it in the song.

Actually, upon listening to it yet again, I notice John DOES do the 2-note lick the way I like it (on the 2nd of the 4, good enough) at the last “Christ” portion of the song. 

Timothy said
I like the backstory about the recording, how Paul was looking out for John after the bigger than Jesus drama, due to the song’s use of Christ. And the way their dynamic in the studio while recording the song seemed rather good despite the overall mood of that time. 

  

Since the Jesus brouhaha erupted in early 1966, one would have thought it had long subsided by the time April 1969 rolled around.