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Post by stavros on Apr 10, 2014 17:17:14 GMT -5
Recently I've been listening to the old radio series "Beatles: Days in their Lives" (circa 1981) on my daily commute. I never really paid much attention to this track. It didn't feature on any official "John Lennon" album I possess. Unlike many other radio and TV series on the Beatles that swiftly end with the band splitting up in 1970, this one covers the stories of the four solo Beatles throughout the seventies. It concludes in the closing days of 1980. John was working on Yoko's track "Walking on Thin Ice" on that fateful December evening, Dec 8th 1980. One on which he'd played lead guitar and keyboards and was heavily involved with the production. Whilst I am normally not a fan of Yoko's work, I do find this track interesting, and not simply because it's the last track John ever worked on. For Yoko it is almost a commercial recording. In fact back in 1981 it did reach the lower reaches of the UK top 40. In interviews from late 1980 with John, he shows he had definitely not lost touch with the music scene. However it was a peculiar time. Disco was fading but still popular, punk had morphed into a more accessible "New Wave" sound and synthesizers had began to add to the palette of sounds used by new (and old) bands. If John had survived, I am wondering if this was a direction he may have taken with his music? Or would have left this to Yoko's releases and slowly have slid into the life of a comfy middle aged rock star like so many of his generation?
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Post by coachbk on Apr 10, 2014 22:05:37 GMT -5
I bought the single of Walking On Thin Ice back in 1981. It got a bit of airplay in the US as well. I love the guitar and Yoko's vocals fit perfectly. I think John would have continued mixing this type of stuff in with some of his more traditional songs.
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markc
Very Clean
Posts: 447
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Post by markc on Apr 11, 2014 8:07:30 GMT -5
Steve Miller obviously liked it too.
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Post by debjorgo on Apr 11, 2014 17:46:25 GMT -5
Elvis Costello liked it.
For a while, I was more familiar with this version than Yoko's.
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