Lennon's "Watching the Wheels" -- C/D?

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I'll say it right out -- I'm no fan of Double Fantasy. The Yoko material is cloying (and I like Yoko), and the best John moments are utterly ruined by the slick Jack "Let's put steel drums on this" Douglass production (which doesn't help the worst John moments either, for that matter).

But this song...well, this song's always killed for me. Yes, it's his "answer to the critics," which is self-serving for sure. And yes, it still has the production. But it also has that rolling piano line, the great exposed double-tracked vocal and that "No longah riding on the merr-ee-go-row-HOUND!!" falsetto, which is so classic it hurts. I love it.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Saturday, 26 June 2004 16:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes agreed. It sounds rather like a Beatles tune. Good obv.

― de, Saturday, 26 June 2004 17:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Just listened to it last night. I totally agree about the production, it really stiffles most of the songs. Was this considered "top-end" at the time?

Great song though.

― David Allen (David Allen), Saturday, 26 June 2004 17:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm by no means a Lennon fan, but it's one of my favourites of his solo songs. Beautiful melody, great vocal. Classic.

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Saturday, 26 June 2004 17:51 (twenty-one years ago)

there's a nice acoustic demo floating around of that song, i downloaded it but maybe it's from that lennon box set - anyway hearing that solves your production problem...but loses the "rolling piano line, the great exposed double-tracked vocal" etc

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Saturday, 26 June 2004 17:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Quite good. I haven't heard it for a while, so I can't comment on the production.

― Rockist Scientist, Saturday, 26 June 2004 17:56 (twenty-one years ago)

It doesn't sound like the Beatles to me though, it sounds entirely like a Lenon song.

― Rockist Scientist, Saturday, 26 June 2004 17:57 (twenty-one years ago)

i love this song more than I can say

― kyle (akmonday), Saturday, 26 June 2004 18:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I love the production on Double Fantasy! There's only a steel drum on that one song--why is that so heinous? It's a really involved, wacky production throughout. I think this is John's best solo album and "Watching the Wheels" is not even one of my favorite songs on the thing.

― Tim Ellison, Saturday, 26 June 2004 19:40 (twenty-one years ago)

I think John himself was really involved with the production on the album, actually, no?

― Tim Ellison, Saturday, 26 June 2004 20:05 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm sure he was. But the production just about ruins "Beautiful Boy", which was sentimental enough already -- directness was what it needed. "I'm Losing You" needs to be tough -- it isn't, perhaps surprising coming from the producer of Aerosmith and Radio Ethiopia. "(Just Like) Starting Over" is a good song that harkens back to Lennon's work w/ Spector, but it still feels...tepid somehow.

But really, I'm not all that interested in all that. "Watching the Wheels" has just always hit me hard.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Saturday, 26 June 2004 22:09 (twenty-one years ago)

totally klassik!

― geeta (geeta), Saturday, 26 June 2004 23:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Matthew, I agree with what you say. Maybe I like the production because my favorite songs on the album are "Starting Over," "Cleanup Time," and some of Yoko's songs. Can you imagine how much worse "Starting Over" and "Cleanup Time" would have sounded if they had been recorded for Mind Games?

― Tim Ellison, Saturday, 26 June 2004 23:32 (twenty-one years ago)

i really like the double fantasy demos on that lennon anthology thing (only real reason to buy it). even "woman" sounds exquisite.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Sunday, 27 June 2004 00:46 (twenty-one years ago)

the production just about ruins "Beautiful Boy", which was sentimental enough already

I dunno, I don't like the Beatles that much and like J. Lennon's solo work even less, plus I don't even like children, at all, but "Beautiful Boy" seems pretty great to me.

― retort pouch (retort pouch), Sunday, 27 June 2004 01:04 (twenty-one years ago)

The boxed-set alternate version of "I'm Losing You" with the Cheap Trick guys is much tougher sounding.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Sunday, 27 June 2004 01:11 (twenty-one years ago)

his later songs sound like he's recycling the same bag of melodic tricks he'd had for decades without any appreciable benefits. i find this song really dull.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 27 June 2004 03:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know if I think that's true of "Starting Over."

― Tim Ellison, Sunday, 27 June 2004 03:11 (twenty-one years ago)

well that's kind a late 50s teen pop throwback in its melody and aspects of the arrangement, i guess. not unlike the stuff on "rock and roll."

IIRC -- it's been a while since i heard it.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 27 June 2004 03:24 (twenty-one years ago)

"starting over" has a v. blatant steal from "don't worry baby" - compare the "it's like we both are falling in love" bit in the former to the "when she makes love to me" bit in the latter.

the best lennon song from this period (by a mile) is "serve yourself," a blistering response to "gotta serve somebody." possibly the most bile-filled song he ever wrote (even stronger than "how do you sleep"), and it's nothing like anything he'd ever done before. it's a shame he never got to finish it.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Sunday, 27 June 2004 05:24 (twenty-one years ago)

i love that song (Watching the Wheels), but i too find the album production, well, thin. there is something very AM radio-sounding (literally, high, tinny, not a lot of midranges or bottom)

― Orbit (Orbit), Sunday, 27 June 2004 08:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Ricky Wright is OTM about the Cheap Trick-backed version of "I'm Losing You." Earl Slick is no Rick Nielsen, that's for sure. Although he's a great Earl Slick.

― phil dennison, Sunday, 27 June 2004 15:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Gorgeous. And I'm not even a Lennon fan.

― (I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and) Whittle Away My Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Sunday, 27 June 2004 22:51 (twenty-one years ago)

A tough song to listen to. The production even makes it, makes it a tough song to listen to. Strange & I can't think of anything quite like it. Attack & gleeful retreat. Very beautiful.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Sunday, 27 June 2004 23:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Surely the song was based (at least musically) almost entirely on Imagine.

― Jez (Jez), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 07:37 (twenty-one years ago)

"Serve Yourself" to me just sounds like a Jim Royle comedy number. But, in a good way la.

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 08:08 (twenty-one years ago)

This is my Dad's favourite song. I like it a lot.

― dog latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 10:46 (twenty-one years ago)

I read somewhere before that Lennon was subsequently disappointed with Double Fantasy after he heard Springsteen's The River LP. He preferred the production on that and said he should have made his album harder sounding. Interesting that Lennon said he had been listening to Joy Division and Wire in an interview a few days before he was killed.

― David Gunnip (David Gunnip), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 11:02 (twenty-one years ago)

This song is so classic. It's like "I'm Only Sleeping" to "I'm so Tired" to this. Lennon wrote the best sitting-around-and-wanking-off songs. Take that, Brian Wilson!

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 15:06 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't know if it's just his singing, but i get this uncomfortable sense of would-be moral superiority in lennon's songs on that subject, something i only get occasionally from wilson. (anyway wilson seems so sincerely maladjusted and awkward that it seems forgiveable.)

― amateur!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 15:29 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

this really is a gorgeous song. the more i listen to it the more i think it might be one of my ten favorite singles of the '80s.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Saturday, 13 August 2005 07:28 (twenty years ago)

I remember Noel Gallagher opining that this song was the one that got Lennon killed, because it somehow implied that Lennon wasn't "for real" anymore, or somesuch. I quite like the song, it definitely has some nice melodic turns in it, but I find it hard to hear it in any other way in light of what Gallagher the Elder said.

― Deluxe (Damian), Saturday, 13 August 2005 11:24 (twenty years ago)

Classic. This is the one Lennon track as good as the Yoko stuff. I prefer Milk & Honey anyway.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 13 August 2005 13:00 (twenty years ago)

this is my dad's very favourite song.

― dog latin (dog latin), Saturday, 13 August 2005 13:02 (twenty years ago)

I love this song more than I can say.

However, I don't like the song 'More than I Can Say'

― PappaWheelie II, Saturday, 13 August 2005 17:22 (twenty years ago)

this is a serious crock of shit, mark david chapman was a lunatic who believed an army of "little people" were telling him what to do. i don't think who or what was "for real" was of paramount concern to him... of course, noel gallagher's grasp on reality is pretty tenuous too & i certainly wouldn't let him ruin this very good song for you.

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Sunday, 14 August 2005 15:45 (twenty years ago)

The version from the 2004 "Acoustic" comp is pretty spectacular.

So's the original.

― marc h. (marc h.), Sunday, 14 August 2005 16:25 (twenty years ago)

For the record, Gallagher's right. It stems from Chapman's obsession with Catcher in the Rye. Unfortunately, Chapman never figured out what Caulfield did -- that you can't smear out every curse word, you can't save everybody "when a body meets a body, comin' through the rye." /english student

― marc h. (marc h.), Sunday, 14 August 2005 16:28 (twenty years ago)

Song so good it hurts.

― Mark (MarkR), Sunday, 14 August 2005 21:58 (twenty years ago)

Sort of interesting to compare this song to Pete Townshend's "Slit Skirts" from two years later.

― Mark (MarkR), Sunday, 14 August 2005 22:03 (twenty years ago)

Do you think this song is honest, though? (setting aside for a moment whether it matters). Was Lennon as happy doing nothing as he says? At least some of the time he was watching the wheels he was a heroin addict, and it's easy to enjoy watching shadows on the wall when you're on the nod. I like to think he achieved some peace by this point but I don't know.

― Mark (MarkR), Sunday, 14 August 2005 22:20 (twenty years ago)

I wasn't aware that he was a heroin addict at any stage during his house-husband period, but then again, the only bio I've read of Lennon is the Ray Coleman one, which is probably one of the more sycophantic ones on offer. But Lennon did more or less say "life doesn't end when you stop subscribing to Cashbox" (apologies if that's not the precise quote) so there's some truth in the sentiment of the song.

― Deluxe (Damian), Monday, 15 August 2005 09:54 (twenty years ago)

See only one I've read is the Goldman one so I probably have bad info.

― Mark (MarkR), Monday, 15 August 2005 13:42 (twenty years ago)

I just think the state he describes in this song is something to aspire to, and I like to think it was real for him and not just wishful thinking.

― Mark (MarkR), Monday, 15 August 2005 13:43 (twenty years ago)

It doesn't matter whether the song and Lennon's life coincide.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 15 August 2005 13:46 (twenty years ago)

This is one of few solo Lennon songs I like. So, classic.

― The Mad Puffin (The Mad Puffin), Monday, 15 August 2005 14:15 (twenty years ago)

(setting aside for a moment whether it matters)

― Mark (MarkR), Monday, 15 August 2005 14:21 (twenty years ago)

haha messageboards.

― marc h. (marc h.), Monday, 15 August 2005 16:17 (twenty years ago)

a lot of the demos lennon recorded in the last years of his life sound pretty sad and despairing, like the flip-side of "watching the wheels." i've got a tape of them somewhere: there's one he recorded a few days before he died where he recalls yoko saving him from a suicide attempt, and another one where he keeps singing "my life, take it, it's yours." pretty chilling. but i think the sentiment of WTW is sincere: even if you assume the worst he certainly must've had his good days as well.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 05:28 (twenty years ago)

goddamn this is great.

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 06:03 (twenty years ago)

The book Lennon in America: 1971-1980, Based in Part on the Lost Lennon Diaries suggests that Lennon was in fact a heroin/methadone addict up until his final days. Unfortunately this all comes from Geoffrey Giuliano - one creepy dude who I wouldn't trust.

― darin (darin), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 17:56 (twenty years ago)

WTW is great. Can we have a #9 Dream thread next? Always a borderline Stendahl syndrome attack when I hear that, esp. coming from a cheap radio.

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 19:07 (twenty years ago)

It's strange that even though this song has kind of a "twilight of life' feel to it (probably enhanced because of his early death), Lennon was only in his late 30s when he wrote this.

― 57 7th (calstars), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 19:26 (twenty years ago)

There's something really wonderful (and appropriate) about the fact that dog latin said that this was his/her dad's favourite song — twice, no less.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 21:21 (twenty years ago)

I don't think I really appreciated this song fully at the time it came out. Then a few months ago I heard it in my head for no reason. It seemed to fit the way I felt. I heard it in a store last night and was just in awe, really.

― The Spiderwebbed Wilderness (Bimble...), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 21:44 (twenty years ago)

As for whether Lennon was being honest in its lyric or not—whether or not he was actually as happy as he seems to be saying—I suppose I question the premise to an extent.

To start with, in a career filled with painfully honest confessions(even if Lennon sometimes confused bluntness for honesty), the line "I just had to let it go" has to be among his most painfully honest — an admission that the thing that made him happiest—making music—was essentially killing him. For that matter, "I'm just sitting here doing time" doesn't exactly indicate that languishing in the Dakota was Lennon's idea of nirvana.

Still, I can't imagine some rock star confessional is why this song resonates with so many people — and on this thread alone, you can see the warm feelings the song engenders. And there is genuine affection in lines like "I really love to watch them roll".

I don't know — perhaps it's only somewhat intentional, perhaps I'm projecting. But it seems the song's underlying sentiment is about growing up — entering adulthood and accepting the responsibilities of things like family and parenthood. An acceptance of the idea that there are some things more important than our dreams. It's a heavy, wistful concept — and not particularly rock and roll.

At any rate, "Watching the Wheels" is the one song on Double Fantasy that conveys to the public what Lennon so badly wanted to on the record: maturity — deep, meaningful, and resonant. And this song aside, he failed to. And frankly, I'm not sure anyone in popular music has been able to since.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 22:26 (twenty years ago)

The song about cleaning up the house totally conveys maturity!

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 22:44 (twenty years ago)

... and is more enjoyable for me than this slightly sad song. Same goes for "Starting Over."

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 22:45 (twenty years ago)

Off topic, and I've talked about it on here before, but does anyone other than me LIKE the sound/production on Double Fantasy? I think that's a great sounding record.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 22:53 (twenty years ago)

Matthew's last post completely OTM. In terms of songs since that talk about maturity in a sophisticated way, I'm thinking again about Townshend's "Slit Skirts". In a way it describes a state of mind that might exist just before getting to the peace of Lennon's song.

I didn't phrase it quite right, but I wasn't thinking of honesty in terms of Lennon's life so much as emotional honesty. Sometimes I wonder how hard it might be to achieve the outlook song describes, letting go of your ego like that without regret.

Leonard Cohen is being discussed in another thread, and this song reminds me of a great quote of his from an interview a couple years ago:

"Roshi said something nice to me one time. He said that the older you get, the lonelier you become, and the deeper the love you need. Which means that this hero that you're trying to maintain as the central figure in the drama of your life -- this hero is not enjoying the life of a hero. You're exerting a tremendous maintenance to keep this heroic stance available to you, and the hero is suffering defeat after defeat. And they're not heroic defeats; they're ignoble defeats. Finally, one day you say, "Let him die -- I can't invest any more in this heroic position." From there, you just live your life as if it's real -- as if you have to make decisions even though you have absolutely no guarantee of any of the consequences of your decisions."

― Mark (MarkR), Tuesday, 16 August 2005 23:22 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

I can't believe the praise this song gets.

It really is standard late-period solo Lennon fare..dull repetitive tinkling away at the ivories on a variation of 'three blind mice'/'imagine', don't go into the chorus first time to raise a bit of expectation, and then an uplifting chorus bit.

Listening to Double Fantasy and Milk and Honey recently really brought it back to me what a poor state his songwriting was in by the late 70s. He was out of practice and - for the most part - didn't have anything to say.

He was his own harshest critic so I'm sure he was well aware of how bad things had got.

― Bob Six (bobbysix), Monday, 26 September 2005 14:58 (twenty years ago)

I heard this song for the first time in years a few days ago in a sandwich shop. Yeah. It was nice.

― W i l l (common_person), Monday, 26 September 2005 17:52 (twenty years ago)

Albert Goldman really laid into him for the "three blind mice" thing in his book. Rare to read about songwriting technique in a rock bio.

― Mark (MarkR), Monday, 26 September 2005 18:17 (twenty years ago)

And what a lovely variation on "Three Blind Mice" this song is.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 26 September 2005 18:38 (twenty years ago)

Rare but welcome. After reading Goldman and Barry Miles' Paul bio, I feel like I know a story about most Beatles songs.

― W i l l (common_person), Monday, 26 September 2005 18:41 (twenty years ago)

ten years pass...

This demo is pretty damned great – haunting in some places, piss-taking in others.

https://youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=v5ESy4ZnPRs

― Naive Teen Idol, Sunday, 27 December 2015 04:14 (ten years ago)

This song is better than Imagine

― lute bro (brimstead), Sunday, 27 December 2015 04:36 (ten years ago)

Ridiculously brilliant song

― Pentenema Karten, Sunday, 27 December 2015 07:12 (ten years ago)

This song sounds like death to me. "Woman" sounds like death to me. "Starting Over" sounds like death to me. They were all played on the radio incessantly at the time he was killed.

I wish I could be a younger person and hear these songs outside of that context.

― Josefa, Sunday, 27 December 2015 09:13 (ten years ago)

Psuedo Echo's cover of "Funky Town", originally by Lipps Inc.

― random access maladies (hypehat), Sunday, 27 December 2015 13:07 (ten years ago)

Fucking zing, sorry

― random access maladies (hypehat), Sunday, 27 December 2015 13:07 (ten years ago)

I wish I could be a younger person and hear these songs outside of that context.

― Josefa, Sunday, December 27, 2015 4:13 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's nice. "Hot in Herre" by Nelly sounds like death to me.

― flappy bird, Sunday, 27 December 2015 17:23 (ten years ago)

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