John Lennon: reggae man
AS a songwriter John Lennon is rated among the best in pop music. With Paul Mccartney he wrote some of The Beatles’ classic hits including You Won’t Need Me and Ob-la-di, Obla-da.
Both songs have strong reggae connections. You Won’t Need Me was covered by The Clarendonians while Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da was inspired by the ska/rocksteady craze in the United Kingdom during the 1960s.
Lennon, who was murdered 40 years ago today in New York City, admired Jamaican music. He dabbled with reggae as early as 1970 on the song Paper Shoes, from his wife Yoko Ono’s album, Yoko Ono/plastic Ono Band.
In a 1979 interview with a New York radio station, Lennon discussed his love for reggae.
“In the last 10 years, one of the things I miss about England is reggae. But in the last 10 years a lot of Caribbean people have come here from Haiti, from Jamaica and it’s getting very hip, the reggae,” he said. “It’s more different than England’s reggae, there’s more R&B in it. Down in Brooklyn, they’re doing it.”
Lennon left The Beatles in 1969 and moved to New York City two years later. Like the UK in the 1960s, Brooklyn experienced a burst of migration from the Caribbean during the 1970s. Jamaicans took their sound system culture there and to neighbouring boroughs of Queens and The Bronx.
It was that energy Lennon noticed. At the time of his interview, he was working on Double Fantasy, his comeback album for Geffen Records. It was released in November 1980, one month before his death.
Woman, one of the songs from Double Fantasy, was number one in Jamaica for several weeks in early 1981.