‘Gimme Some Truth’ celebrates Lennon
Honoring ex-Beatle and cultural icon John Lennon on his 80th birthday, his estate reveals “Gimme Some Truth,” a 36-track deluxe compilation of songs remixed for a new decade.
The seeds of the project sprouted with widow and executive producer Yoko Ono’s desire to present alternative mixes of Lennon’s material, which might help bring the humanitarian message of his solo works to new audiences.
She, with son Sean Lennon, hand-picked the tracks, which follow no particular order, with the intent of staying true to John Lennon’s artistic taste. Throughout his career, he was known to place an emphasis on pronunciation and word choice.
The new “ultimate” mixes honor these characteristics by boosting his vocals and cleaning up the arrangements behind it with new clarifying studio tech.
Leading the 1970-1980 era collection, “Instant Karma” (ultimate mix) thunders along with Lennon’s heavy piano line, emphasized in the cautionary, yet positive jam about actions having immediate consequences.
“Cold Turkey,” (ultimate mix) an already dark, gritty Blues Rock song about him kicking a heroin addiction, is even more frenetic here with boosted bass and drums chugging along as Lennon’s agonizing hits highs and lows before fading into the ether.
Dreamlike “#9 Dream” (ultimate mix), jotted down quickly and without much more thought after waking, invites the listener on a surreal, experimental journey through a dream he had.
Lyrics like, “Dream, dream away. Magic in the air, was magic in the air?” and “On a river of sound, though the mirror go round, round I thought I could feel (x4) music touching my soul”
continue on like calm meditative mantras.
To scratch the Beatles itch, a live raucous version of “Come Together,” (1969) is included. While not credited as such, it sounds like it’s from a famous 1971 mini benefit concert in New York City, with his band at the time, Plastic Ono Band. Lennon didn’t play a ton of live shows in the latter half of his career, so live performances are easily recognizable.
Showing different shades of delicate expressions, “Isolation,” (ultimate mix), “God,” (ultimate mix) and “Woman,” (ultimate mix) are evidence of the hit-maker’s musical imagination. All similar-sounding and slow tempo, they cover topics ranging from the need of approval when you have everything you want, lashing out at critics and expressing gratitude toward women and the empowerment love can bring.
Even deep cuts like the posthumously released “I’m Stepping Out,” (1984) benefits from the new musical polishing.
Lennon’s impeccable rhythm guitar shines through the arrangement in this song about a house husband who needs to get out for a while.
Even though he wrote about myriad subjects, attraction to Lennon’s work was rooted in his ability to take autobiographical material and rework it into something universally relatable.