Wives & Lovers

[Amor de Cosmos]

A decent article in the current Believer on women who've been close to major rock stars, and how it's affected their sense selfhood. Interesting, to me, mainly because though I knew most of their stories individually, collectively they're are particularly powerful, and very sad.

Without You I'm Nothing

[MsD]

Wives & Lovers

Thanks, very interesting.

[ursus arctos]

Wives & Lovers

Thrilled to see that my fears that Amor had started a Jack Jones / Ray Conniff/ Mantovani / Percy Faith thread were utterly unfounded.

Article sounds very interesting. A number of memoirs have appeared recently.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Wives & Lovers

Thrilled to see that my fears that Amor had started a Jack Jones / Ray Conniff/ Mantovani / Percy Faith thread were utterly unfounded.

Now there's a thought. I read just the other day that Mitch Miller was a massive pothead, so I'm sure there are MOR stories to be told.

Article sounds very interesting. A number of memoirs have appeared recently.

The only book she cites I've read is Marianne Faithfull's, which is excellent, and I'll definitely read Suze Rotolo's. But, as I said, it's the critical mass of the experiences which is so affecting. Being on the other side of the creative process, but at the same time sharing your life with it, feeling "the pain of having your pain appropriated" must be as Molotkow says, "both benevolent and Vampiric."

[G-Man]

Wives & Lovers

ursus arctos wrote: Thrilled to see that my fears that Amor had started a Jack Jones / Ray Conniff/ Mantovani / Percy Faith thread were utterly unfounded.

Although a thread on the Mad Menesque sexism in 1960s radio music would be interesting. It is always a source if wonder to me that Hal David, the same man who wrote some of the most beautiful lyrics in pop, could have written misogynistic shit like "Wives and Lovers" and "Wishin' And Hopin'" -- and that a strong woman like Dusty Springfield should have sung it rather than giving her A&R man a knee to the groin.

Anyway, maybe some other time.

[Bored Of Education]

Wives & Lovers

Haven't had time to read the whole article but its appearance reminds me of the hallowed place that Yoko Ono appears to have in the Beatles legacy especially compared to Cynthia Lennon.

One way this displayed itself was that Julian Lennon seemed to constantly be seen as some sort of bland copyist trading off his dad's name while Sean Lennon was seen as a hipster artist. While I found Julian Lennon's music rubbish, he and his mother were badly treated by Lennon and he obviously didn't get a leg up from his father but he seemingly didn't get anything apart from opprobrium for being his father's son - the cheek of having the same name and sounding like him. As it goes, he has always come across as a nice guy with a realistic view of his father.

Sean Lennon, on the other hand, has been embraced by the music industry - being courted by the Beastie Boys, Lennie Kravitz, Michael Jackson - and seen as a real artist in his own right (even though he has covered just as many Beatles songs as Julian). As an aside, he was educated in fairly exclusive private education while Julian ended up going through a series of state schools in Liverpool and North Wales where, you can imagine, being John Lennon's son is going to get mixed reaction.

I have no idea what Sean Lennon is like as a person and dislike Julian's music as much as his (although neither as much as Yoko's horrendous output) but their differing treatment is interesting - especially when you consider Ono has the perception as the woman who broke up the Beatles.

It is also illustrated by the treatment Linda McCartney got. She seemed like a nice enough woman but got dog's abuse especially in comparison to Ono. The charge that she was a talentless musician and singer living off her husband's name doesn't work as Ono is just as much, if not more, guilty of that.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Wives & Lovers

Yoko Ono was widely seen as a horrendous joke until she hit retirement age, don't forget. Greeted with naked (heh) post-war racism at first, and anti-arty farty disdain thereafter. She didn't really get much praise until this century.

From that article:

“Cynthia, a Nice Person without imagination,” Faber writes in his Guardian review, “is simply not equipped to analyse the man who wrote ‘Imagine.’”

Surely that would make her just the woman for the job.

[ursus arctos]

Wives & Lovers

Indeed, it is very strange to me to hear Yoko being referred to as the less vilified of the group. It must have something to do with my age.

Although a thread on the Mad Menesque sexism in 1960s radio music would be interesting. It is always a source if wonder to me that Hal David, the same man who wrote some of the most beautiful lyrics in pop, could have written misogynistic shit like "Wives and Lovers" and "Wishin' And Hopin'" -- and that a strong woman like Dusty Springfield should have sung it rather than giving her A&R man a knee to the groin.

Wives and Lovers was the first song whose lyrics ever made me sit up and say "What?" and ask my mother if I heard them correctly. I think I was 6 or 7.

[MsD]

Wives & Lovers

It has a fab tune and I've always found it pretty funny - the idea of running to someone's arms everyday.

Easy enough to write a flip version

"Don't sit around in your pants, eating cornflakes
Burping and farting all day"

[Bored Of Education]

Wives & Lovers

Yoko Ono was widely seen as a horrendous joke until she hit retirement age, don't forget. Greeted with naked (heh) post-war racism at first, and anti-arty farty disdain thereafter. She didn't really get much praise until this century.

Yeah, agreed. It was more since Lennon's death that I was thinking of through to this recent period where her and Sean seem to reflecting credibility on each other, culminating in her recently curating the Meltdown and appearing at Glastonbury.

Has she lived, Linda McCartney wouldn't have got this and she could brought out versions of Jet, Live and Let Die and Band on the Run.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Wives & Lovers

ursus arctos wrote:
Wives and Lovers was the first song whose lyrics ever made me sit up and say "What?" and ask my mother if I heard them correctly. I think I was 6 or 7.

Different times for sure. The unchallenged acceptance that, of course men would cheat on their wives, they just couldn't help it.

For instance the late Gerry Goffin had an ongoing relationship with Earl-Jean McRae of The Cookies — the Brill building's house vocal group. She was pregnant with his child when she recorded I'm Into Something Good, (a title that's perhaps unfortunate in the circumstances) a song written for her by Goffin and his wife Carole King. The couple went on to support McRae's daughter financially through childhood. CK has, I guess, an extremely forgiving nature. Though it's hard to understand why, or how, she could collaborate on a song that seems to celebrate her husband's infidelity. But that's the way it was.