Tagged: ifreakinlovethissong

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song Craig Golding, Getty Images Pop songs can be life-changing -- and the thing about their life-changing abilities is that they very rarely give you any warning when they're about to come along and change your life. I know exactly where I was when Cold Chisel's 'Forever Now' had me entranced. I was 15, in the lounge of the family home near Wellington, New Zealand, and the big old stereo was tuned to [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song Jealous Guy,' John Lennon From 1971's 'Imagine' "I was dreaming of the past/And my heart was beating fast" are John Lennon 's timeless opening lyrics. The emotion and regret that Lennon conveys in this songs show a human side of an icon who fronted a band that he once claimed to be "bigger than Jesus." The raw sincerity complemented by the epic production of Phil Spector peel [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song , Guest Blogger 'Happiness Is a Warm Gun,' The Beatles From 1968's 'The Beatles' (The White Album) The Beatles ' 'Happiness Is A Warm Gun' kills me because it is a brilliant stringing of a few unfinished melody ideas fusing phases of rock 'n' roll up to that point in 1968 -- including doo-wop, psychedelia and hard rock -- with the inimitable John Lennon wordplay. Digging [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song Hold On,' John Lennon From 1970s 'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band' When it comes to Beatlemania, I rank my particular strain of the syndrome as being as acute as it can manifest itself. That meant as a teen in the 1970s owning both US and British import vinyl, almost every mono and stereo variation, and enough Beatles bootleg LPs to have me looking over my shoulder in case the [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song 'Attica State,' John Lennon From 1972's 'Some Time in New York City The lyrics of 'Attica State' are seldom considered among John Lennon's finest, but it's the unspoken part of this song off Lennon's third solo album, 'Some Time in New York City,' that deserves attention. On Sept. 9, 1972, at approximately 8:20AM, a riot broke out at the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York. [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song , Guest Blogger Editor's Note: Singer-songwriter Ben Lee has contributed an I Freakin' Love This Song on a John Lennon track in which Lennon employs a racial slur to make a point about the plight of women. Below, Lee performs a video version of the controversial song that also contains the incendiary word, which we deem appropriate to present in this context. ' Woman is the N----- [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song 'God,' John Lennon From 1970's 'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band' Back in the days before social networking, blogging and Twitter, bands had to find other ways to deliver their message. So if you're John Lennon , the Beatles have just ended and you're looking for a place to make a definitive statement on your past and present, where do you turn? Song, of course. That [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song 'I'm So Tired,' The Beatles From 1968's 'The Beatles' (The White Album) I'm ashamed to admit that I fell for the Beatles during the 'Twist and Shout' scene in 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off.' Not that I didn't love the movie -- I'm just embarrassed I wasn't into the Beatles sooner. I blame my parents, who simply didn't get the world's greatest band. Dad never made [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song 'Crippled Inside,' John Lennon From 1971's 'Imagine' John Lennon was in no laughing mood in 1971. The bitter breakup of the Beatles , antagonism toward Yoko , the atrocities of Vietnam, his increasing awareness of his own feelings of abandonment -- for the most widely revered pop star of his time, there was nothing much to smile about. After the soul-searching material of [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song I Am the Walrus, The Beatles B-side of 1967 single 'Hello Goodbye' When I first heard the pulsating, hypnotic sound of 'I Am the Walrus' in 1967, John Lennon was well into a mind-bending musical journey that helped usher in the psychedelic rock era. The Beatles ruled rock 'n' roll, and Lennon was determined to push the limits of music production to create new sounds. [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song 'You've Got the Hide Your Love Away,' The Beatles From 1965's 'Help' It's no secret that this song is Dylanesque. So being that I'm a Bob Dylan fan, this tune, complete with tambourine, gravelly vocals and "Hey!" transitions, speaks to me. John Lennon himself admitted he was heavily influenced by Dylan during the time he wrote the song, telling Rolling Stone in 1971 that [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song 'Yes It Is,' The Beatles B-Side of 1965's 'Ticket to Ride' Single As a B-side to 'Ticket to Ride,' this Lennon -composed tune may be one of the lesser-known songs from the Beatles canon, but back when I was in junior high and had really started to "discover" the Fab Four, 'Yes It Is' worked its way into my brain and hasn't come out since. With a [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song 'Working Class Hero,' John Lennon From 1970's 'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band' The Beatles were always a passive sort of political. Even 'Revolution,' despite its fist-raised sonics, criticizes the protest movement's increasing aggression, demurring "you can count me out." But maybe John Lennon was being held back by the Cute One , because his first solo album, 'John Lennon/Plastic [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song 'I Believe in a Thing Called Love,' The Darkness From 2003's 'Permission to Land' Technically, I'm an '80s baby, but I didn't really grow up in that decade. Fortunately, there are more recent bands like the Darkness that (briefly) take over the airwaves and pay homage to the great music from before I was born. And when American radio was exposed to [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song 'Revolution,' The Beatles 1968 single The shift from mop-topped popsmiths to rock 'n' roll revolutionaries can be traced to this aptly titled track. Its blistering three-and-a-half minutes begins with John Lennon 's heavily distorted guitar and double-tracked scream, a far cry from 'I Want To Hold You Hand.' But the lyrics also display Lennon's conflicted feelings toward the counterculture uprisings of 1968. 'Revolution' [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song 'Hello Goodbye,' The Beatles 1967 single One of the first-ever Beatles records I got when I was a teenager in the late '80s was '20 Greatest Hits.' Originally released in 1982, it was a collection of the Fab Four's No. 1 U.S. singles. (This was 18 years before the 'Beatles 1' album and is now out of print). On Side Two of that vinyl LP is 'Hello Goodbye,' which over time has become one of [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song 'Don't Let Me Down,' The Beatles B-side of 1969 single 'Get Back' In the John Lennon /Paul McCartney debate, I've always been a Lennon guy. I admire both, though: 'In My Life,' a Lennon composition, and 'Golden Slumbers,' a McCartrney track, are my two favorite Beatles songs. But there was something about John Lennon. When I was younger, it was the image -- the [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song 'I Feel Fine,' The Beatles 1964 single OK, so maybe it's not the most poetic song in the Beatles' canon, but who could deny its importance? 'I Feel Fine' is the type of song you can't necessarily recall hearing for the first time -- it has always just existed, as if it came pre-loaded in our brains. And anybody who's ever attempted to learn to play the [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song 'Tomorrow Never Knows,' The Beatles From 1966's 'Revolver' Little brothers are good for some things. Other than being my adolescent punch bag, mine introduced me to the 'Revolver' closer, 'Tomorrow Never Knows.' He segued my first listen of the song during our teens, hoping to earn some street cred, with the line, "It's way before its time." Despite my being 18 months his senior, he was [...]

Filed under: I Freakin' Love This Song 'I've Got a Feeling,' The Beatles From 1969's 'Let It Be' Now, I'm not trying to pick a lesser-known track just to seem cool or anything -- 'I've Got a Feeling' just happens to bring me back to the age when the Beatles became a meaningful part of my life. Being the child of parents who grew up in the '60s, I could always name all [...]