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(c) Ian Hammond 1999
All rights reserved

 
Only You
I've been slowly getting into the Lennon Anthology. There's lots of
good stuff and there's some things I could have lived without.
In between there's one or two really valuable gifts.
Lennon's guide track for Every Man Needs A Woman (or versa vice)
which came out on Milk And Honey was mostly interesting because
Lennon was so relaxed. He wasn't trying so damn hard to sell the
song. The Lennon Anthology has a couple of tracks in that category.
The lower-register version of One Day At A Time, which I prefer to
the falsetto thing is one.
Another is Only You, a track Lennon suggested and arranged for
Starr's Ringo album. The recording here is one of the takes with
Lennon's guide vocal. Lennon's guitar drives the track from start to
end.
Only You has Lennon at his smokey best and gives a glimpse of how
John might have sounded had he made his career in the fifties,
somewhere between Nat King Cole and Sam Cooke. Or can someone suggest
better models here? In any case we are reminded that Lennon did not
imitate the fifties. It was his period.
I would have loved to have an album of Lennon doing these kind of
ballads. It's a part of his voice that never quite got the exercise it
deserved. But in another time and another space, it might have been
just this kind of voice that would have become his trademark. He could
have been one cool crooner.
The note release is particularly effective with a tight little
quivering decay that seems to cut many of the notes short. The song is
peppered with subtle vocal twists and turns. 
What I find amazing is the way he brings out these husky tones that he
hasn't used on record since the Hamburg recording of Ain't She
Sweet. I think we forget that at the end of the battle, half the
arsenal remains unused in the cupboard. There's bits of Lennon we
never heard at all.
Harry Nilsson's backing vocals are spotless. But we already knew that.
There's a nice bit towards the end of the 'solo' where they're both
doo-dooing together like a couple of doves. 
Lennon stops the take with an impatient yeah, yeah. He was probably
thinking about everything but his voice during the recording.
There's a track on Milk And Honey called Forgive Me which I've
always liked because it has this same after-hours voice. Another one
of those deceptively simple Lennon ditties.
The Lennon Anthology continues with Grow Old With Me, Dear John,
The Great Wok, continuing the relaxed, reflective tone of this song.
Chronologically Only You belongs to CD2. I imagine they moved it to
this group to strengthen the end of the Anthology. In any case, the
sum result is an oasis of relative calm for a Mr. Lennon.
ian hammond
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"maybe you have heard me before"