September 11: John Lennon and Yoko Ono on the Dick Cavett Show 1971
John Lennon and Yoko Ono made their first appearance on The Dick Cavett show on September 11, 1971 to present their new work. They do small-talk and jokes around. They discuss John Lennon’s evolving career. It is mostly a PR-job: showing some film clips and Yoko plays a track from the album Fly.
John Lennon is the star here, as always, and Cavett sometimes has problems following Lennon’s constant stream of wittiness. Lennon had just released the Imagine album in the U.S. (Sept.9,1971), which climbing the charts. The “Imagine film” is at the end of the show.
… Lennon presents everything on the surface, and the song titles — “Mother,” “I Found Out,” “Working Class Hero,” “Isolation,” “God,” “My Mummy’s Dead” — illustrate what each song is about, and charts his loss of faith in his parents, country, friends, fans, and idols. It’s an unflinching document of bare-bones despair and pain, but for all its nihilism, it is ultimately life-affirming; it is unique not only in Lennon’s catalog, but in all of popular music. Few albums are ever as harrowing, difficult, and rewarding as John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine (allmusic.com)
