There’s always a certain type of magic that comes with someone coming out with a great song. Not everything is suited to be said out loud, but if you have the right melody to go along with the message you want to send, it’s enough to make millions of people chant along with you. John Lennon may have spent a while keeping his lips tight on the statements he wanted to make, but once those floodgates opened in the late 1960s, he figured he would use his platform to do anything he wanted.
Then again, if Lennon had said something any sooner, Beatlemania may have been in jeopardy a lot quicker than he thought. He knew that Brian Epstein disapproved of them talking about topics like the Vietnam War whenever they were working the press junket, and since the ‘bigger than Jesus’ moment sent everything into a spiral, it was better for Lennon to keep his mouth shut. But there’s only so long before someone can see carnage around them before they can’t take it anymore.
Throughout his career, some of Lennon’s best songs have been about something more than fanciful ditties. Tracks like ‘Give Peace A Chance’ and ‘Power to the People’ might come off as mindless sloganeering for some people, but there was never a moment when Lennon didn’t seem to believe what he was saying. He knew his platform could help sway people’s opinions, but he was also interested in dissecting love songs on a much different level than before.
After all, songs like ‘In My Life’ broke the mould for what his songwriting model should be, but when he first met Yoko Ono, there was a different temperature at play. He had found the love of his life and creative partner in many ways, and while he would still work together with Paul McCartney on occasion, Two Virgins was the first time he finally felt free to express himself however he wanted.
Granted, anything with a Beatle on it was a license to print money, but something was definitely different when the album hit shelves. The album itself might have been a bunch of discordant noise for people who didn’t know any better, but if audiences didn’t approve of the music, they were going to be in for a big surprise when Lennon decided to pose in the nude with Ono when they took the final photo for the album.
The backlash to Lennon’s Jesus comments was one thing, but even if you could subconsciously feel the monocles popping when this was put out, Lennon maintained that it was one of the most powerful statements he ever made, saying, “I thought maybe somebody out there will say something, but I was making a statement. It was as good as a song, it was better, you couldn’t say it better – pictures speak louder than words. There it was: beautiful statement.”
It’s hard to really put a gauge on the music since this was his first go-around, but Two Virgins is the kind of album that feels like it should be listened to at least once. Some of the moments are painful to listen to, and it might scare off anyone who knew Lennon for songs like ‘It Won’t Be Long’ or ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, but given the kind of music he was known for making at the time, this is one of the most progressive moves he could have made by teaming up with one of the biggest figures in the avant-garde scene.
No, it’s not exactly the most tasteful album cover in the world, and it would have been bound to cause a few grandmothers to faint if they saw it back in 1968, but you couldn’t say that Lennon had nothing to say. He had spent years in the fame cocoon, and since his solo career wasn’t that far away, this was him saying that he was completely unafraid of what would be coming next.
