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Unread 08-25-2018, 06:31 AM
Jim Moonan Jim Moonan is offline
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Location: Boston, MA
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Who would have predicted this poem would spark such response? Answer: everyone : )

Aaron N.'s response is by far the most enlightening. If that is the kind of thought this poem provokes then I'm the one who doesn't get it. It is too minimalist in its expression for me to flesh it out and feel it. I admit I am largely talking in the dark on this one, though I do fully understand that her art is attractive to some. I truly wish I did understand her work. I just can't grasp it.

Here's one reason why, I think:

In 1973 I was naive. I was excited to think I could walk into Apple Studios and get an interview with Lennon for my school newspaper about his Mind Games album. I was told by the receptionist that he was "marooned in the U.S." and she gave me an address to write to him and send him my questions. I did that, but never heard back.
I'm still naive. I've tried, with some success, to rid myself of it but it has a hold on me.
So, my hunch is that Ono's art is not for the naive...
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Coming back to say I'm listening to Greenfield Morning/I Pushed an Empty Baby Carriage All Over the City and reading comments about it and Ono's impact work. Here's one of the comments:

A brilliant sound picture. The title is taken from a poem Yoko had written about her miscarriage the previous year. To me, the loop of Ringo's drumming is like the wheels of the 'baby carriage' going across the cracks in the sidewalk. Yoko's singing brings to mind the ululating of mourning women in many cultures around the world. Genius.

That helps. The piece reminds me of a sparse Revolution #9 that Lennon pieced together (with the help of Ono) on the Beatles' White Album. I listen to that song as much as any the Beatles produced. I know every nuance of it. The White Album was the album that turned me on to the Beatles' work. I've never been a fan of their early work except for it's formative impact on their later work. Their later work (Revolver and later) is stellar IMO.
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Last edited by Jim Moonan; 08-25-2018 at 06:55 AM.
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