John Lennon had a tragically brief solo career following his split with the Beatles. Just 10 years later, he was murdered on a New York City street by a deranged fan.
Still, he scored two No. 1 singles on the Hot 100, “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night” from 1975’s Walls and Bridges and “(Just Like) Starting Over” from 1980’s Double Fantasy. He reached the U.S. Top 5 with “Instant Karma,” “Imagine” and “Woman.” There were three other Top 10 singles, and a couple that just missed.
They provided tentpoles for a string of well-received LPs. Lennon issued seven proper solo albums over that decade-long span, despite taking almost five years off to help raise his son Sean with Yoko Ono. Four of them were gold certified, while 1971’s Imagine and Double Fantasy were both multi-platinum smash hits. The posthumous Milk and Honey arrived in 1984, and also went gold.
What’s John Lennon’s Best Deep Cut?
As the following list of Top John Lennon Deep Cuts shows, lesser-known gems sewed it all together. “Imagine” may have become a singalong for the ages, but it was actually the lone single from that album. Similarly, the Top 20 title track from 1973’s Mind Games was the only one released.
There were some anomalies along the way. The UK single version of the “Imagine,” for some reason, featured “Working Class Hero” as its B-side so that sharply ironic deep cut from 1970’s Plastic Ono Band was left off our countdown. Likewise, “Love” was posthumously issued with “Gimme Some Truth,” disqualifying those songs – even though the single never charted in the U.S.
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On the other hand, “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)” is part of the list, even though the song appeared as a B-side on the gold-selling “Woman” from Double Fantasy – because that was part of a reissue. The original single included a song by Ono, like so many of Lennon’s had before.
How’s they all stack up? Here’s a ranked look back at 20 album cuts from John Lennon that you might have missed:
No. 20. “Bring on the Lucie (Freda Peeple)”
From: Mind Games (1973)
Though it appeared on Mind Games, this song grew out of a 1971 demo that heralded Lennon’s bumpy ride toward more radical politics. “Bring on the Lucie (Freda Peeple)” was broadly topical and very sharp witted, however, and that couldn’t be more different than what later arrived on Some Time in New York City.
No. 19. “Old Dirt Road”
From: Walls and Bridges (1974)
Lennon’s Lost Weekend shenanigans with Harry Nilsson sometimes came to a very bad end. Even the album they produced together during this era, Nilsson’s Pussy Cats, has its share of questionable moments. Then there’s “Old Dirt Road.” Lennon didn’t think much of this Nilsson co-written deep cut, but it’s a delightful little reverie. Nilsson must’ve thought so, too: He recorded his version for 1980’s Flash Harry, the last studio LP released in Nilsson’s lifetime.
No. 18. “Crippled Inside”
From: Imagine (1971)
What if Lennon had recorded Plastic Ono Band while still in the teenaged thrall of rockabilly? You’d have “Crippled Inside.”
No. 17. “I Know (I Know)”
From: Mind Games (1973)
As Lennon’s relationship with Ono began to falter, he offered a mea culpa in song not unlike “How?” and “Jealous Guy” from Imagine. Curiously, he also might have been reaching out to someone else with whom he was estranged: Paul McCartney debuted his new band Wings with 1971’s Wild Life, and the track list included a song called “Some People Never Know.” The opening riff on “I Know (I Know)” also strongly resembles “I’ve Got a Feeling” from the Beatles’ Phil Spector-produced Let It Be.
No. 16. “Hold On”
From: Plastic Ono Band (1970)
As tough and scarred and fragile as Plastic Ono Band could be, John Lennon cracked the curtains here and there for a few badly needed shards of sunlight in the gloom.
No. 15. “Going Down on Love”
From: Walls and Bridges (1974)
As with “Surprise, Surprise” from elsewhere on our list of John Lennon’s Top 20 Deep Cuts, “Going Down on Love” started much differently. Early versions matched the gritty stripped-down honesty of Plastic Ono Band. Then Lennon started adding parts, most notably a tough little horn section. A song that was once this bleak exploration of the drama surrounding his love life was transformed – in sound, anyway. A check of the lyric sheet confirms that a directionless Lennon was standing at the very edge of an emotional abyss.
No. 14. “Grow Old With Me”
From: Milk and Honey (1984)
Also written during Lennon’s vacation in Bermuda, “Grow Old With Me” was based on a poem by Robert Browning. Ono had challenged Lennon to write the song after she used a sonnet by the poet’s wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning as inspiration for “Let Me Count the Ways.” Lennon created a rough demo but they were up against a holiday deadline for the release of Double Fantasy, so he left it aside. “Grow Old With Me” would go through a radical shift by the time it was finally released. Instead of looking ahead to a sweetly romantic future, this felt like a devastatingly sad message of lost devotion.
No. 13. “I’m Losing You”
From: Double Fantasy (1980)
There’s a crunchy, kinetic sizzle here, with Lennon looking back at his own alcohol-induced mid-’70s dumbassery. Along the way, we get a deeper sense of how his muse returned, as Lennon began trying to find balance between the vibrant, angry yang to his bread-making house-husband yin.
No. 12. “How Do You Sleep?”
From: Imagine (1971)
Half of the Beatles took part in this savage assault on McCartney, as Lennon made biting references to “Yesterday,” Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and McCartney’s solo hit “Another Day.” So, is “How Do You Sleep?” a low point in their very public post-split bickering? Or one of returning former bandmate George Harrison’s coolest-ever turns on the slide? Answer: yes.
No. 11. “I Don’t Wanna Face It”
From: Milk and Honey (1984)
The track begins with the smeared sound of a tape machine engaging, perhaps the most powerful reminder that Milk and Honey includes the incomplete, posthumous recordings of a murdered genius. Sadness melts away, though, as Lennon works in antithesis, throws away a bit of ageless wisdom and acts a little silly. The result is a half-chiseled monument to creative rebirth.
No. 10. “Look at Me”
From: Plastic Ono Band (1970)
With its searching questions (“who am I supposed to be?,” “what am I supposed to do?“), this leftover from the Beatles’ White Album era was a match fit for Lennon’s first proper solo album.
No. 9. “Out the Blue”
From: Mind Games (1973)
Lennon provided a peek into the mounting panic that surrounded his fracturing relationship with Ono on this often-overlooked ballad: “I was born just to get to you. Anyway I survived, long enough to make you my wife.” He completed things with soaring strings that sounded like a sadder, more honest version of Spector’s cloying arrangement for “The Long and Winding Road.”
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No. 8. “Isolation”
From: Plastic Ono Band (1970)
“Isolation” is the flipside of “God,” as Lennon admits deep insecurity surrounding his new post-Beatles existence. At one point, everyone but former Beatles buddy Ringo Starr drops out, and his insistent cadence feels like it’s mimicking Lennon’s terrified arrhythmia.
No. 7. “God”
From: Plastic Ono Band (1970)
In the album’s most important statement, Lennon blithely pushed aside fallen idols – from Bob Dylan to religion to his old band – flatly declaring that “the dream is over.” He was moving on: After naming and then discarding all of those earlier talismans, Lennon concluded with a quiet affirmation of his love for Yoko Ono.
No. 6. “Oh My Love”
From: Imagine (1971)
Lennon takes a moment between excoriating empty-suited politicians and ex-bandmates to lay bare his tender affections for Ono. “Oh My Love” was the only song on Imagine where she initially earned a co-songwriting credit, though Ono’s name was later added to the title track, too.
No. 5. “Surprise, Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradox)”
From: Walls and Bridges (1974)
One of the first songs attempted for Walls and Bridges, “Surprise, Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradox)” might find Lennon at his most carnal. It’s certainly Lennon in one of his happiest moments. Ironically, the earliest demos were dark ruminations, almost like a ’50s lost-love ballad. (Lennon later cited “Little Darlin'” by the Diamonds as an inspiration.) Now overcome with lusty desire, he makes an improvised vocal reference to the Beatles’ “Drive My Car” as “Surprise, Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradox)” fades.
No. 4. “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)”
From: Double Fantasy (1980)
There’s no getting away from the awful headlines that followed – no separating this, even decades later, from Lennon’s fate. He’ll always be 40. So, when Lennon whispers “Good night, Sean, see you in the morning,” it’s like a cold hand closing around any fan’s heart.
No. 3. “How?”
From: Imagine (1971)
A song that thematically wouldn’t have felt out of place on Plastic Ono Band, “How” revealed a similar depth of self-doubt and fear, but presented things – like much of the Imagine project – in a sleeker, more approachable way. That doesn’t mean it was boring: Lennon’s jolting syncopations smartly echo his own insecurities.
No. 2. “Jealous Guy”
From: Imagine (1971)
One of the most covered Lennon tracks, “Jealous Guy” has been reinterpreted more than 100 times — most notably by Roxy Music, who had a huge U.K. hit with it just after Lennon’s murder. And yet this song still completely belongs to its author, who sang with an unmatched fragility here over an atmospheric music bed.
No. 1. “I Found Out”
From: Plastic Ono Band (1970)
Lennon unleashes a series of kill shots aimed at politicians, drugs, religion (“from Jesus to Paul“), parents, society – you name it – and Starr’s rugged cadence boldly echoes every rebuke.
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Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso
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