Well Well Well (John Lennon song)

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"Well Well Well"
Song by John Lennon
from the album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
PublishedNorthern Songs
Released11 December 1970
Recorded1970
GenreRock
Length5:59
LabelApple
Songwriter(s)John Lennon
Producer(s)John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Phil Spector
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band track listing
11 tracks
Side one
  1. "Mother"
  2. "Hold On"
  3. "I Found Out"
  4. "Working Class Hero"
  5. "Isolation"
Side two
  2. "Remember"
  3. "Love"
  4. "Well Well Well"
  5. "Look at Me"
  6. "God"
  7. "My Mummy's Dead"

"Well Well Well" is a song by English musician John Lennon from his 1970 album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. The eighth and longest track on the album, "Well Well Well" features an aggressive guitar sound, screaming vocals and a pounding backing track.[1]

Lyrics and music

The lyrics of "Well Well Well" describe mundane incidents from Lennon's daily life with wife

women's liberation."[3] The song also describes the uneasiness the couple feel during these events, but which they cannot understand.[3][4] Authors Ben Urish and Ken Bielen suggest that this uneasiness is due to guilt the couple feel about being able to talk about issues but having the luxury of deciding whether or not to take action.[3]

One line of the song refers to Yoko Ono as "she looked so beautiful I could eat her."[5] Music critic Wilfrid Mellers interprets this line as evidence of a "cannibalistic impulse" to the song.[5][6] However, critic Johnny Rogan believes it is more likely simply a reference to oral sex.[5] Early lyrics for the song used a slightly different line: "she looked so beautiful I could wee."[4][5] In the performance of the song during the One-To-One concert at Madison Square Garden (in NYC) on 30 August 1972, when Lennon says the line "she looked so beautiful I could eat her", he follows it with "and I did", while looking at Ono, who smiles and nods at Lennon.

The melody of "Well Well Well" is pentatonic, incorporating a proper tritone.[6] In the stanzas there is little harmony other than the instruments doubling the vocal line and the thumping drum.[6] The chorus is in call and response form, and uses triadic harmony.[6]

Instrumentation for "Well Well Well" is provided by Lennon,

John & Yoko" from The Wedding Album.[2]

Lennon's singing on the song ranges between tender and ferocious.[2] In the middle section he screams the song's title with particular abandon.[3] Authors Chip Madinger and Mark Easter call this "the most tortured-larynx singing of John's career.[7] Mellers attributes the screams of the title phrase at the end of the song to Lennon capitulating "to the infant's hysteria, traumatically howling for the maternal breast," as a result of Lennon undergoing Arthur Janov's primal therapy at the time he wrote the song.[6]

Recording

Although the song was released commercially in mono,

bootleg albums.[7]

According to

Everything I Do Gonh Be Funky (From Now On)" 100 times while recording "Well Well Well" in an effort to capture the feel of the song.[7]

Reception

Music critic

the Sex Pistols."[10]

Personnel

The musicians who performed on the original recording were as follows:[11]

Other versions

Lennon played "Well Well Well" live in concert twice, at the two One on One benefit concerts at

Allmusic critic Richard Ginell calls the live performance "a perfunctory run-through."[12]

An acoustic version of "Well Well Well" was released on the 2004 album

phased vocal."[13]

A small portion of "Well Well Well" appears within "Something More Abstract," a bonus track on the CD version of the Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band album.[7] On this version, Ringo Starr and Klaus Voormann get to briefly play drums and bass before Yoko Ono tells them play "something more abstract."[7]

Covers

Super 8 covered "Well Well Well" for the 1995 tribute album

Brotherhood
.

On their 2015 club tour, rock band Cold War Kids often covered this to start their encore. [15]

The Argentinian punk band Los Rusos Hijos de Puta recorded a Spanish version of the song "Bien Bien Bien" on their 2015 album titled "La Rabia Que Sentimos Es El Amor Que Nos Quitan".

The song makes its appearance in the last chapter of the second season of the series For all mankind

References

  1. ^ "Well Well Well". The Beatles Bible. 2 August 2010. Retrieved 21 July 2017.
  2. ^
    ISBN 9781906002022
    .
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-0-275-99180-7
    .
  4. ^
    ISBN 1560252103
    .
  5. ^
    ISBN 0711955999
    .
  6. ^
    ISBN 0670735981
    .
  7. ^
    ISBN 0-615-11724-4
    .
  8. ^ Christgau, R. "John Lennon". robertchristgau.com. Retrieved 19 December 2012.
  9. ^ Holden, S. (7 December 2010). "Lennon's Music: A Range of Genius". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 20 December 2012.
  10. ISBN 0743201698
    .
  11. ISBN 0-9544528-1-X
    .
  12. Allmusic
    . Retrieved 16 December 2012.
  13. Allmusic
    . Retrieved 16 December 2012.
  14. ^ "Soundtracks for The Departed". imdb. Retrieved 1 January 2013.
  15. ^ "Cold War Kids Setlist at Riviera Theatre, Chicago". setlist.fm.
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