The Odyssey of John and Yoko

The Ballad of John And Yoko was recorded on April 14, 1969, and released as a single. It also appears on Volume Two of the Past Masters Album. Only John Lennon and Paul McCartney were involved in the recording of the song; John played acoustic guitar, lead guitars, percussion, and sang lead vocals; Paul played drums, bass guitar, piano, maracas and sang backing vocals. This song, at least musically, continued a trend that began with the White Album, where some tunes were recorded solo, or with something less than the full complement of Beatles.

Lyrically, the song describes the whirlwind tour that John and Yoko embarked upon to get married, and to ultimately stage their famous "bed-in" anti-war protest ("From Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton, talkin' in our beds for a week, the newspeople said hey whatcha' doin' in bed, I said we're only tryin' to get us some sleep") John also pokes fun at the prevailing thought, at the time, that Yoko was exerting some sort of dominating influence on him ("The newspapers said, she's gone to his head").

Musically, the song is solid, and I think it's very interesting that they chose the most well-known chord progression in rock n' roll music to convey the message of this song. The playing is impeccable, if unremarkable, and the strongest part of the tune are the vocals. John's lead is characteristically strong, and Paul's high harmonies are very complimentary and occur just at the right moments.

The most important reference in this song is made by the lyrics "Christ, you know it ain't easy, you know how hard it can be". With these lines, John is making a reference to his comment made in 1965 or so that "the Beatles are more popular than Jesus Christ". I have paraphrased this comment, because in all honesty I can't remember his exact words, but needless to say, they were widely and wildly misinterpreted. Here in the deep South, they actually had mass Beatle album burnings, and every church leader you could name urged a boycott of all things Beatles. Quite a mess, I tell you, and I'm sure glad it blew over.

This is really a great tune, because it demonstrated the musical talents of John and Paul, and it has a good between-the-lines message that only the most zealous Beatles fan could identify.