| |
From
an article by Robert Palmer in New York Times (January 18th 1984) ''For
a long time after John's death, I couldn't face going in and listening to the
'Milk and Honey' tapes,'' she said. ''All his little jokes and asides, our studio
conversations were there along with the music. Also, some songs were in a fairly
rough form, and one existed only on homemade cassettes. I wasn't sure what John
would have wanted me to do with them.'' So Miss Ono let the ''Milk and Honey''
tapes sit for a time and plunged into making her brooding solo album ''Season
of Glass,'' using the recording sessions, she said later, ''as a kind of therapy.''
The sessions were sometimes difficult. ''John and I had worked together in the
same studio,'' she recalled. ''The musicians and engineers were used to taking
direction from him, and it was hard for some of them to adjust to taking direction
from a woman.'' (--) Ono's songs are some of her best. They
are imaginative, compressed little sound-poems, full of odd, shimmering guitar
effects and buoyant quasi-reggae rhythms. As on ''Double Fantasy,'' her songs
often question or amplify Mr. Lennon's, and his songs comment on hers. Comparing
the two albums may not be entirely fair to either of them, but to these ears,
the harder edge and more diverse textures of ''Milk and Honey'' make it the finer
record. Elizabeth and Robert Let
Me Count the Ways and Grow Old with Me by John Lennon and Yoko Ono were inspired
by the poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. Grow
old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the
first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith "A whole I planned,
Youth
shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!
How
do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth
and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of
Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet
need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I
love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put
to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with
a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles,
tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better
after death.
|
 |
milk
and honey