a succubus?


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She does indeed suck

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Metaphorically, yes.

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Nah, I'd say she helped Lennon evolve his art. Compare his solo work to McCartney's pop drivel and it's obvious.

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Okay, but do you think he'd have gone there anyway? His pre-Yoko output was already moving in a distinct direction from Paul. Paul was always more romantic and whimsical, John was always a little more experimental and biting. Not that Paul wasn't experimental, too, or John couldn't tinge his work with whimsy, just to say that I don't know that Yoko moved John's work ahead.

She clearly influenced him, of course, but I think we'd have songs just as good as the ones he put out whether he was with Yoko or not. They'd have just had a different angle to them. Plus, we wouldn't have her gargling monkey noises all over John and Chuck Berry...

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This is John Lennon's "I Found Out". I think it's a great song and it has an Ono influence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MqKXjclNHw

Ono was a renowned avant-garde artist before she met Lennon. I think to call her a succubus who drained him is ridiculous.

But yeah, the Lennon-McCartney songwriting team's success was Lennon's innovation made more accessible by McCartney's pop aesthetic.

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This. McCartney's take was to make the songs more catchy...

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I agree that it's silly to consider her a succubus. John was inspired to work with her. But the thing is, I'm sure John would have left the Beatles and gone on to be inspired by other, different things and to be creative because that's what he did. He was feeling stifled and trapped in the whole Beatles thing, but once out, he'd have done something creative with or without Yoko.

You're right: specific songs he did have Ono influence - some of them are great. My point is more that he would have still put out some great works, they'd just have sounded a little different.

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Sure. But I think overall Yoko's influence was a good one on Lennon. Ono introduced him to the philosophy of avant-garde. She was a co-writer on his anthem "Imagine".

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Right, but is there an alternate universe where Lennon didn't discover avant-garde, but he did discover something else and he put out some great work in proto-punk or something like that?

Co-writer, sure, but Lennon-McCartney isn't exactly co-writing. I'll assume in this case Yoko made some contributions. I do think Imagine is a beautiful song, but a little overrated, frankly.

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Musically "Imagine" may be overrated. But it's perhaps the greatest existential anthem of the 21st century.

You make a great point. If Lennon had switched gears and delved into proto-punk it would have been genius.

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Thanks. I'm not saying what we got wasn't great, just that the assumption that Yoko was the only rocket fuel he could have encountered is unlikely.

Keep in mind that by "overrated" I don't mean "bad" just that people give it more credit than it deserves. I still like it, just not as much as most others.

Maybe I've just heard it too many times. I think it doesn't help that he not only opens with "Imagine there's no heaven," but later on gets in, "and no religion, too," and while this might have been fresh at first, these days there are just so many petulant atheists where it feels more like a childish dig than a real call for unity and peace. But, sure, to be fair to the song, that's me looking at it through the wrong lens.

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I'd say "Imagine" works because it's not over intellectualized. It's a common man's statement.

Personally I'm a nationalist. I oppose globalism. And I think religion is often a positive.

But Lennon certainly summed up modern materialism quite well.

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Agreed: the song makes some great points. It is a very good song. I don't want to dump on it.

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Sometimes evolution leads nowhere. And "McCartney's pop drivel" brought us some of the greatest tunes of the 70ies.

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I'm not a fan of Wings. I think McCartney without Lennon was pop excess, "silly love songs". It wasn't rock.

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McCartney had a great single in Maybe I'm Amazed right after The Beatles ended, and also a great album in Band on the Run.

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A defective abacus. "There's something wrong with this abacus---I just left a $10 tip on a pork fried rice and egg roll--what a succubus!"

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Let's have a little fun with this, shall we?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkYBdMjcVRs&pp=ygUJbWFnaWMgYnVz

Every day I get in the queue (Too much, she's a succubus)
To hear a screech that makes me turn blue (Too much, she's a succubus)
I'm so nauseous, I just switch the dial (Too much, she's a succubus)
Her "art" is only a vat of bile (Too much, she's a succubus)
Thank you, poster, for bringing me here (Too much, she's a succubus)
I'll shoot you a message, have no fear (Too much, she's a succubus)
I just came here to discuss (Too much, she's a succubus)
Is Yoko Ono a succubus? (Too much, she's a succubus)

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