John Lennon – How?

This song was on the Imagine album and I heard it in more than one documentary about him. This song is about John being vulnerable which is not as typical of him.

This song was written after the Beatles broke up plus after the primal scream therapy of Dr Arthur Janov. What is Primal Scream Therapy? I found this definition: psychotherapy in which the patient recalls and reenacts a particularly disturbing past experience usually occurring early in life and expresses normally repressed anger or frustration, especially through spontaneous and unrestrained screams, hysteria, or violence.

When the Beatles broke up, John and Paul dove headfirst into their individual careers. Paul jumped straight into pop and Lennon dived into writing what he thought was the truth and setting it to a backbeat. They were not going to veer from their respective targets. You could tell they didn’t have each other to hold the other back anymore. That is what the Beatles had as a whole that the two head Beatles didn’t anymore. George just went on… already accustomed to writing alone but John and Paul had no brakes or guard rails.

For John, it paid off in two brilliant albums off the bat that probably would not have been the same with The Beatles. With Paul, it paid off with Ram but with just an OK debut album. After these first two albums, John seemed to lose some of his edge and Paul took a while but finally gained more confidence until he made his masterpiece Band On The Run released late in 1973.

Imagine peaked at #1 on the Billboard Album Charts and in the UK. It also peaked at #2 in Canada in 1971.

I’ve always read and seen interviews where Ozzy Osbourne is a huge fan of the Beatles and John Lennon. Ozzy Osbourne released a cover of this song in support of Amnesty International during the same week John Lennon would have turned 70. Ozzy sticks very close to John’s version of the song.

John Lennon on recording the Imagine album: We recorded it at home in our studio, Phil Spector produces with Yoko and I, so as we don’t go overboard and he doesn’t go overboard – we get a balance between the three of us. It was better than the first time, because now we know each other and we’ve done quite a lot of work together and we understand each other, so we know how to work better. That’s why it’s been quicker. We did the last one in ten days and we did this one in nine.

How?

How can I go forward when I don’t know which way I’m facing?
How can I go forward when I don’t know which way to turn?
How can I go forward into something I’m not sure of?
Oh no, oh no

How can I have feeling when I don’t know if it’s a feeling?
How can I feel something if I just don’t know how to feel?
How can I have feelings when my feelings have always been denied?
Oh no, oh no

You know life can be long
And you got to be so strong
And the world is so tough
Sometimes I feel I’ve had enough

How can I give love when I don’t know what it is I’m giving?
How can I give love when I just don’t know how to give?
How can I give love when love is something I ain’t never had?
Oh no, oh no

You know life can be long
You’ve got to be so strong
And the world she is tough
Sometimes I feel I’ve had enough

How can we go forward when we don’t know which way we’re facing?
How can we go forward when we don’t know which way to turn?
How can we go forward into something we’re not sure of?
Oh no, oh no

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

32 thoughts on “John Lennon – How?”

    1. I only heard it in documentaries…. Ozzy did a great version of it…he pretty much stuck to Lennon’s original.
      He has covered a lot of Lennon songs.

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  5. That’s a great cover by Ozzy. Not a song I am familiar with though like you I must have heard in a Lennon Doc at one point. I think you laid it out quite nicely in terms of where and when in evolution of Lennon and his music.

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    1. Thank you Randy…it was a nice cover by Ozzy…he stuck pretty much to the original.
      I was held up today at work when a VM server crashed.

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      2. VM…Virtual Machine. It’s a server in a cloud enviroment…so it’s not physical…in this case it hosts a program called Great Plains and that is a payroll program. I had the accountants calling me all day…not my idea of a good day lol.

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  7. Not bad. I don’t know if I’d heard this before or not, certainly not familiar. Spector produced it quite well. We got to see more of the individual halves of ‘Lennon-McCartney’ in that period and both were good but both seemed to show they were better yet working as a team.

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    1. Or as each other’s editors….if not a team.
      Dave I’m massively busy today so I probably won’t comment until tonight…

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  8. Powerful Ozzy video. I had no idea where he was walking to, if anywhere, so when he got there it really affected me. John’s lyrics are a cry for help. I can see where people in a fragile state of mind would really connect with the song. I’m guessing you’d like to see that spot Ozzy went to.

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  9. John Lennon, whose legendary image included his circular glasses, was probably a shade below Paul McCartney in terms of importance to the Beatles.

    His musical temperament was more dreamy and abstract than Paul’s, and in the global marketplace of ideas and consumer products, intellect is the buzz-killer. It was up to Paul to streamline Lennon’s musings into a coherent and reachable posh-intellectual whole.

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  10. How come I didn’t remember this track when I usually call “Imagine” my favorite John Lennon album? I did remember the other song on the album that starts with the word “how” but not this one.

    Primal scream therapy not only sounds pretty frightening, but also has been discredited by modern psychologists. That said, I’m not an expert but merely repeat what I read elsewhere.

    I had never heard Ozzy’s rendition and think he did a pretty good job. He was a decent vocalist. Sadly, he doesn’t seem to be in good health these days.

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    1. I only remember it from documentaries I’ve seen of John. It’s a good song.
      Ozzy did really well on it and I was happy he stuck with close to the original…he didn’t spruce it up or anything…just a straight ahead cover.

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      2. Yes!
        Today at work we had a VM crash to our payroll…so I was busy…I’m coiming to your blog soon Christian.

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