Tonight's Wednesday review is for the book Mind Games by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. This is an absolutely beautiful book. Sean and whoever else was behind the book did a fantastic job. It is full of vibrant photographs and rare documents from John Lennon's life from 1972-1974. It is wild to think that some of the artifacts have been around for 50 years, but I am glad they are and that they have been included in this book.
The book goes through what John and Yoko did during the "Mind Games" era of late 1972-early 1974. It has the lyrics to each song, interviews with John and Yoko, and insights from people who were there. Some of the interviews with John were new to me, or I had only read parts of them and not the entire interview. John was so insightful and made many good points. Reading through the interviews almost made me feel like John was still alive and talking to us right now. There are also some re-prints of things Yoko wrote during the time that I also enjoyed reading. I especially found the things about John and Yoko and the feminist movement, along with the feminist conference they went to in Massachusetts, to be enlightening. I have seen photos from that event, but never knew really what it was about and that section cleared it all up.
There are some letters that John wrote to different people that I want to look at more deeply. The print was hard for me to read on those. Is it because I have bad eyesight? Most likely -- but I took scans of the letters on my phone to make them bigger on my desktop and read them. One letter to his father really stood out to me.
The one thing that bothered me in the Mind Games book is the downplaying of May Pang's role in John's life during this time. If you are a fan of John, then you know the story -- in 1973, Yoko set John up with May while they were separated for over a year. I understand that it isn't a romantic story and it isn't something Yoko wants to talk about, but still, it is part of John's life story. And while John was promoting the Mind Games album, he was with May Pang. You can't erase her from the story. She was there. One of the few mentions of her was about the commercial made to promote the album with Tony King dressed as the Queen. The text calls May John and Yoko's PA. That just bugged me to read. Will we ever see Walls and Bridges get the treatment Mind Games has received? May can't be removed from that time -- John wrote a song about her and she can be heard on the album.
With that issue aside, the Mind Games book is a must-have for anyone who is a John Lennon fan. It is physically a large book, and I hate holding coffee table books and reading them, but it was worth the hassle. It isn't a cheap book, but it was worth the money, and it is a book that I will be looking at often.
By the way -- if you look at the references in the back, you will see that meetthebeatlesforreal.com was used as a reference!!! I am beyond excited about this. My silly little Beatles site was used as a reference in an official John Lennon book???? Unbelievable!
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