Then, on the first day of the Let It Be sessions, John toyed with the offering again, recording it without that famous opening line, “On the road to Rishikesh.” By that juncture in history, John wanted nothing to remind him of the Maharishi. For months after the LP’s release, he held it in abeyance. But despite a sincere effort, the song failed to soar.Īlways shrewd and self-evaluating, John didn’t permit “Child of Nature” to be included on the White Album.
He double-tracked his voice on George’s Ampex recorder he asked Ringo to use a shaker to accompany him. However, John didn’t give up on the offering…that afternoon, he diligently worked with his group. In his heart of hearts, John knew that his lyrics lacked sincerity.
It almost seems as if he is making fun of himself. Indeed, as he sings his demo at Kinfauns, he warbles in a rather mocking way, filling the performance with exaggerated vibrato. So here, in “Child of Nature” - as John tries to create a song about a theme that is foreign to him - he can’t quite take the job seriously. Mimi told Ray Coleman: “He’d do half the job and give me a squeaker kiss for the rest.” John Lennon was no Euell Gibbons. Even when fervently trying to raise funds for a new guitar by mowing Mimi’s lawn, he never quite finished the job. And that afternoon as the sun set, he discovered a deep kinship with Ireland…a spiritual connection that spurred him to tell Cynthia that Ireland was where he wanted to retire, to spend the end of his life.īut otherwise, John spent as little time in nature as possible. With Cynthia watching him protectively from a distance, John had taken it all in. In May of 1964, when John and Cynthia visited the Irish Cliffs of Mohr, John had perched alone, for some time, on a rocky, wind-swept Irish ledge. In fact, I can only think of ONE instance in which he was profoundly touched by the majesty of his surroundings. On some level, John must have known that the lyrics he’d scribbled onto paper were rather ludicrous. Paul wrote “Mother Nature’s Son,” and John penned “Child of Nature.” Whist in Rishikesh, both John and Paul were inspired to write songs based on a talk that the Maharishi had given about the relationship between man and nature. The two songs we’re about to look at evolved slowly, and they changed dramatically from May of 1968 to their eventual, delayed release. In developing these songs, John did use the talents and efforts of his entire group, but he also employed the McCartney recipe for success. However, in the case of two tracks that John created for the White Album, there was a bit of theoretical acquiescence and compromise. He brought with him ideas and concepts that were to be “fleshed out by the band.” John proposed tangible ideas for his songs, but he had always believed that it took the consummate talents of the entire group to bring a song to life. John arrived in Kinfauns with the beginnings of several excellent songs. Paul changed little in studio because he had worked diligently, (by himself and ahead of time) before he presented his Esher demos to The Beatles. The songs that Paul played for his friends that chilly afternoon were very similar to the final product he offered listeners via the White Album tracks. Paul, therefore, arrived at George Harrison’s home, Kinfauns, in Esher, England on that day in late May 1968, with a pre-recorded tape of polished offerings for the next album. Paul, on the other hand, thought that a musical composition should be slowly honed and developed…that a recording should be tweaked and re-recorded until the final product was exactly the way the songwriter wanted it. The Esher Demos, those delightful “unplugged” precursors to The Beatles’ self-titled LP (commonly known as the White Album ), were proof positive that Lennon and McCartney had completely different ideas about the way that rock’n’roll should be fashioned.įrom Day One, John firmly believed that music should be created extemporaneously - that reworking a piece over and over was “doin’ a thing to death.” John believed that a song’s beauty lay in its imperfection.