Just to clarify, yes, Marlon Brando won the Oscar for best actor in 1972 (and then declined the award for ... reasons.)
But here at the Monkey, we base our nominations not on billing or fame or wishful thinking but on what showed up on the screen. And anyone who has ever seen The Godfather knows that Al Pacino — a virtual unknown in 1972 — was the star of the show. So he gets the nod for best actor and Brando, who will no doubt decline the award anyway, is dropped to the supporting actor category where he belongs.
My choices are noted with a ★. A tie is indicated with a ✪. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ. A historical winner who won in a different category is noted with a ✱.
My choices are noted with a ★. Historical Oscar winners are noted with a ✔. Best foreign-language picture winners are noted with an ƒ.
I've seen Stacy Keach on the stage twice, as Macbeth and as King Lear, both in Washington, D.C., where he was performing with the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Damn fine actor. As Macbeth, he was terrific — intense, unhinged, and often scary. As the latter, he was frequently naked — also pretty scary. But he nailed it. Lear, that is.
By the way, I wonder how many people remember now that Cabaret won 8 Oscars — including best director and best supporting actor — to The Godfather's 3? Talk about two movies whose reputations have completely flipped over time.
1972 was not a good year for ex-Beatles. John and Yoko's double album, Some Time in New York City, was a commercial and critical disaster. Paul had bottomed out following the disappointment of late-1971's hastily written and recorded Wild Life LP. Ringo had a hit with a single recorded the previous year but was otherwise silent. And George didn't record anything at all.
Altogether, about ten solid minutes of music.
But instead of skipping the year altogether, I swept up all the uncollected singles, B-sides and songs leftover from other albums, and with a handful of songs that appeared in 1973 but were written earlier, cobbled together a sort of Odds and Sods/Anthology. I mean, you gotta put "Cold Turkey" somewhere.
The Beatles Solo: 1972, sort of
SIDE ONE
● New York City – John (4:29) (From Some Time in New York City. The lyrics are lazy and the production values are sloppy, but otherwise this is a pretty good rocker. John and Yoko actually opened their double album with "Woman is the N***** of the World" — I can't bring myself to post its full name — which was something Yoko muttered to herself when first confronted with the misogyny of the London art world. I know Lennon thought he was making a point when he wrote a song around the sentiment and he doubled down by releasing it as a single, but it turns out it was the same point Ben Carson made when he compared the Affordable Care Act to slavery, i.e., that he's an idiot. I figure that by 1972 John was so accustomed to success that without someone of the stature of Paul, George or Ringo to say "no," he had grown to believe he could blow his nose and find 24-carat gold nuggets in the handkerchief. John was shattered when the critics and record-buying public apprised him otherwise. You know, there's nothing wrong with devoting yourself to a cause — thank God somebody does — John's problem was investing so much of his self-image in the assumption people would open their wallets and celebrate the effort because his name was "I Used To Be A Beatle.")
● John Sinclair – John (3:29) (Upon arriving in New York, Lennon's new-found pals requested a song in support of a local poet jailed for possession of marijuana. John later dismissed this effort as uninspired craftsmanship, but it's actually the best thing on Some Time in New York City. You can put your politics in a song — you can put anything in a song — as long as it's a good song. See, e.g., "Revolution" "Imagine" "Working Class Hero." Hell, even "Come Together" started as a political song.)
● C Moon – Paul (4:35) (The flip side of the single "Hi Hi Hi," released in time for Christmas 1972.)
● Hi Hi Hi – Paul (3:09) (This McCartney single, like "Give Ireland Back to the Irish," was banned by the BBC, here because of overt drug and sexual references. In protest, he recorded and released "Mary Had a Little Lamb," which in retrospect was the most offensive of the three.)
SIDE TWO
● Live and Let Die – Paul (3:13) (The theme song from the 1973 James Bond film, this was recorded in 1972. A #2 hit in the U.S., I can say from personal observation, it makes for a fantastic live performance.)
● Gimme Some Truth – John (3:17) (A leftover from Imagine, it fits right in with the rest of the agitprop.)
● Tomorrow – Paul (3:27) (In an overreaction to the critical beating the highly-polished Ram album took, McCartney taped Wild Life in one week, with five of the eight tracks recorded in a single take. John used to complain that Paul would work his songs to death in the studio trying to refine the sound he heard in his head, but while Lennon's songs often drifted farther and farther from his original vision with each take, McCartney's benefitted from the effort. Not everybody works the same way.)
● Bring on the Lucie (Freda Peeple) – John (4:12) (This was recorded in 1973 and released that year on Mind Games. But Lennon first recorded a demo of this in 1971 and, again, it fits with the political nature of his other 1972 releases.)
SIDE THREE
● Power to the People – John (3:19) (Recorded in October 1970, released as a single in March 1971, it hit #11 on the U.S. charts. I have to agree, though, with Hunter S. Thompson's savage assessment of the song which appears in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "John Lennon's political song, ten years too late. 'That poor fool should have stayed where he was,' said my attorney. 'Punks like that just get in the way when they try to be serious.'" Of course, this was long before John's canonization as a secular saint. No doubt the good doctor's opinion mellowed over the years. You know, like the good doctor himself.)
● My Love – Paul (4:09) (After the critical failures of Ram and Wild Life, McCartney really had no idea what to do next. He spent most of 1972 recording what was going to be a double album called Red Rose Speedway, but in the end he cut it down to a single LP and even that only had two good songs on it, this and "Big Barn Bed." He released "My Love" as a single and it was a #1 hit in the U.S. It's polished enough to appear on Abbey Road while everything else on this c.d. sounds like it was recorded in my garage ...)
● If Not For You – George (3:33) (... well, except for George's numbers. He definitely did not record this in anybody's garage.)
● Isolation – John (2:53) (From Plastic Ono Band, this would have concluded "side one" of my 1970 collection if it had been a 90-minute cassette tape as originally envisioned.)
● Big Barn Bed – Paul (3:50) (From Red Rose Speedway, "Big Barn Bed" is perhaps the most obscure of McCartney's classic songs.)
SIDE FOUR
● Give Peace a Chance – John (4:54) (A single recorded in 1969 during John and Yoko's Bed-In Peace protest, it hit #14 in America, #2 in Britain.)
● Beware of Darkness – George (3:49) (The last of the songs I've raided from All Things Must Pass, fourteen in all. It's only now I realize that all fourteen are from disc one of the double cd, with none of disc two — four studio numbers and a live jam session — making the cut.)
● Bip Bop/Hey Diddle – Paul (3:37) ("Bip Bop" was the sort-of highlight of Wild Life, with this very off-the-cuff rendition appearing on Wingspan.)
● Early 1970 – Ringo (2:21) (The flip side of "It Don't Come Easy," Ringo made it clear with this open letter to his former band mates that he really, really, really wanted the Beatles to get back together.)
● Cold Turkey – John (5:01) (Part of me would like to think Paul made a big mistake turning down John's suggestion in the Fall of 1969 that "Cold Turkey" be the next Beatles single. Lennon's response was to quit the band and put the song out under his own name. How might have things played out if McCartney had said yes? But the fact is, at least three of the Beatles had been chaffing under the band's yoke since even before India. Lennon had wanted to put out "Across the Universe" "Revolution No. 1" and "Cold Turkey" as singles, Paul wanted to start playing live again which was a non-starter for his bandmates, and George offered up about half of All Things Must Pass only to have all those songs thumbed down. The Beatles were the most inventive, creative band in music history but the moment they started saying, no, we can't do that, they were done, put a fork in it. And put a fork in it, they did. The rest, as they say, is non-Beatles history.)
Total running time: 77:57.
Eight by Lennon, nine by McCartney, three by Harrison and one by Starr. In total now, Paul finally catches John at 23, George has 14 and Ringo 3.
A good year for the ex-Beatles, at least when viewed from the comfort of 2015. Lennon's Imagine was a commercial hit, McCartney's Ram is now regarded as a masterpiece, Harrison pulled off the wildly-acclaimed Concert for Bangladesh and even Ringo had a top ten hit. In actuality, Paul filed suit against the other three even as the critics were clubbing him over the head, John still couldn't quite believe Yoko wouldn't leave him, George's benefit concert wound up mired in all sorts of accounting and legal tangles, and Ringo was getting black-out drunk every night.
Thematically, there's not much to tie this collection together. While in 1970, John, Paul, George and Ringo were reflecting on what the "ex" in "ex-Beatle" might mean, by 1971 they were already moving in different directions. Musically, Paul is giddy, John's anxious, the holdovers from George's All Things Must Pass are reflective, and Ringo's "Back Off Boogaloo," while a lot of fun, doesn't really fit with anything. I've tried to arrange it all to maximize flow and minimize whiplash.
The Beatles Solo: 1971
SIDE ONE
● Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey – Paul (4:51) (A #1 hit for Macca in the U.S., this is the version from Wingspan which is three second shorter. I went back to see whether the contemporary reviews of McCartney's Ram were as harsh as I remember. They were worse. Rolling Stone labeled it "incredibly inconsequential," The Village Voice said it was "a bad record," some guy named Alan Smith called it "unrelieved tedium," and Playboy accused him of "substituting facility for any real substance" — and if anybody would know about substituting facility for substance, it would be Playboy. These days, Ram is rightly regarded as one of McCartney's best solo efforts.)
● Apple Scruffs – George (3:09) (As noted in Part 1 of this essay, Harrison wouldn't release another studio album until 1973. He did put together the benefit concert for the refugees of the Bangladesh Liberation War and the album of the show hit #2 in the U.S. But let's be honest, the single "Bangla Desh" isn't really very good — at least it's nothing I want to listen to. Instead, George is represented here by five more songs from All Things Must Pass.)
● Jealous Guy – John (4:15) (Lennon wrote the tune in India in 1968 and demo'ed it as "Child of Nature" during the Esher sessions at George's house. Repurposed for Imagine as the first of many apologies to Yoko for this that and the other.)
● Run of the Mill – George (2:53) (The ever-reliable Wikipedia says Harrison wrote this about the imminent breakup of the Beatles. The title was allegedly muttered during the Get Back sessions by one of George's fellow Beatles as an assessment of his songwriting skills. Wow.)
● The Back Seat of My Car – Paul (4:28) (Katie-Bar-The-Door always giggles at the rhyme "pretty" and "Mexico City" — and not in a good way. But, you know, otherwise a fine song. McCartney released this rather than "Uncle Albert" as the single in the UK. It only reached #39. He wouldn't have a number one hit in his home country until "Mull of Kintyre" in 1977. To quote Jerry Lee Lewis, "England can kiss my ass!" No, not really. Lived there, loved it, miss it, would go back if the opportunity presented itself.)
SIDE TWO
● Well (Baby Please Don't Go) – John (4:06) (Not the song Van Morrison and Them made famous in the mid-1960s, but a Walter Ward blues number Lennon covered as a birthday present for Yoko. Reportedly, her reaction was "Meh," either because she wouldn't know good rock-n-roll if it bit her on the posterior or because she was secretly repelled by the stalker-like neediness of the lyric. Possibly both. A live version of this song appeared on Some Time in New York City a year later. This is the studio version on the John Lennon Anthology box set.)
● Heart of the Country – Paul (2:25) (A catchy would-be real estate jingle from the man who wrote "Mother Nature's Son.")
● Wah-Wah – George (5:38) (Harrison temporarily quit the Beatles on the morning of January 10, 1969, and wrote this song that afternoon. Lyrically, it's a middle finger aimed at John who dismissed his abilities as a songwriter and Paul who micro-managed his guitar playing. Musically, it's a Phil Spector wall-of-sound that Harrison ultimately criticized as overproduced.)
● Back Off Boogaloo – Ringo (3:20) (This was a top 10 hit in 1972 but Ringo recorded it in September 1971, so here it is. Until 1973, there's not a lot of Ringo to choose from so once again, I've cheated in the interests of goodness, which is how we got into the Vietnam war and look how that turned out. What are you going to do?)
SIDE THREE
● Imagine – John (3:05) (Lennon put out his most commercial solo album, Imagine, in 1971 and if it isn't as good as Plastic Ono Band, still, it did give us his most beloved solo song. Beloved, but not a number one, the single topped out at #3 in America. Lennon wouldn't have a number one hit until 1974.)
● Dear Boy – Paul (2:15) (McCartney's neener-neener to Linda's ex-husband.)
● Long-Haired Lady – Paul (6:04) (Two song fragments welded together. Another favorite of mine.)
● I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier – John (6:08) (In the lyrically-simplistic style of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." An awful lot of Lennon's politics boils down to "hey, Nixon, get off my lawn!" See, e.g., "Gimme Some Truth.")
SIDE FOUR
● Too Many People – Paul (4:13) (McCartney's dig at John and Yoko for "preaching practices" but oblique enough to work as a song. See my comment on "It's So Hard" below.)
● It's So Hard – John (2:28) (No, no "How Do You Sleep?" — sorry — an admittedly interesting little ditty from a historical perspective, and if I'd put it here, a nice juxtaposition with the McCartney song Lennon says inspired his notorious riposte. But it doesn't really fit the mood of this or any other collection, including Imagine, where it floats in the middle of the otherwise inspiring material like the proverbial foreign object in the punch bowl. There's an art to being deeply personal without being transparently autobiographical, and John had mastered the form in such songs as "In My Life" "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Don't Let Me Down," classics all. "How Do You Sleep?" is no classic.)
● Let It Down – George (4:57) (Another song John and Paul rejected. No wonder the guy quit!)
● Monkberry Moon Delight – Paul (5:25) (Written for Linda's kids, a fun bit of nonsense.)
● Oh Yoko! – John (4:17) (I've read there's an alternate version of this bouncy little mash note that makes "Cold Turkey" sound like "Good Day Sunshine," and if one were to read the lyrics with that in mind, "Oh Yoko!" fits right in with the rest of John's paeans to acute separation anxiety. But I've never heard it and I can't confirm it ever existed outside my memories of a session sideman's long-after-the-fact recollections.)
Total running time: 79:36
Seven Lennon's, seven McCartney's, five Harrison's and one Starkey. Overall now, the count is John 15, Paul 14, George 11, Ringo 2.
Named for Katie-Bar-The-Door, the Katies are "alternate Oscars"—who should have been nominated, who should have won—but really they're just an excuse to write a history of the movies from the Silent Era to the present day.
To see a list of nominees and winners by decade, as well as links to my essays about them, click the highlighted links:
Remember: There are no wrong answers, only movies you haven't seen yet.
The Silent Oscars
And don't forget to check out the Silent Oscars—my year-by-year choices for best picture, director and all four acting categories for the pre-Oscar years, 1902-1927.
Look at me—Joe College, with a touch of arthritis. Are my eyes really brown? Uh, no, they're green. Would we have the nerve to dive into the icy water and save a person from drowning? That's a key question. I, of course, can't swim, so I never have to face it. Say, haven't you anything better to do than to keep popping in here early every morning and asking a lot of fool questions?
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