My 2nd nominee in my 2nd Beatles Solo Project is Milk and Honey, by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It is John’s posthumous final album. Released in January 1984, it is a follow-up to their Grammy-winning Double Fantasy album. The album’s title, Milk and Honey, is lifted from several passages found in the Old Testament of The Bible (e.g. “the land of milk and honey”). It also refers to a slang expression made for when a Caucasian marries an Asian. Milk and Honey includes “Nobody Told Me,” a song originally intended for Ringo. This leadoff single peaked at #5 in the US. This song reflected John feeling more at peace and enjoying more of the simple things in life as a resident of New York City. John’s contributions to the album are low-key compared to the answer songs recorded by Yoko. Two songs directly influenced by the poems of Robert and Elizabeth Browning – “Grow Old with Me” and Yoko’s “Let Me Count the Ways” – showed how deep their love continued to be going into the ‘80s. Ironically, and painfully, “Grow Old with Me” is one of the last songs John recorded before he was killed on December 8, 1980.
Trivia:
Another song Ringo intended to record by (and with) John was called “Life
Begins at 40.” This and “Nobody Told Me” were going to be part of Ringo’s 1981
album, Stop and Smell the Roses. Both songs got shelved following John’s
death. (John’s demo recording of “Life Begins at 40” was released on the Lennon
Anthology box set in 1998.)
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