Wonsaponatime lonago

So I picked up, used, the sampler for the John Lennon Anthology, Wonsaponatime. It's a good companion piece to Lennon Legend. Between the two, I figured, I'd save myself the trouble of getting the solo albums. It doesn't seem to be working that way, however... the material I have makes me want to hear more. D'oh!

Anyhow, Wonsaponatime is possibly a better compilation than Lennon Legend, believe it or not. The individual songs aren't as good, perhaps, but the overall feel of the compilation is better and there's nothing as unlistenable as "Power to the People." It's got some stuff that rivals Lennon's best songs, as well: I'm Losing You, a sort of thematic combination of Norwegian Wood and Cold Turkey; God, which is a much better commentary on the Beatles than anything else; an interesting alternate take of How Do You Sleep; I Found Out, an anti-religion (especially trendy religion) song that has a nice anti-Paul knife twist at the end (Yoko must have been feeling bitter when she put this together); great 50s covers in Be Bop a Luba and a Rip It Up/Ready Teddy medley; one of the most philosophically mature songs Lennon ever did solo, I Don't Want to Face It, which is a sort of repudiation of Imagine and his political songs; Real Love, which just destroys the faux Beatles version; and the riotously funny Serve Yourself, a return to (and even an improvement on!) the machine-gun satirical wit that we missed so much. What's funny about the latter is that it seems to be a rerecording of a song that's credited to Lennon/McCartney!?

Happy New Year!

*cough* Late as usual.

Let's have a thought from John Buchan, writing in the late 1940s, on "the coming of a too garish age, when life would be lived in the glare of neon lamps and the spirit would have no solitude.”

In such a (nightmare) world everyone would have leisure. But everyone would be restless, for there would be no spiritual disciplines in life. . . . It would be a feverish, bustling world, self-satisfied and yet malcontent, and under the mask of a riotous life there would be death at the heart. In the perpetual hurry of life there would be no chance of quiet for the soul. . . . In such a bagman’s paradise, where life would be rationalized and padded with every material comfort, there would be little satisfaction for the immortal part of man.

Sourced, unexpectedly, from Catholic.net's homiletics section.