Various Artists - Every Man Has A Woman (1984)

I'm one of the many music aficionados who have deservedly spewed venom on Yoko Ono over many decades for her awful music but never for breaking up The Beatles. She may have greatly annoyed three of them, but she isn't the reason they disbanded. Instead, you should blame most of the Liverpool four's internal friction on the death of Brian Epstein. Without him, the Fabs' business affairs became tangled in a fatal, downward spiral that caused hard feelings among them for a long time.

But today, I'm willing to cut Ono a little bit of slack regarding her music. When she wasn't striving to be as musically outrageous and avant-garde as possible John Lennon's muse sometimes wrote and recorded work that wasn't too far out of the mainstream. The primary criticism on most of her songs from Double Fantasy, Milk and Honey and beyond comes from her completely unappealing singing voice, not from her songwriting.

Every Man Has a Woman isn't an album I would normally buy. I don't remember how it came into my possession. It's a promotional copy, so there's a good chance a friend of mine with connections to the record business - or my wife who worked in radio at the time - gave me a copy.

John Lennon wanted to make an album of cover versions of Ono's work as a surprise for her fiftieth birthday, so he gathered a bunch of friends and musicians together to record songs she wrote for an LP that he unfortunately never got to finish.

The record has twelve tracks covered by Lennon, Rosanne Cash, Eddie Money, Roberta Flack, Elvis Costello and the Attractions, and three by Harry Nilsson. There are also three songs by artists who are totally unfamiliar to me. As is the case with most various artists sets it's uneven, but there isn't anything on it that is truly unlistenable.

The songs were taken from four different Ono albums. Approximately Infinite Universe (1973) and Double Fantasy (1980) were released in Lennon's lifetime. Two others, Season of Glass (1981), and It's Alright (I See Rainbows) (1982) were issued after his passing.

Lennon and Ono were not against children singing on their records as their famous Christmas song proves. On this LP there is "Now or Never," a political song featuring a children's group named Spirit Choir, and four-year-old Sean Ono Lennon does a rap as best he could on "It's Alright" that closes side two. If you don't like listening to kids sing you may want to skip these tracks although Sean's is accompanied by a fun video.

The original "Walking on Thin Ice," was finished in the studio by Lennon and Ono the night the former Beatle died. Costello covered it here with a very 80s, synthesized arrangement. Other highlights include Flack's take on "Goodbye Sadness" and Cash's version of "Nobody Sees Me Like You Do."

The album's opener, "Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him" originally featured Ono singing it on Double Fantasy. On this version Lennon removes her lead vocal to bring his voice front and center. She can still be heard singing backup.

I'm not totally willing to forgive Ono for tracks like "Don't Worry Kyoko, Mummy's Only Looking for a Hand in the Snow" - listen to it here if you dare - but Every Man Has a Woman proves there is more musical talent residing inside her than she is normally given credit for.

Comments

  1. Casey10:30 AM, August 21, 2025

    I never, in the longest of minutes, ever once considered a compilation of Yoko Ono songs performed by other artists. However, stepping back from the premise, the idea holds more than a bit of water. Hearing a few Ono songs that are seldom heard sung by artists with voices that bring them to the ears without prejudice is an education. For this reason alone, the idea merits pause. And I quite liked your "Goodbye Sadness" and "...Thin Ice" offerings. Now if only they could get Willie Nelson to sing, "Kiss Kiss Kiss"...the Red-Headed Stranger, indeed. Stay safe out there and keep posting!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

ALL-TIME POPULAR POSTS

Slower Than Slow: 16 RPM Records

Image
Have you ever heard of a long forgotten vinyl format, the 16 2/3 RPM record? They were half the speed of the 33 1/3 RPM albums that were the traditional standard for recorded music. Most record players in the 1950s and 1960s came with a speed setting to play these long forgotten discs that were considered novelties even during the years they were available. Because most, but not all, 16s had big holes and were 7" in diameter many of them were mistaken for 45 RPMs and at that size the speed allowed for up to 20 minutes of playing time per side. However, there was no true standard size and they were also manufactured to be 9, 10, or 12 inches in diameter, and these larger records played even longer. Just like the other speeds and formats 16s could be played one record at a time or stacked on a changer for continuous play. Radio stations often used the discs for pre-recorded radio shows containing interviews, dramas, and documentaries. More frequen...
Read more

Why Do 45 RPM Records Have Big Holes?

Image
Today we're going to find out why 45 RPM records have much larger holes than 78s and 33s. Believe it or not I often wondered about this burning question when I was collecting hundreds of these little seven inch gems back the 1960s. According to several websites, including Answerbag , the reason for the large hole used by 45s was simple. It was difficult for the old 78s, with their smaller holes, to find their way onto jukebox spindles. The large hole effectively eliminated that problem. Strangely, seven inch 45s were often pressed with the smaller holes used for LPs in many countries outside the United States, especially in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Overseas the inserts (commonly know as spiders) were manufactured into the large holes at the factories but they could be punched out if desired. The Beatles' British single of "Love Me Do," pictured here, is a typical example. Why were the spiders built into English 45s? I was unable to fi...
Read more

10 Great Beatles Songs You May Have Never Heard

Image
I recently paid a visit to a blog that I read regularly published by my British cyber-buddy, Martin Warminger. At his site, Music Obsessive , he just listed what are, in his opinion, the worst Beatles songs of all time . It's an idea I wanted to steal, and I could come up with a short but bad list, but for the sake of originality I decided to do something completely different instead. So, here is a list of ten songs by my all-time favorite band that deserve a better place in the annals of Beatles history. Most of them are only known by their hardcore fans. Here they are in chronological order. You can listen to a few of the rarer ones below. 1. I'll Be On My Way The only known recorded version of this very early, 1963, Lennon-McCartney ditty appears on Live at The BBC . The Beatles never put it on vinyl. Yes, it's simplistic and the lyrics even have the audacity to rhyme the word "moon" with "June." However, the song has one of those undeni...
Read more