John Lennon was bored. In 1971, he’d already conquered the world twice over—first with the mop-top mania of the Beatles and then as the high priest of peace with Imagine. But the "peace and love" stuff felt a bit soft for the grit of 1970s Manhattan. He and Yoko Ono had just moved into a modest two-room flat on Bank Street in Greenwich Village. No more sprawling English estates. No more Tittenhurst Park. Just the smell of street food, the sound of sirens, and the heavy, buzzing energy of radical politics.
He wanted to be a journalist with a guitar. Honestly, he said as much. He wanted his next record to be like a newspaper—disposable, immediate, and reacting to the headlines of the morning. The result was Sometime in New York City, an album so messy and confrontational that critics basically tried to bury it alive the second it hit the shelves in June 1972.
People hated it.
I’m not being dramatic. Rolling Stone called it "incipient artistic suicide." But if you look at it now, through the lens of 2026, the record feels less like a failure and more like a raw, bleeding time capsule. It’s the sound of a man trying to shed his "Ex-Beatle" skin while the FBI was literally following him in unmarked cars.
The Most Controversial Tracklist in Rock History
You can’t talk about Sometime in New York City without talking about the titles. John and Yoko weren’t aiming for subtlety. They were swinging a sledgehammer. The lead single, "Woman Is the Nigger of the World," used a racial slur to make a point about sexism. Even back then, it was a massive gamble. Radio stations wouldn't touch it. TV censors at ABC chopped it out of The Dick Cavett Show.
Lennon argued that the word was used as a metaphor for the "lowest of the low," but it backfired. Instead of focusing on the feminist message—which was actually quite ahead of its time—the public got stuck on the shock value.
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Then you had "Attica State."
John wrote this after the 1971 prison riot where 43 people died. Most rock stars were singing about cars and girls; Lennon was screaming about Governor Nelson Rockefeller and human rights in correctional facilities. He was also obsessed with getting John Sinclair out of jail—a poet who got ten years for two joints.
The album is basically a list of 1972’s biggest grievances:
- The Irish Troubles: "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "The Luck of the Irish."
- Black Radicalism: "Angela," dedicated to activist Angela Davis.
- Urban Life: "New York City," a Chuck Berry-style rocker that name-checks the local weirdos and activists John was hanging out with, like David Peel.
The Sound of the Street (and a Lot of Saxophone)
To get that "street" sound, John ditched the polished studio musicians and hired Elephant’s Memory. They were a ragtag, politically active bar band from the Village. They weren't the best musicians John ever worked with—not by a long shot. But they had "vibe."
They brought a heavy, dirty, saxophone-drenched sound to the tracks. It’s loud. It’s distorted. It sounds like a protest happening in a basement. If you’re used to the shimmering production of "Imagine," this record will give you a headache. But that was the point. John wanted it to feel "live" and "now."
The original release was actually a double album. The second disc, called Live Jam, featured recordings from the Lyceum in London and a wild guest appearance with Frank Zappa at the Fillmore East. It’s mostly feedback and Yoko’s avant-garde vocalizing. It’s... a lot.
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Why Everyone Is Talking About It in 2026
So, why does this 50-plus-year-old disaster matter now? Because we finally have the "Ultimate Mixes."
The 2025 box set, titled Power to the People, has done for Sometime in New York City what previous sets did for Mind Games and Plastic Ono Band. Sean Ono Lennon and engineer Paul Hicks went back to the original multitrack tapes. They cleaned up the mud. They brought John's voice forward.
Suddenly, you can hear that "New York City" is actually one of the best rockers Lennon ever wrote. You can hear the nuance in "Luck of the Irish." Even Yoko’s "We’re All Water"—which sounds remarkably like 1970s punk before punk existed—gets a fair shake.
The box set also includes the full One to One concerts from Madison Square Garden. These were the only full-length solo shows Lennon ever did after the Beatles. They’re historic. They show a guy who was terrified of being on stage again but was doing it anyway to raise money for kids at the Willowbrook State School.
What Most People Get Wrong
The biggest misconception is that John was "brainwashed" by the radicals he was hanging with, like Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman.
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The truth? He was bored and looking for a fight. He’d always been a "rebel without a cause" in the 50s; in the 70s, he finally found a dozen causes at once. But he wasn't a puppet. In fact, he eventually got tired of the Yippies. He realized they were using his fame, and he pulled back. By the time the Nixon administration was trying to deport him, John was already moving toward his "House Husband" phase.
Sometime in New York City wasn't a permanent shift; it was a snapshot of a very specific, very loud year in his life.
How to Listen to It Today
If you want to understand this era of John’s life, don't just put the album on and hope for the best. It’s a context-heavy record.
- Watch the "One to One: John & Yoko" documentary. It hit IMAX recently and uses restored footage to show what their life in the Village was actually like. It makes the songs make sense.
- Skip to the Ultimate Mixes. The 1972 original mix is thin and abrasive. The 2025 remixes actually have bass and clarity.
- Listen for the "Evolution Documentaries." The box set has tracks that show the songs being built from demos to finished pieces. It’s like being a fly on the wall at Record Plant studios.
- Read the newspaper. The original cover was designed to look like a copy of the New York Times. Every song corresponds to a "story."
John Lennon once said that if a song doesn't rhyme, it doesn't matter as long as the point gets across. Sometime in New York City is the ultimate proof of that philosophy. It’s not "pretty" music. It’s not easy listening. But it’s the most honest look we have at a superstar trying to figure out how to be a human being in a very broken world.
Take a Saturday afternoon and dive into the One to One concert recordings from the new box set first. It’s the most accessible entry point to this period. Once you hear him rip through "Come Together" with Elephant's Memory, the studio album's chaotic energy will finally click.