R.I.P. John Lennon: Sheepdog Standing In The Rain

The great John Lennon was assassinated in New York City on this night 29 years ago. And as Rock Turtleneck wrote two years back on the very same night:

"Since then, his musical character has been assassinated repeatedly by his widow Yoko Ono. John, Yoko will remind us, was a Utopian dreamer. A lover of humanity. A champion for the downtrodden. A crusader for peace. A namby-pamby who dared to… Imagine.

Well Rock Turtleneck is here to reclaim John Lennon’s true legacy as one of the great balls-out rockers of all time. A nasty scruff from Liverpool who imagined infusing old time rock & roll with the hurt and anger of his youth. A pill-popping, booze-swilling sonofabitch who imagined using his beautiful voice to express not only Utopian dreams but earthly desires. A driving, underrated rhythm guitarist who imagined that sanding down the finish of his trusty Epiphone Casino would help him get tones as raw as his emotions."

This year, we celebrate his underrated, super-rocking nonsense song "Hey Bulldog." One of several new tracks recorded as filler for the 1968 soundtrack to their fab animated film Yellow Submarine, this piano-driven, nonsense ditty is easily the pick of the litter.

For the two or so years previous to "Hey Bulldog," Lennon had been in heavy psychedelic mode, writing odes to Olde Tyme Circus shows, Peter Fonda freakouts, childhood memories and the Tibetian Book of the Dead. But "Bulldog" found him back from his extended trip and with a renewed love for classic rock & roll, albeit with a very Liverpudlian twist. (As the pictures above and video below demonstrate, Lennon's ever-changing hairstyle was also in transition, from the Sgt. Pepper English dandy to the freak-flag-flying hippie of the White Album and beyond.)

Perhaps most interestingly, the recording session for "Hey Bulldog" is the only Beatles recording session that was filmed, where you can actually see the band playing the final version that ended up on record.

At the time, the footage was used as a video for the single "Lady Madonna" until the release of the Beatles Anthology project in 1996, when the music and the footage were finally put together. As you can see, the Fab Four's chemistry in Abbey Road studios was amazing, and watching Paul and John do their crazy canine overdubs at the end is like watching a comedy troupe at the top of their game.


"Hey Bulldog" was also animated for the Yellow Submarine film but was left on the cutting room floor. It was justly returned to its rightful place in the film upon its DVD release in 1999, and is one of the more, ahem, animated segments of the movie. Mick Jagger used to refer to the Beatles as "The Four-Headed Monster" due to their inseparability both onstage and off, and the bulldog here seems to be just that.


R.I.P. Mr. Lennon. Let's take things home with the charming live-action epilogue to Yellow Submarine, featuring the Fab Four and Lennon's sideburns. This clip used to freak me out when I was younger. Still does, actually.