Recorded: 1969-1984
Released: 4 October 2010
Tracklisting:
Be-Bop-Lula
You Can't Catch Me
Medley: Rip It Up/Ready Teddy
Tight A$
Ain't That A Shame
Sweet Little Sixteen
Do You Wanna Dance?
Slippin' And Slidin'
Peggy Sue
Medley: Bring It On Home To Me/Send Me Some Lovin'
Yer Blues
Just Because
Bony Moronie
Beef Jerky
Ya Ya
Hound Dog
Stand By Me
Here We Go Again
CD 3 – Woman: John's love songs
Mother
Hold On
You Are Here
Well Well Well
Oh My Love
Oh Yoko!
Grow Old With Me
Love
Jealous Guy
Woman
Out The Blue
Bless You
Nobody Loves You (When You're Down And Out)
My Mummy's Dead
I'm Losing You
(Just Like) Starting Over
#9 Dream
Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)
Working Class Hero
Instant Karma
Power To The People
God
I Don't Want To Be A Soldier
Gimme Some Truth
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Steel And Glass
Meat City
I Don't Wanna Face It
Remember
Woman Is The Nigger Of The World
I Found Out
Isolation
Imagine
Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
Give Peace A Chance
Only People
CD 4 – Borrowed Time: John's songs about life
Mind Games
Nobody Told Me
Cleanup Time
Crippled Inside
How Do You Sleep?
How?
Intuition
I'm Stepping Out
Whatever Get You Thru The Night
Old Dirt Road
Scared
What You Got
Cold Turkey
New York City
Surprise Surprise (Sweet Bird Of Paradox)
Borrowed Time
Look At Me
Watching The Wheels
A four-disc anthology of songs by John Lennon, Gimme Some Truth was issued as part of the 2010 set of digitally remastered recordings that were released to mark the 70th anniversary of his birth.
Each of the discs ordered Lennon's work thematically into different aspects of his life. Some of the selections proved puzzling: the 'Woman' disc, supposedly featuring love songs, opened with the heart-wrenching Mother, and also contains My Mummy's Dead, Nobody Loves You (When You're Down And Out), Hold On and #9 Dream, none of which are predominantly love songs.
Equally baffling is 'Working Class Hero: John's socio-political songs'. The tracklisting bypasses much of Lennon's most outspoken political works, released on 1972's Some Time In New York City, most likely because they weren't particularly good, but does contain ill-fitting songs such as Meat City, Steel And Glass and I Don't Wanna Face It.
And then there's 'Borrowed Time: John's songs about life', a vague catch-all which offers little in the way of a unifying theme, but does make room for the wholly expendable Intuition, one of Lennon's least inspired recordings. It also features Surprise Surprise (Sweet Bird Of Paradox), a pure expression of love written for May Pang in 1974; this should have been included in the love songs disc – was it excluded as an act of revisionism by Yoko Ono?
As an introduction to Lennon's music, Gimme Some Truth has many moments to savour. However, anyone wishing to go beyond a basic hits collection would be better off investing in the John Lennon Signature Box, a more comprehensive guide to this remarkable man's work.
Completists, meanwhile, should be aware that the remastered songs exclusive to this edition are Here We Go Again, Hound Dog and Yer Blues. A cynical observer might conclude that scattering such songs across each of the 2010 reissues was an attempt to force dedicated fans to buy each of the formats, and to give as much money as possible to Yoko Ono.
