In their early years, the Beatles followed the trend of rock (and all of pop music) to limit themselves to themes such as parties, romance and heartbreak. Over time, influenced by Bob Dylan, they began to address all types of themes in their songs and, in this way, John Lennon stood out for pacifist anthems such as “All You Need Is Love” and “Revolution”. In a solo career, he continued to record hits for peace: “Give Peace a Chance”, “Power To The People” and “Imagine”.
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After moving from London to New York in 1971, John and Yoko became close to political activists and became more engaged than ever. The result was “Sometimes in New York City” (1972), which, as a double album, was practically entirely composed of protest songs. To make the journalistic feel clear, the cover imitates a newspaper (just like Jethro Tull did with “Thick as a Brick” three months earlier).
From then on, however, he hardly made songs about politics again. It is believed that, to some extent, the cold reception from both fans and critics was a factor — a cold shower compared to the success of “Imagine” the previous year. According to Lúcia Villares who wrote in the book John Lennon in Heaven with Diamonds, Lennon once expressed his frustration with that work:
“I do not think that [as músicas de ‘Sometimes in New York City’] be the best I’ve ever written, because I was pushing the envelope. The idea was that I had to write about the things that people were talking about at that moment. That’s where I got lost: because I hadn’t written down what I was feeling. That even worked on ‘Give Peace a Chance’, but it didn’t work on the others. […] My work became journalism, not poetry; and I feel like I’m basically a poet.”
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