Lyr Req: Not John (Loudon Wainwright III)

Subject: Not John (Loudon Wainwright)
From: Allan Dennehy
Date: 08 Sep 02 - 05:57 PM

Can't find the lyrics to this lovely song anywhere. Any takers?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Not John (Loudon Wainwright)
From: Sorcha
Date: 09 Sep 02 - 11:03 AM

No luck, but there is a link to a Louden discussion group here, and you could join up and ask. It's a Yahoo group.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Not John (Loudon Wainwright)
From: Allan Dennehy
Date: 10 Sep 02 - 10:47 AM

Tannks Sorcha, I'll give it a try.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Not John (Loudon Wainwright III)
From: GUEST,Les Acton
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 12:54 PM

Why not write the lyrics out from you tube the chords are

C C7 F C G7 C

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Not John (Loudon Wainwright III)
From: Stower
Date: 30 Nov 09 - 09:44 AM

The video on You Tube is here. I remember LW3 singing this on a John Peel session, saying he rewrote an original here, the tune being traditional and the original words were about the assassination of Lyndon Johnson.

I'd be interested to hear that original. Does anyone know where it might be found?

Subject: Lyr Add: NOT JOHN (Loudon Wainwright III)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 09:38 PM

NOT JOHN
Loudon Wainwright III

1. The limousine was waiting outside the studio.*
In stepped poor John Lennon and his wife Yoko.
Oh, no, not John.

2. On up 44th Street, left at 8th Avenue,**
Up to the Dakota, a man waits there for you.
Oh, no, yes, John.

3. The man's name it is Chapman, comes from Honolulu.
He really loved your music, John. He got a Japanese wife, too.
Oh, no, poor Sean.

4. Five bullets in your body, that's what the experts say.
They say you signed an autograph for him on that very day.
Oh, no, not John.

5. There was a vigil at the Roosevelt***, at the Dakota too.
Silence in Central Park. They had a riot in Liverpool.
Oh, no, not John.

6. Chapman's in the jailhouse. What's he doing there?
He went and he shot John Lennon. All you heroes best beware.
Oh, no, not John.

REPEAT VERSE 1.


* Record Plant studio, at 321 West 44th Street, New York. The albums "Imagine" and "Double Fantasy" had been recorded there.
** The route taken by the limousine from the studio to the Dakota apartments, where John and Yoko lived. The Dakota is at the northwest corner of West 72nd Street and Central Park West, New York City.
*** Roosevelt Hospital, where John was pronounced dead.

To my mind, the tune resembles one sometimes used for DELIA'S GONE.

Stower: I don't know what you could have meant by "the assassination of Lyndon Johnson"—who wasn't assassinated.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Not John (Loudon Wainwright III)
From: Stower
Date: 03 Dec 09 - 07:44 AM

Jim, I don't know either! I must have mis-remembered. I have it on an old cassette somewhere, recorded from the radio, which I must go and find in an attempt to quickly cover my embarassment.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Not John (Loudon Wainwright III)
From: Stower
Date: 04 Dec 09 - 11:33 AM

I have found the cassette and am now digitalising it. LW3 said he based it on a song about the assassination of President McKinley.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Not John (Loudon Wainwright III)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 06 Dec 09 - 12:26 PM

Then it must be WHITE HOUSE BLUES, which is in the DT, or a related song called MCKINLEY'S RAG. They are both about the assassination of McKinley. I don't know about the tune, but the metrical structure is similar: a couplet followed by a half-line refrain.

WHITE HOUSE BLUES is normally done as a quick, up-tempo tune. I suppose that's OK because no one mourns for McKinley nowadays. Wainwright did well to slow it down.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Not John (Loudon Wainwright III)
From: Stower
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 11:31 AM

Thanks, Jim. I can certainly hear the correlation between (some versions of) White House Blues and Not John. There are several versions of WHB on You Tube, some *ridiculously* fast, as if they're singing 'he's dead whoopee'.