John Lennon-Mind Games (1973)



Artist: John Lennon

Title: Mind Games

Label: Apple

Format: LP

Cat #: SW-3414

Year of Release: 1973

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1973 (Winchester Pressing)

Sold Price:  $8.99

Listed Condition: VG+/VG (hole punch in upper right corner)

Sell Date: 9/22/20

Discogs Last Sold: 6/29/20 $6.00 VG+/VG+

Low: $4.99

Median: $7.00

High: $36.00. M/VG+ Factory Sealed with hole punch

Current low price: $5.00 VG/VG

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 27

Have/Want: 397/88

Where Sold: Tampa, FL

Time it took to sell: 3 years

Where and When Bought: That's Entertainment in Worcester $5.99

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A-

Sad To See It Go?: Yes

In 1981 my new record buddy John McKeag got a green label Capitol of Mind Games brand new.  It was probably one of the first 20 albums he owned, and I believe his second Lennon solo album after a 50 cent extremely warped copy of Imagine.  This was the aftermath of Lennon's murder and dawn of our subsequent Beatles completist mentality.  I got the All Together Now book that gave a detailed discography around the same time as well as the compilation Shaved Fish for a birthday gift which my grandmother went through great lengths to have a sticker put on the cover to censor the bare buttock art depiction of "Woman Is The Nigger Of The World."  As for Mind Games, I didn't find a used "original Apple" copy of it until a few years later at my local used record/comic bookstore That's Entertainment, which still exists today.  However, I was alerted by John in 1981 that this was a perfect album start to finish and heard it to familiarity by the time I bought a copy a few years later.

I spun Mind Games on the other night with a little volume before shipping it out to see if it was as "perfect" as I remember, since I've only heard tracks from it sporadically over the years, and I really can't remember the last time I listened to it start to finish when the cd remaster came out in the 90's or so. Outside of the title track, the song that came to mind was always "Bring On The Lucie (Freeda People)."  "Out Of The Blue" "Intuition" and "Tight A$" are others that roll through my brain when I see the track list.  Other songs I totally spaced on, particularly the boogie rock album closer "Meat City." Probably the best song for me this time around is "Aisumasen (I'm Sorry)" which soars in the same vocal style as "Remember" from Plastic Ono Band. "You Are Here" is another quality mystical ballad.  But some of the Walking-In-The-Park-With-Elouise kitch like "One Day (At A Time)" and post-Sometime In NYC rabble rock like "Only People" seem a cut below the top Lennon grade, so I reassessed and put a minus after that A.  In my mind the twin peaks remain the aforementioned POB and Imagine.  I might even bump Double Fantasy above this now.

Funny also that I never internalized the giant hole promo punch in the upper right-hand corner of the cover of my copy, even after I put it in the description with my condition grade.  The narrative in my head was that I found a perfect condition Apple Mind Games for a very low early 80's price of $5.99.  When it sold, I felt a deep pang of sorry that this went for only $8.99, but the reality of the Discogs market sometimes makes for feelings of regret.  This was slightly mitigated by this going with 3 other albums, all of them with a story worth inclusion in the writers cut for this blog.

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