Apr
8
Nostalgia might be the point of repackaging things like old episodes of “The Tomorrow Show” with Tom Snyder, but there’s something bigger at work.
Not that overbearing notion of “things were so much better then,” unless you think a chain-smoking guy with bad hair and a leisure suit was the apex of cool.
No, the latest release of old “Tomorrow” shows provides a glimpse of how beautiful the art of conversation can be. Not how beautiful it was, not how much better it was. It’s still beautiful, it’s just underappreciated in our flash-and-dash world.
“The Tomorrow Show: John, Paul, Tom & Ringo” pulls together interviews with three of the Fab Four. Presumably, George never appeared on Snyder’s show.
Snyder’s show wasn’t always beautiful conversation. From 1973 to 1982, the Milwaukee native hosted a late-night NBC show that could be grating because of either the host or the guest. We see all of this at work in two previous “Tomorrow” releases, one that featured early punk musicians and one that featured musicians and writers from the psychedelic era.
The new release opens with a 1975 interview with John Lennon. Technically it’s a 1980 showing of the 1975 interview because this is a Lennon tribute episode that aired the day after his death on Dec. 8, 1980.
Strangely, Snyder undersells that Lennon interview as nothing more than a curio because it was likely the last TV interview he did before fading from the spotlight for a few years.
“It contains no historic information, nothing terribly new,” Snyder says in his introduction from the 1980 show. “It is a bit of stuff and substance of a man who was part of a change, a revolution if you will, in popular music.”
But it is much more. There’s certainly the irony of Lennon talking of how he loves the freedom of peacefully walking down the streets of New York. And there’s great insight of what the Beatles years were like, told with no bitterness and in such a way that even the greatest of fans would be sympathetic to why they broke up. No, it wasn’t Yoko’s fault; they were bored with the music after so many years together.
John
: We’d go into the studio and play those same licks.
Tom
: With those silly haircuts.
John
: Those silly haircuts that you have now.
That’s the great give-and-take in this entertaining chat. No fawning, no inquisition, just a lot of cigarettes and laughter. Snyder asks good questions that any mature curious fan might. Lennon was clearly comfortable in his own skin, and it shows.
That’s what makes this the must-see portion of the DVD. The other two interviews, with Paul McCartney (and Linda) and Ringo Starr (and Barbara Bach), don’t quite live up to the standard.
Paul and Linda’s interview comes via satellite from London, where Wings was about to perform in concert. If you think satellite hookups can be a pain to watch sometime, try one from 1979.
The Cute Beatle talks about his new band and has to suffer through Snyder asking about a Beatles reunion. If you want the scoop on Linda McCartney’s piano playing, she blandly relates it here. It’s a nice piece of nostalgia, but little more. Then again, let’s face it, Wings was a band that churned out great pop tunes, but wasn’t really that interesting as a whole.
Ringo’s interview came after John’s death, but provides some insight into the Beatles’ relationship after the breakup. All were lending a hand to Ringo’s new album, and John would have had he lived, Ringo says. Ringo takes some pride in boasting that he’s the greatest rock drummer and talks about his new movie, “Caveman.”
“Caveman” and Wings aside, this is a keeper mostly because of Lennon. The talk show format clearly agreed with him. Shout Factory, which released this collection, also has released a two-DVD collection of John and Yoko’s appearances on the Dick Cavett show, and the duo also hosted Mike Douglas’ show in 1972. Those shows made it to VHS but have yet to hit DVD.
Lots of people like to speculate what might have happened had he lived. Who knows? Perhaps he would have bounced Larry King off CNN a long time ago.
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