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Who Has Seen the Wind? (song)

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"Who Has Seen the Wind?"
Single by Yoko Ono & Plastic Ono Band
A-side"Instant Karma!" (John Lennon & Plastic Ono Band)
Released6 February 1970
RecordedJanuary 1970
StudioTrident Studios, London
Length2:02
LabelApple
Songwriter(s)Yoko Ono
Producer(s)John Lennon

"Who Has Seen the Wind?" is a song written by Yoko Ono that first appeared as the B-side of John Lennon's single "Instant Karma!" It was later issued as a bonus track on a compact disc version of the Wedding Album.

The song was released on digital and streaming services in 2022 via Secretly Canadian.[1]

Origin and recording

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"Who Has Seen the Wind?" was recorded at Trident Studios in London in January 1970 with Lennon serving as the producer.[2][3] Ono developed the song out of instruction pieces, i.e., instructional poems, she had created earlier.[3] The first verse was taken from a poem by 19th-century poet Christina Rossetti:[2][4]

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing by.[5]

Music and lyrics

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Beatle biographer John Blaney describes "Who Has Seen the Wind?" as a "gentle acoustic ballad".[3] Music lecturers Ben Urish and Ken Bielen describe it as a "low-key, evocative number".[6] The song starts out with Ono singing a capella.[2] When the backing instruments join, they include Lennon on guitar, Ono on flute or recorder and John Barham on harpsichord.[2][3][7] Beatle historian Bruce Spizer and some other sources speculate that George Harrison may have also played guitar on the song.[2][7] Spizer describes the feel of the song as evoking "images of minstrels performing at a Renaissance fair".[2] Music critic Johnny Rogan similarly considers the song to have "parlour music ambience seemingly intended to transport the listener into a different musical age".[8] Music journalist Peter Doggett describes Ono's vocal performance as "child-like" and "innocent".[9] Fab Four FAQ authors Stuart Shea and Robert Rodriguez describe it as illustrating the "mellow side" of Ono, also stating that the song "would have fit in well in an Addams Family soundtrack".[7]

Doggett considers the theme of "Who Has Seen the Wind?" to be "a message of love, linked to Yoko's belief that we are all wind, all clouds in the sky, drifting in search of meaning".[9] According to Blaney, Ono's "Listen, the Snow Is Falling", written the following year, has a similar theme involving natural elements having the power to connect people.[3] Music journalist John Kruth states that the lyrics "evoked the imagery of a Victorian-era poet".[10] Billboard contributor Morgan Enos considers the song to be a "faux-medieval love song".[11]

According to Ono biographer Jerry Hopkins, in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine's Jonathan Cott, Ono stated of the song that "There was something 'of a little lost girl about it,' a sense of 'quiet desperation.'"[12] Cott reacted that "religion, a philosopher once said, was what you do with your aloneness ... or, one might add, with your pain and desperation. Yoko's music pushes pain into a kind of invigorating and liberating energy, just as a stutterer finally gives birth to a difficult word, since it existed originally at the fine edge between inaudibility and the sound of waves of dreams."[12]

Release and reception

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The label to the single says to "Play Soft" (or in some versions to "Play Quiet").[2] This contrasts with the A-side of the single, "Instant Karma!", whose label says to "Play Loud".[2] On Lennon and Ono's previous single, "Cold Turkey" / "Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)", both sides exhorted the listener to "Play Loud".[2]

In their book The Beatles: An Illustrated Record, NME critics Roy Carr and Tony Tyler remark that "Who Has Seen the Wind?" "would have made a marvellous soundtrack for the movie of Henry James' 'The Turn of the Screw', being a somewhat sinister ditty sung à la Wunderkind".[13] Bruce Spizer deems the 1970 single "a far cry ... and welcome relief from the avant-garde discs issued by John and Yoko in 1969".[14]

"Who Has Seen the Wind?" was released as a bonus track the 2007 CD release of the Wedding Album.[15]

References

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  1. ^ "Yoko Ono & The Plastic Ono Band - Who Has Seen the Wind? - Single". Apple Music. Retrieved 19 February 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Spizer, Bruce (2005). The Beatles Solo on Apple Records. 498 Productions. pp. 20, 28–29. ISBN 0966264959.
  3. ^ a b c d e Blaney, John (2007). Lennon and McCartney: together alone: a critical discography of their solo work. Jawbone Press. pp. 28–29, 71–72. ISBN 978-1-906002-02-2.
  4. ^ Aronoff, Herbert (March 7, 1970). "Pop Music". The Gazette. p. 44. Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  5. ^ Rossetti, Christina. "Who Has Seen the Wind?". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  6. ^ Urish, Ben; Bielen, Ken (2007). The Words and Music of John Lennon. Praeger. p. 16. ISBN 9780275991807.
  7. ^ a b c Shea, Stuart & Rodriguez, Robert (2007). Fab Four FAQ. Hal Leonard. pp. 264–265. ISBN 9781423421382.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ Rogan, Johnny (2010). Lennon: the Albums. Calidore. ISBN 9780857124388.
  9. ^ a b Doggett, Peter (2009). The Art And Music Of John Lennon. Omnibus Press. ISBN 9780857121264.
  10. ^ Kruth, John (2021). Hold On World: The Lasting Impact of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Plastic Ono Band, Fifty Years On. Backbeat. p. 51. ISBN 9781493052363.
  11. ^ Enos, Morgan (March 20, 2019). "John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Relationship: A Song-by-Song Timeline". Billboard. Retrieved 2021-08-04.
  12. ^ a b Hopkins, Jerry (1986). Yoko Ono. Macmillan. pp. 143–144. ISBN 0025539507.
  13. ^ Carr, Roy; Tyler, Tony (1978). The Beatles: An Illustrated Record. London: Trewin Copplestone Publishing. p. 86. ISBN 0-450-04170-0.
  14. ^ Spizer 2005, pp. 27, 28.
  15. ^ Ruhlmann, William. "Wedding Album". Allmusic. Retrieved 2021-08-02.
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