Watching the Wheels

When you go from Plastic Ono Band and you kind of get to what becomes this unplanned ending with Double Fantasy.

they really are poles apart, you know, in terms of, you know, we're getting songs like Beautiful Boy or Watching the Wheels and We've Moved a Long Way from My Mummy's Dead and Isolation, you know, and God.

And it almost seemed like this circle had closed in its own way for him spiritually, that there'd been this, he'd kind of, to my ears had kind of gone full circle, slayed a lot of demons.

And part of me is kind of wondered if as tragic as his ending was, was he perhaps at more peace than he'd ever been psychologically, spiritually, potentially.

would have been huge.

Now, I know that they were in a more mature sort of songwriting phase because obviously there were John's cuts, I think, from when he was doing Watching the Wheels.

Yeah.

So it's a different thing to say.

And, and years later, even in his solo career, uh, I think of the song Watching Wheels, and it sounds like a man reflecting on his own life and the strange expectations that were placed upon him.

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round.

I really love to watch them roll.

No longer riding on the merry-go-round.

And I was delighted that there was that song by the Beatles, which was such a lovely song.

It's called Watching the Wheels Go Round.

Some of you know it.

But it's like, I can get off the race.

Why are you going on a retreat? Are you all right? You need fixing? What's the matter with you going on a retreat? I'm sure there's voices like that.

The song just simply says, I'm all right watching the shadows on the wall.

I'm all right watching the wheels go around.

We don't need to step out of the game totally, but we need to remember deep rest.

It's in the sense that, you know, uh, in India we have to contend with small things every single day.

I mean, one maid servant doesn't show up and things go berserk at home, for in-for instance.

Uh, our driver doesn't show, whatever, right? Some small thing goes, and every day there's something or the other, some troubleshooting or the other happening someplace.

So I think this country, uh, toughens you, hardens you, um, and, and, and life is very real.

So in that space, having a sense of civic mindedness speaks a lot about a person who, who's living here.

When you have a summary statistics tell you a level of dispersion or deviation, then you've got your sense.

That's the simplistic idea.

It also shows up very verbally.