John Lennon For President

In view of subsequent events, this album and its title now possess an unintended eeriness. But in 1980 it was just part of the landscape. In case no one remembers, in 1980 the U.S. went nuts. Not that this hadn't happened before, even during some recent campaign years, but this was the first time it coincided with a presidential race in which two incompetents were running against each other, and politics became the medium through which a lot of that nutsiness was expressed. In that environment, how could David Peel, master satirist, topical songwriter, marijuana advocate, peace activist, and musician provocateur, possibly resist the impulse to join in' The result is more mixed media than is usual for Peel, alternating between music, interviews, and speeches, all of it focused, and assuming that one has the tolerance for absurdity necessary to appreciate it, it's a fine coda to Peel's earlier Lennon-produced and Beatles-inspired work. Bruce Eder