176. “We’ll go back in the past } just once.”

Come together over dirty messiah John ‘n’ Yoko over me—what do I know? You and “you’ve got to be free.” On Abbey Road, “Come Together” mocks unclean hippy Kurtz whose wisdom is diseased. The third “shoot” is “shoot me” (Anthology 3 “Come Together”: shoot… shoot… shoot… look out!). “He’s one” becomes “he one” but sounds like “he wants”—“he’s one holy roller,” “he’s one spinal cracker” “he’s one jo jo [go-jo? mojo?] filter.” But Live In New York City “Come Together” wants to be a piece with Lennon’s political songs (“Woman Is the Nigger of the World,” “Attica State,” “Luck of the Irish,” etc.). Come together “over you” and “over me, over you, over there” and at the One to One concert “come together, right now, stop the war!” For “Come Together” to work as a rallying cry slogan (akin to “Give Peace A Chance” and “Power To the People”), you’ve gotta ignore “old flattop” who “just do what he please” and hear only “one thing I can tell you is you’ve got to be free / come together / right now / over me.”

Lennon’s attempt to recast “Come Together” points toward its origin as a campaign song for Mr. Timothy Leary.

[At Madison Square Garden, August 30, 1972, someone in the crowd shouted “Help!”; Lennon laughs (“Ha”) then says, “We'll go back in the past, just once. You might remember this better than I do, actually.” To the band he says, “Okay. Something about a flattop. That's all I know. One two a one two three four!” When they finish performing “Come Together” Lennon says, “Thank you thank you, I nearly got all the words right, too.”]