John Lennon and Roger Waters are known for never shying away from a strong opinion. Following in Lennon’s footsteps, Waters has used his rock star platform as a means to express and challenge ideas.
He’s even admitted that he’s puzzled by how “scared” many musicians are of speaking out, stating, “I am monumentally surprised how expletive scared my fellow musicians are to stick their heads out.” It’s a sentiment Lennon might have echoed, as he believed music had the power to extend beyond “pretty little tunes.”
Both Lennon and Waters are often associated with gentle, introspective music. For Waters, solo projects have drawn on acoustic folk, a genre he once described as the most authentic, claiming, “I think great singer-songwriter is the best part of the musical spectrum.”
This respect for vulnerability is why Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band album resonated with Waters so strongly. The album, released after the Beatles’ breakup, is Lennon at his rawest. Even the album cover—a simple image of Lennon and Yoko Ono under a tree—mirrored the album’s sound: reflective and unfiltered.
The opening track, “Mother,” exemplifies this depth of feeling. Born from Primal Scream therapy, which encouraged subjects to face suppressed emotions, Lennon used the track to revisit painful memories, such as his mother’s death and his father’s absence.
Yoko Ono, reflecting on Lennon’s experience, once said, “He was able to go back to that childhood, that memory.” This return to roots was more than thematic; Lennon used the most stripped-down rock arrangements to convey his anguish. Reflecting on the album at the time, Lennon admitted he preferred “simple rock” despite his psychedelic explorations, saying, “I express myself best in rock.”
It’s this stripped-back, emotionally raw approach that Waters has always found so compelling. The Pink Floyd bassist has repeatedly cited Plastic Ono Band as one of his all-time favorite albums. “It knocked my socks off,” he recalled, noting that the sonic purity of tracks like “Mother” made a lasting impression. Waters likened the experience of hearing it to first encountering Music from Big Pink by The Band, saying, “Those records… stay with you forevermore.”
For Lennon, the impact of Plastic Ono Band was lasting, too. He once referred to the album as “the best thing [he’d] ever done.” It’s a testament to the power of raw honesty, proving that, for both Lennon and Waters, rock music was more than sound; it was a way of facing, and perhaps healing, one’s deepest wounds.
