(Credits: Far Out / Universal Music Group)

There was always going to be some question surrounding what John Lennon was going to be like as a solo artist once The Beatles called it day. Sure, he no doubt could write immaculate songs, but what would they sound like if he didn’t have Paul McCartney or George Harrison keeping him in check on everything? While there were a million different avenues that he could have gone down during his career, he was never going to stop being creative for the sake of making a hit record.

He had done that side of his career, and now was the time for him to start spreading out. If he wanted to reach the same kind of complexity as he did when he did in his prime, he was going to take some time spreading out on Plastic Ono Band. He still had a lot of baggage to unpack after going through therapy, and now that he was free of the Fabs, he finally had the kind of stripped-down record that let him set the record straight on what his experience was being one of the most recognisable people in the world.

Although the last lines of ‘God’ hit like a damn gut punch for Fab fans, Lennon almost stretched himself too much once he got a handle on everything. Some Time in New York City was always going to be polarising before it even hit store shelves due to its content, but when Yoko Ono told him that they might be hurting each other more than they were helping, Lennon was on his own for the first time since he started his old band.

Despite being separated from Yoko, Lennon adopted the same philosophy as Ross from Friends by going on a break, after which he wrote a bunch of songs. Even though Yoko was happy to get some space, Lennon spent Mind Games pouring out his heart, from apology songs to the kind of rockers most people thought he had forgotten about since his Beatle days. But right in the middle is ‘Out the Blue’, which holds up as one of the most complex pieces of work of Lennon’s entire career, never mind his solo work.

At only three minutes, the real highlight of the tune is how many sections it has throughout its runtime. The whole song starts off like the kind of acoustic fingerpicking that predates indie folk by decades, but this is practically a bunch of song ideas stitched together, complete with an almost gospel flair in Lennon’s voice as he talks about his other half coming to him from the middle of nowhere.

For anyone who listened to Lennon for the musical content, though, this is a chordal extravaganza in every single section. Paul McCartney may have been the more musically adept of ‘The Nerk Twins’, but the magic that Lennon could get out of non-diatonic chords is a stroke of genius, as if he’s taking chord patterns together at random and somehow managing to weave the perfect melody around it.

And for all of the different genre switches and modulations, never once does the song feel like it’s jagged. After all, Lennon was a craftsman when it came to his songs, and looking at what he did here, he was not going to rest until he had the perfect balance of music and lyricism that he was satisfied with.

Many fans might point to tunes like ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun’ as the clear example of Lennon at his most eclectic, but ‘Out The Blue’ actually eclipses his Beatles masterpiece in a few areas as well. The classic White Album will certainly have its fans until the end of time, but whereas that tune feels like a musical journey in three minutes, this is like a finely-written novel over three minutes. And considering Lennon talked about writing the majority of Mind Games in a matter of weeks, it’s mind-boggling to think that this is what he can make in that short amount of time.