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“You never know what you have until it’s gone, and I wanted to know what I had, so I got rid of everything.”
—Steven Wright
I feel now like I was a bit dismissive of “Old Dirt Road,” which kept coming back to me as I was laid up with the Covid recently. Food was unappealing, and the medicinal tea my wife wanted me to drink made me nauseous, but cool, clear water was always a balm.
I’m going to be more generous to “What You Got,” which could just as well be called “Yet Another Song About Yoko.” Though a decidedly minor entry in the Lennon songbook, it’s an intriguing little morsel. It began life as a rockabilly number; here’s an early home demo:
And here’s a slightly more developed demo, with John whaling on his guitar like nobody’s business:
But by the time it was recorded for Walls and Bridges, “What You Got” had become a piece of mid-tempo soul dressed up in trendy percussion — though the shouted vocals and snarling guitar keep trying to pull it in a different direction:
The result is a bit of an ungainly hybrid — one wag said that “What You Got” “may not have much to say lyrically, but it said it musically in the most fashionable way possible” — but it’s pretty lively. As I sit here on Sunday afternoon, a well and thankful person, it sounds pretty damn good and why quibble?