Page 2 – Colin McGinn

Truth as Consistency

May 26, 2026/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by admin

Truth as Consistency

I will present a new theory of truth. It can be stated thus: for a proposition to be true is for it to be consistent with reality.[1] For “snow is white” to be true is for it to be consistent with the fact that snow is white; “snow is black” is not consistent with snow being white, so it is false. It can’t be that “snow is black” is true and yet snow is white; but “snow is white” being true is eminently consistent with snow being white. The part of reality referred to by “snow is white” is the state of affairs of snow actually being white, but “snow is black” refers to no actual state of affairs. The latter sentence is not consistent with reality, but the former is. If someone asserted that snow is black, we could reply that that statement is not consistent with reality, thereby stating that the proposition in question is not true. It will be noticed that this relation of consistency holds between propositions and parts of reality; so, it isn’t the same as consistency between propositions. Some may find this objectionable, but it really isn’t. It is a perfectly natural way to talk. States of affairs can be consistent or inconsistent with each other, as well as propositions; we are simply extending the concept to a relation between propositions and facts (constituents of reality). There is consistency between propositions, consistency between states of affairs, and consistency between propositions and states of affairs. There is nothing incoherent about any of this; logic straddles these domains. The theory is thus intuitively appealing and logically kosher.

What is nice about this theory is that it dispenses with the old notion of correspondence, which was never terribly clear. Doesn’t “snow is black” correspond with the fact that snow is white in the sense that it maps onto that fact via the falsehood relation? To rule this out we have to say, “truth-making correspondence”, but that is circular. The word “correspondence” merely gestures at a relation we haven’t yet articulated; it trades on reading truth into it. It doesn’t provide a concept that has an independent use—a prior meaning. But the word “consistency” does just that; it uses a concept we are familiar with from logic, not some ill-defined newfangled word. We know what consistency is already; we just have to extend its use to a new domain, viz. proposition-reality consistency. Thus, we can say that the sentence “’snow is white’ is true and snow is not white” expresses a logical contradiction, since the first conjunct entails that snow is white—it entails that reality is a certain way. Truth is simply consistency with the fact a sentence states: the proposition that snow is white is consistent with the fact that snow is white.

It might be said that the proposition that snow is white is consistent with many facts (infinitely many), but doesn’t it have just one truth-maker, viz. the fact that snow is white? Don’t we need to be more specific? All right, we can do that: we avail ourselves of the concept of entailment. Proposition and fact are not just consistent; the former entails the latter. That seems right: you can deduce, from “’snow is white’ is true”, that snow is white—but not that grass is green. We therefore obtain the entailment theory of truth: for a proposition to be true is for it to entail a (specific) fact—the fact it states. And the entailment cuts both ways: if it is a fact that snow is white, then it must be the case that “snow is white” is true. Then we have a conjunctive theory: for a proposition to be true is for it to be consistent with reality and such as to entail a specific fact of (or in) reality. The proposition that snow is white is consistent with reality and it entails the specific fact that snow is white. But the initial formulation was fine as it stands: to be true is to be consistent with the facts or with reality (compare “to be true is to correspond to the facts or to reality”). Truth, we feel, is a relation, and so it is under the consistency theory—not a correspondence relation, whatever exactly that is. Truth is a logical relation, familiar to us from logic. Thus, truth is a logical concept; indeed, the most basic of logical concepts. It needs no further enrichment. It may not be redundant, but it is extremely slender (rail-thin).[2]

[1] The idea for this paper came, improbably enough, from an Iranian comment on President Donald Trump: “His statement is not consistent with reality”. Is this a diplomatic way of saying that Trump’s statement was a lie, or at least false? Maybe in Iran the theory I am proposing is a commonplace.

[2] This is a minimalist theory of truth in that it invokes no heavy machinery in its analysis of the concept of truth; it relies solely upon the logical notion of consistency. But it is relational and is not just a redundancy theory. We do need a concept not contained in the proposition itself to capture the concept of truth, viz. consistency. By my count, this is the fifth theory of truth I have invented (see this blog), more than all the usual theories combined; it seems just a bit too easy to define truth. My theories are not incompatible but can be combined to form a composite picture of the nature of truth. Concepts don’t have just one analysis; they are more complex than that.

Beatle Genius

May 25, 2026/10 Comments/in Uncategorized/by admin

Beatle Genius

Big news: I have changed my opinion of the genius of the Beatles. I used to think that John and Paul were the true geniuses, with George and Ringo excellent but not at the same genius level. I now think that is wrong: George and Ringo were geniuses too! We need to distinguish genius from excellence or technical prowess. No one ever thought that John and Paul were genius-level musicians—either as instrumentalists or singers; what people thought was that they were creative geniuses, artistic geniuses. They had it. That indefinable magic. The look, the sound, the charisma. But so did the other two if you pay attention. George was a fantastic guitarist in his style, tone, and creativity; and he rocked. He could also sing great harmonies and stirring leads (e.g., Roll Over Beethoven, not to mention later classics). He also became a genius songwriter, as everyone now acknowledges. He looked and sounded great beside the other two. The three of them were incredible performers, in a class of their own. I don’t think anyone in the Stones or the Who were quite at George’s level, excellent as they are, let alone John and Paul. But what about Ringo—a genius? Now I speak as a drummer: I hereby assert that Ringo was also a creative genius as a drummer. He didn’t have the chops of Ginger Baker and many others, but I don’t think anyone thinks Ginger was a percussive genius—merely technically brilliant. Ringo, however, really gave a song what it needed; he hit the drums just right. His drumming in Twist and Shout is stupendous, but so it was in everything; I don’t know of a single weak drum part in a Beatles song (except those few played by Paul). Ringo was also a genius in his image: physically shorter, not as handsome, more modest and agreeable. He was the most loved Beatle. He sang With a Little Help from my Friends perfectly. So, the Beatles had four geniuses in the band, and I’m not sure any other band had any. Brian Wilson had some, so did Pete Townsend, maybe Steve Winwood—but no one shone as brightly as those four young men from Liverpool. They were incapable of junk and jointly revolutionized pop music. Their personalities alone lit up the world at a dreary time. And I say this as one who didn’t really love their middle period stuff (Rubber Soul, Revolver)—too experimental, not raw enough.

More on Skateboarding

May 25, 2026/2 Comments/in Uncategorized/by admin

Counterfactuals

May 25, 2026/0 Comments/in Uncategorized/by admin

Counterfactuals

In a world with less gravity, the birds would be huge. In a world with more gravity, only insects would fly. In a world with more light and plant predators, plants would have consciousness and advanced intelligence. In a world with greater water resistance, whales would be small. In a colder world, there would be no cold-blooded animals. In a hotter world, all animals would be cold-blooded. In a wetter world, we would have gills. In a drier world, life would begin on the land, if it begins at all. In a world without tool-forming materials, we would still be walking on four legs. In a world with only predators, there would be no life. In a world without predators, life would be simple and boring. In a world without a sun, life would be primitive, unless there was another power source. In a world with available nuclear power, life would be much more abundant than now. In a world without consciousness, there would be no war. In a world without emotion, there would be no suicide. In a world with no psychology, there would be no madness. In a world without motion, there world be no progress and no death. In a world without causation, there would be only chaos. In a world without necessity, there would be only randomness. In a world without events, everything would be eternal. In a world without the infinite, there would be no finite. In a world without relations, there would be no facts. In a world without facts, there would be nothing. In a world without reality, there would be no unreality. In a world without nothingness, there would be no being.

Counterfactuals are inherently surprising, which is why we are fascinated by them. They tell us how different things could be under small changes. There are many kinds of counterfactual. We live in their shadow. They are always controversial, sometimes paradoxical. They give us a sense of intellectual freedom. They scare us. They are also funny. We wouldn’t know what to do without them. In a world without counterfactuals, there would be no thought worthy of the name.

Fodor on Concept Possession

May 25, 2026/9 Comments/in Uncategorized/by admin

Fodor on Concept Possession

Jerry Fodor holds that to possess a concept is to be able to think about its referent—and that’s all. He asks, rhetorically, “So what’s wrong with identifying having a concept C with being able to think about Cs as such?” (21: italics all his, for some reason.) Later we read: “To have the concept TABLE is to be able to think about tables as such; to have the concept PRIME NUMBER is to be able to think about prime numbers as such; and so on, with perfect generality, for predicative concepts at large.” (75)[1] He opposes this theory to what he calls pragmatist theories that identify concept possession with dispositions to accept conceptual entailments and suchlike matters. He calls his theory a Cartesian theory of concept possession. He regards it as minimalist and intuitively correct—a piece of non-theoretical common sense. He thinks it is anti-pragmatist. I am going to argue that it is not correct at all, and, in fact, another form of pragmatism (and not Cartesian). Concepts are not abilities and not abilities to think. They are more primitive and neutral than that. The objections are really quite obvious and widely rehearsed.

Are Fodor’s conditions necessary and sufficient for concept possession? Must anyone who has the concept Cbe able to think about its referent, and must everyone with the ability to think about the referent of C have the concept C? As to necessity: must anyone with legs be able to walk? No, because they may be paralyzed. So, it would be wrong to analyze leg possession as having the ability to walk. Having a trait does not always entail being able to act on it. Is pain analyzable as an ability to avoid the painful stimulus? No—paralysis again. Is having a memory the same as being able to remember? No, because the memory, though present, may not be retrievable—now or ever. Is having a concept the same as being able to think about its referent? No, because you might have a splitting headache, or are being tortured with loud noises, or have brain damage to your thinking area (but not your concept-storing area). What about innate concepts (which Fodor believes in)—can’t they exist without the ability to think, now or ever? Being able to think of X goes beyond merely having the concept X. The former is not a necessary condition of the latter. And how much is built into thinking—does it require reasoning? But surely you can have a concept and not be able to reason with it for any number of reasons (drugs, head trauma, etc.). Does Fodor mean able think like a normal human or will an animal do; the former may not be a necessary condition for concept possession. The ability to think of X is a typical consequence of having the concept X not its very essence. What then is its essence? Simple: a concept is a mental representation of something (with certain combinatorial properties)[2]—not the ability to employ this representation in thought. That is an additional fact. Knowing the meaning of a word is not an ability to use it, since you may be unable to speak, or even engage in inner vocal acts. Concepts are not actions. That’s a pragmatist prejudice, as Fodor would be the first to insist. Descartes doesn’t hold that ideas are practical abilities to think any more than perceptions are practical abilities to act. They may be the basis of such abilities, but they don’t reduce to them. Thinking is an action, an intentional action, but concepts aren’t actions—any more than eyes and ears are. Anatomy isn’t ability but structure. Would Fodor say that concepts are dispositions to think about their referents? Presumably not, given that a person may not be disposed to think in that way, even though in possession of the relevant concepts—he may not feel like thinking and be disposed rather to go to sleep. Or he may find thinking of X painful and prefer to avoid thinking of X—he is disposed notto think of X. And is a very circumscribed thinker (he thinks only about football), with a minimal ability to think complex thoughts, less in possession of his concepts than a brilliant polymathic thinker? There are degrees of the ability to think, but not degrees of concept possession correlated with this. Possessing a concept is not a skill (more like a state). You can get better at thinking but not at concept possessing.

None of this is to deny that a concept may be defined as a way of thinking (a mode of presentation, a Fregean sense), but that is not the same as an ability to think; ways aren’t abilities. A way of walking isn’t an ability to walk. It is interesting that Fodor never says that having a concept is the same as an ability to form beliefsabout its referent, and one can see why: a person may possess concepts and yet have no ability (or inclination) to form beliefs involving those concepts. He may be a convinced skeptic who never forms beliefs about anything and is quite unable to (though he thinks about things), or he may suffer from brain damage to his belief-forming areas. Conceptualizing is not believing, and it’s not thinking either. These are different capacities, faculties, mental systems. Having a concept is not the same as being able to describe its referent either; that requires a different piece of mental apparatus. What if someone claimed that having a concept is definable as being able to dream about its referent? Wouldn’t that be a clear case of confusing the intrinsic with the extrinsic? Dreaming isn’t internal to concept possession; it is just one thing you might do with a concept. Isn’t it just a dogma of pragmatism to suppose that all facts are really reducible to corollaries of those facts, or consequences of them? Pragmatists think that being always consists in acting, but it doesn’t. Thinking is no doubt correlated with concept possession, though not invariably and analytically, but the latter doesn’t reduce to the former. Fodor is more of a pragmatist than he realizes; he thinks that in the beginning concepts are deeds—deeds of thinking. He thinks you can construct concepts out of episodes of thinking (expressions of a thinking ability). But no, concepts come first in generating abilities to think; he has put the pragmatic cart before the ontological horse, ironically. He is not really a realist about concepts. Concepts are not definable by their more visible effects.

What about sufficiency? Here I detect two problems. The first is one of those clever counterexamples that infuriate the true believer but which are difficult to rebut. What if you lacked a given concept but had the ability to buy a medical procedure to install that concept in your head—wouldn’t you have the ability (the wherewithal) to think about the referent of the concept (you can afford to buy it)? You don’t have the ability to think actively about X this instant—you would have to press a button to get the concept installed in a second or less. But you are able to think about X in the sense that you are able to bring this condition about—though not by virtue of having the concept in question. You now have the ability to think about X in the immediate future. If so, the ability is not sufficient for possessing the concept. Or what if God kept giving you the ability to think about X, but declined to give you the concept? The ability is caused by God’s intervention not by the concept that normally gives rise to it. There is conceptual daylight here. And you had better not stipulate that a person must think of X by possessing the concept X, as in “ability to think of X by having the concept X”, because that is blatantly circular as a definition. Secondly, how much are we packing into the word “think” in Fodor’s definition? What about an animal that possesses only non-conceptual content but can cognize a certain X—is it thinkingof X? It has X in mind, but only non-conceptually. If it is non-conceptually “thinking of” (cognizing) X, then the definition is not sufficient for concept possession, by hypothesis. But if we have to add “conceptually” to “think of”, then circularity again rears its ugly head: “to have a concept is to think of its referent conceptually”. The word “think” is carrying too much weight in this attempt at definition. The plain fact is that “John has the concept X” and “John has the ability to think of the referent of X” report different facts—indeed, facts of a different kind. Fodor’s theory is a kind of category mistake. The truth is that concepts are the de factocategorical basis of abilities to think about things, but are not strictly identical to such abilities; for the two can be pulled apart.[3]

[1] These quotations are from Fodor’s Hume Variations (2003).

[2] I don’t intend this as a formal definition of concepts, still less a theory of their nature; it merely sketches the general shape of a theory distinct from Fodor’s. What I am arguing is consistent with an avowed mysterianism about concepts, wholly or partially (shared by Fodor, as it happens).

[3] Why did Fodor subscribe to this theory, given its pragmatic flavor? He was always a staunch anti-pragmatist. I don’t know. Perhaps he was more steeped in Ryle-Wittgenstein philosophy of mind than he realized, though his rhetoric always repudiated such a philosophy. I suspect it was because of the need to say something about the nature of concepts; it was an abreaction to a felt mystery. He didn’t want to have nothing to say as an alternative to the theories of those detested pragmatists, so he came up with his cheeky formula. It is noticeable how little he had positively to say about concepts, openly admitting that they are a hard problem. My own stab at a definition is scarcely watertight and illuminating; it is indeed difficult to say what a concept is. But that shouldn’t drive us to accept wacky theories about what concepts are. We can at least say what they are not. It’s like rejecting behaviorism about consciousness while having no positive theory to offer.

Empiricist Psychology

May 23, 2026/2 Comments/in Uncategorized/by admin

Empiricist Psychology

Let empiricism be the doctrine that all knowledge of the external concrete world derives from interactions with that world and only from such interactions. There is no knowledge of this world deriving from pure reason, tradition, God, the genes, or language. Super-empiricism is the doctrine that all knowledge derives from interactions with the external concrete world, no matter how abstract or internal the subject-matter—logical, mathematical, psychological, ethical, linguistic. Everything known is perceived by the senses. This is an epistemological doctrine, but it is backed by a psychological theory, adumbrated by classical empiricists.[1]The theory can be variously formulated, but it has a familiar shape: first there is an external world that is basically independent of our minds; this world is copied by our senses to form sensory impressions; these impressions are copied to produce mental images; these images are then copied to form concepts; these concepts in turn are copied to form meanings; these meanings become attached to words to form language, which is a kind of copy of meanings. So, language copies the world via impressions, images, concepts, and meanings. You could choose to adopt a stronger type of empiricist psychology: instead of speaking of copying you speak of identity. Images are impressions, concepts are images, meanings are concepts, language ismeaning. Thus, language would turn out to consist of impressions, perhaps disguised or trivially modified. If we include the external world in the chain of dependencies, then everything mental will be bits of the world, on an identity theory. You might think it better to stop the chain at impressions and leave the world out of it (as some empiricists do), but then you face the problem that the type of knowledge you secure will not be of the external world—and that is what we are trying to explain. At a minimum, we need a relation of copying or mirroring as between impressions and external facts. The idea of the whole system is that everything cognitive derives intelligibly from a chain of dependencies held together by the relation of copying. Perhaps the copies get fainter the further along the chain we go, so that concepts are faint copies of images and meanings are faint copies of concepts (etiolated, reduced). This is empiricist psychology at its most naked. The interface between world and mind is the perceptual impression, which determines what lies downstream from it. The impression mirrors the world and all the rest mirror the impression—bear the imprint of it, inherit its nature, follow its ways. All mental structure, all mental content, all mental intentionality derives from sensory impressions—that’s psychological empiricism. The mind can’t get beyond impressions and impressions are all it gets. Nothing else intrudes, save trivial operations such as copying (subject to becoming fainter). It could be that the copying gets sharper or brighter, but classical empiricists think that in fact the copying is always in the direction of faintness. The heart of the theory is that it is the receptivity of the mind to external influence that lies at the root of all knowledge—as mediated by copying relations.

We can contrast this theory with rationalist psychology. Strong rationalism would maintain that all (real) knowledge derives from within the mind, including knowledge of external concrete reality. It therefore needs a psychological theory to back it up. Rationalists don’t tend to say much about this, which makes their theory look unsupported, but it isn’t hard to articulate what kind of theory their epistemology requires. First, we have what is innate to the mind or brain or animal—genetic endowment, as we would now say. This exists in the epistemic subject prior to its expression in conscious fully formed ideas or concepts. Let’s take a leaf out of the empiricist’s book and say that the latter copies the former—mimics it, is shaped by it. Structure, content, and intentionality are transmitted from the innate original to the mature derived; there is a kind of mirroring relation between them. We could opt for an identity theory, but that seems a bit strong, as it did in the case of empiricism. Now we have a range of options: we could say that the consciously developed idea that derives from the innate structure gives rise to sensory impressions, mental images, and meanings, or we could deny this. We might even think that it takes the form of an impression from which images and concepts are then derived; or that it takes the form of an image that gets transformed into impressions, concepts, and meanings. The important point is that the origin of all these items is endogenous not exogenous; they don’t derive from an external stimulus but from an internal something (there is no good word for it—perhaps we could say an internal stimulus, stretching that concept). This is the general form of a rationalist psychology: inner etiology not outer etiology—coming from within the subject not from the external object.

We can briefly note the form of other competing theories, now regarded as dead letters. Traditionalist epistemology will say that the psychological processes involved in acquiring knowledge are those of the teaching relation, hence mainly verbal. Knowledge comes from outside but not from inanimate nature—it comes from a living teacher (a wise man, say). A theistic epistemology will recruit God as the source of all knowledge: our knowledge comes from a divine being, possibly mediated by his minions on earth (his teaching assistants, as it were). So, we need faculties that are receptive to God’s communications—a devout soul and a pure heart, perhaps. Then we have the linguistic turn: all knowledge derives from language. Language provides the sine qua non of human knowledge—the form of our thought. We can’t get beyond the speech act or the text or the symbolic system or the language of thought. Everything cognitive is derived ultimately from words: concepts, images, impressions. Reality itself is a linguistic construct (you know the spiel). All knowledge is really linguistic knowledge. In each of these cases, there is a drive to reduce everything cognitive to some preferred subset of the cognitive. The traditionalist and theistic theories have the advantage in some respects, since they presuppose a knowledgeable source for human knowledge—a wise man or an omniscient being. Empiricism is trying, heroically, to explain knowledge in terms that don’t presuppose it (thus begging the question): external objects, sensory faculties, and a copying process. Rationalism is less ambitious in that it postulates innate knowledge in the explanation of later (“acquired”) knowledge, without saying much about where that knowledge comes from (God, genetic evolution).

What should we say about empiricist psychology? Simple: it’s completely wrong. Impressions are not copies of facts, faint or otherwise, still less identical to them. Images are not copies of impressions for any number of well-known reasons. Concepts are notoriously not images or copies thereof. Meaningful language is not just a duplication of our conceptual scheme (it has its own syntax and phonology). These criticisms are by now extremely familiar and need no reiteration. A better picture is that we have here a layering of discrete faculties that interact with each other, but don’t reduce to each other. In particular, impressions are impotent to produce the full range of cognitive phenomena that populate the human mind; specifically, they can’t explain concepts and hence knowledge containing concepts. The psychological theory brought in to bolster the empiricist epistemology is hopeless, even if the epistemology itself is on the right track (and it surely contains more than a grain of truth). The whole idea of mental copying is deeply mistaken. The psychology we need is not thispsychology; and it’s not clear what other kind of psychology would serve the turn. Cognitive science has not given us a psychology that supports empiricist epistemology. How do interactions between the mind and the external world lead intelligibly to knowledge? What are the mechanisms? That, we don’t know. We do know that impressions alone will not carry the load; they are the wrong kind of thing to provide an exhaustive account of knowledge. They may (or may not) be necessary for knowledge (I think not[2]), but they sure as hell aren’t sufficient. Back to the drawing board, as they say. And don’t hold your breath.[3]

[1] Jerry Fodor’s Hume Variations (2003) provides a useful background to what I write here.

[2] See my “Entanglement Epistemology”.

[3] I wrote this paper in order to provide a compact picture of the epistemological lie of the land since the seventeenth century. It is illuminating to see how the moving parts fit together, or fail to. All is not ship-shape and above board, to put it mildly. Everything gets exaggerated to the point of caricature. The concept of copying, in particular, is made to do impossible work. Empiricist psychology does not give us a convincing (empirical) account of how knowledge gets into the mind.

Philosophy and AI

May 21, 2026/13 Comments/in Uncategorized/by admin

Philosophy and AI

I think AI will be good for philosophy (if the philosophers don’t ruin it first, a big if). The reason is obvious: AI is no good at philosophy, at least as AI now exists. But it is good at many other things: white-collar jobs, routine teaching, performing calculations, storing information, providing quick answers. It is good at math and science, but not good at philosophy. So, jobs in fields where AI is good will disappear, but philosophers won’t. This is all commonly accepted, more or less. But I think it goes further—into news and entertainment. I think animated newscasters are a distinct possibility, along with robot cameramen and computerized news writers. I’m not sure about comedians (see “The Comeback” on HBO), but I predict that actors are going to be in trouble, especially action stars and leading men and women. For the powers of animation are going to take over their roles (literally). We already see it happening in sci-fi and fantasy films, also pornography. Nature documentaries are on the brink of extinction. AI is just less expensive and more flexible. You won’t even need scriptwriters for the commercial stuff (are there any real writers in Hollywood anymore?). A dumbed-down culture like ours is an AI culture.

But philosophers are not expendable in this way, except for routine teaching. The only question is whether the demand will exist. If universities as we know them succumb to AI, partially or wholly, philosophers will go elsewhere and form companies—so long as there is a demand for them. This is the big question: in an age of AI will people become stupider or will they aspire to something more elevated—difficult, challenging, profound? My suspicion is that they will do the latter: their minds will be less taken up with routine mechanical tasks and freer to roam more widely and deeply. Philosophers will be in demand, treated as valuable commodities. Movie stars will fade away, and TV celebrity pundits, to be replaced by philosophy stars. AI will come to them. I use AI to do my grunt work, but I don’t use it to make progress on philosophical issues, and I never will (not in this lifetime). I envisage a society in the not-too-distant future in which philosophers (good ones anyway—there are plenty of hacks) will be regarded as superstars. Even the architects of AI will lose out to AI, as AI figures out how to manage and create AI. Even in a society dominated by AI, not always benignly, philosophers will still be necessary—and I am really not so sure about scientists, historians, and even athletes. Armies won’t need flesh-and-blood troops (we will have robotic boots-on-the-ground and drones in the air). In an AI world actual organic philosophers will be kings, or at least “Hollywood royalty”. And the underlying reason, in my book, is that we philosophers deal with insoluble problems, while AI deals in soluble problems (problems not mysteries). It will be good for us that our problems can’t be solved.

John Lennon’s Mother

May 21, 2026/2 Comments/in Uncategorized/by admin

John Lennon’s Mother

I recently came across John Lennon’s song “Mother”. It begins with a doleful slow church bell sound, as at a funeral, repeated four times. Then he abruptly comes in with a loud and angry “Mother!” followed by these words: “You had me, but I never had you. I wanted you, you didn’t want me”. This is followed by “Oh, I’ve gotta tell you, goodbye, goodbye”. The next verse is as follows: “Father, you left me, I never left you. I needed you, you didn’t need me”. Then we have the same “Oh, I’ve gotta tell you, goodbye, goodbye”. The third verse runs, “Children, don’t you do, what I have done. I couldn’t walk, I tried to run”. Then the same chorus ending with “goodbye, goodbye”. At this point the song suddenly changes into something quite different: John blurts out the words, loud and clear, “Mama don’t go, Daddy come home”. The rest of the song consists of him repeating these words about ten times, becoming ever more anguished and hysterical, before the song fades out on a screaming “Mama don’t goooooooo!”. It must be the least commercial pop song ever made. There is nothing remotely pretty about it. It is patently autobiographical, as John Lennon’s mother died when he was 17 when she was hit by a car driven by an off-duty policeman outside her sister’s house. John hardly knew his father, a merchant seaman who was rarely home, and abandoned his family when John was 5. He was raised by his aunt Mimi, though kept in contact with his mother till the time of her death. This song would never have been released by the Beatles, because of its angry gloomy content. I think it is a masterpiece artistically, melodic and powerful.

I decided to learn to sing it, partly as a vocal exercise; it is hard to sing physically. In order to sing it, especially the second half, it is necessary to get into the mood of the song—despairing and angry. You have to belt out “Mama don’t go!” with maximum volume and emotion, virtually screaming (but hitting the note). I love singing it. It reminds me of “This Boy” by the Beatles, an early B-side, particularly the middle-eight. John screams out “That boy won’t be happy, till he sees you cry-y-y”. I also really enjoy singing this song. It is one of the best songs they ever released, but was deemed not commercial enough to be an A-side. It makes me think that Lennon was holding back throughout the Beatles career, because they wanted (and needed) to make pop songs (but note “No Reply”). Anyway, I recommend listening to “Mother”, especially if you have any parental issues—or other issues for that matter. Cathartic? I’ll say it is. I think I’ll go and sing it now.