Album of the Day — November 23
John Lennon & Yoko Ono — Double Fantasy
John Lennon & Yoko Ono — Double Fantasy
23.November.2020
John Lennon & Yoko Ono
Double Fantasy
1980
It is impossible to consider Double Fantasy without the event that took place three weeks after its release.
After his battle with the immigration and FBI and the birth of his son Sean, Lennon retreated into he and Ono’s apartment at the Dakota.
There has been much speculation about the five years where Lennon remained out of the public eye. Folklore is such a husband who took the time to raise his son, while Yoko tended to the finances.
By most, if not all accounts (including his own), Lennon was a pretty moody dude, which is certainly supported by much of his art. So, I’m not of the school of thought that paints John Lennon as the perfect house father who raised Sean all by himself.
Nonetheless, as the PR machine went into overdrive to promote Double Fantasy, that was the narrative.
Of course, during his five-year recording hiatus, Lennon would scribble things here and there. He never stopped creating. He just never got the urge to record.
When a May 1979 open letter from John and Yoko stirred anticipation that Lennon might be ending his self-imposed creative exile, Rolling Stone critic Dave Marsh urged him to avoid embarrassment by staying retired.
After running into producer Jack Douglas, Lennon slipped him a demo of some songs. Douglas flipped out, and the clandestine recording sessions for Double Fantasy began shortly after.
This was to be John Lennon’s “comeback” album. It was also meant to highlight Yoko Ono’s musical career. Whatever one may think of Ono’s vocal stylings, it can’t be denied she influenced a host of female singers.
Still loathed by Beatle fans, by 1980, Yoko Ono was less of a musical joke and more of a burgeoning musical icon. A lot like her husband, something Lennon himself recognized.
Much to producer Jack Douglas and labels Capitol Records & Geffen Records chagrin, Double Fantasy was a John Lennon and Yoko Ono record. Worse yet, from a marketing perspective, was that the songs toggled back and forth—one Lennon song, then one Ono song, etc.
Business folks would’ve preferred Lennon tunes on one side and Ono tunes on the other. John Lennon wouldn’t have it. The songs were to alternate. For all of his faults, the one he can not be faulted for was his loyalty to his wife and his belief that she was just as formidable of an artist as he was.
But since it had been five years since his last studio album, the public seemed to have forgotten just how formidable of an artist he was.
On November 17, 1980, the world found out when John Lennon and Yoko Ono released Double Fantasy. It reminded his fans and the world at large of his talents.
By and large, critics didn’t like Double Fantasy …when it was released. It would take the events on December 8, 1980, for critics to re-consider the album. Many would retract their harsh criticism.
Is Double Fantasy any good? It’s OK.
By December 9, 1980, Double Fantasy was a classic.
The first single, “(Just Like) Starting Over,” is largely insufferable. It’s a fine song, but it’s so specific to Lennon and Ono that it leaves no room for anyone else. No, because of the lyrical content necessarily, it’s just that everyone was so aware of the couple's own struggles, and that abolished any universality.
But Double Fantasy contains two of arguably Lennon’s strongest songs, “Watching the Wheels” and “Woman” — certainly his strongest post-Beatles career.
“Watching the Wheels” is a song about the artist reflecting on middle age (Lennon was 40 when the album was released and at the time of his death.) To know anything about John Lennon is to know that he marched to the beat of his own drummer. And this song captures both the sentiment of the young man and the man as he approached middle age while still embracing his own beat.
And if you’ve ever been in love, I mean real love, then you know the sentiment that is embedded in “Woman.” Lennon has admitted that the song wasn’t just for Ono, but it was meant for all women.
And as a man who has loved women exclusively, I can only thank Lennon for this song.
“Woman”
Woman, I can hardly express
My mixed emotions and my thoughtlessness
After all, I’m forever in your debt
And woman, I will try to express
My inner feelings and thankfulness
For showing me the meaning of success
Woman, I know you understand
The little child inside the man
Please remember my life is in your hands
And woman hold me close to your heart
However distant don’t keep us apart
After all, it is written in the stars
Woman, please let me explain
I never meant to cause you sorrow or pain
So let me tell you again and again and again
Outro
I love you, yeah, yeah
Now and forever
I love you, yeah, yeah
Now and forever
I love you, yeah, yeah
Now and forever
I love you, yeah, yeah
Critics may have been initially mixed, Double Fantasy was welcomed by most everyone in the music business and certainly by Beatle fans. It wasn’t necessarily loved out of the gate, but it was very welcomed indeed.
CRITICS:
Robert Christgau — “A great album? No, but memorable and gratifying in its slight, self-limiting way — connubial rock and roll is hard to find. I wouldn’t think of patterning my own marriage on anyone else’s, but like any good art, Double Fantasy transcends specifics, even its status as a pop event. It helps me remember what I cherish. And it helps me cherish the two people who made it as well.” (written five weeks after Lennon’s murder.)
Charles Shaar Murray, of New Musical Express, wrote that the couple’s domestic bliss “sounds like a great life but unfortunately it makes a lousy record,” adding that he wished Lennon had “kept his big happy trap shut until he has something to say that was even vaguely relevant to those of us not married to Yoko Ono.”
On Monday, December 8, 1980, roughly 35 million Americans watched Monday Night Football on ABC. The game was between the New England Patriots and the Miami Dolphins when Howard Cosell broke the news:
“Rember this is just a football game, no matter who wins or loses. An unspeakable tragedy confirmed to us by ABC News in New York City. John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the west side of New York City, the most famous of perhaps all of The Beatles. Shot twice in the back, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital. Dead on arrival.”
It didn’t seem real. Nothing really resonated until the news cycle took hold over the next few days.
And with that, critics and fans re-evaluated Double Fantasy. It shot up the charts, “(Just Like) Starting Over” lodged itself in Billboard Top Ten, and the Double Fantasy would go on to be a big hit and win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
40 years on, Double Fantasy is a good album, it’s got a couple of really great songs on it. But John Lennon’s murder and Double Fantasy are inextricably linked. Evaluating the album independent of the murder, even 40 years later, is impossible.