John Lennon: ‘Mother, tell the world we’re making a record.’

John Lennon : Watching The Wheels

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On August 8, 1980, after five years of mostly silence, John Lennon walked into the Hit Factory in midtown Manhattan to record Double Fantasy with Yoko Ono and producer Jack Douglas. Douglas was a second engineer on Imagine before making a name for himself by producing Aerosmith. He rehearsed musicians without ever letting them know who was recording the album.  Then Douglas  played the tapes for Lennon. John didn't want to make a comeback album until he knew it was going to be good. When Lennon finally liked what he heard he turned to Yoko and said:

‘Mother, tell the world we’re making a record.’

In nine days, shrouded in secrecy,  they recorded twenty-two songs, with fourteen chosen for the album. Seven sung by John and seven by Yoko. Yes, Yoko had convinced John she should also have songs on the album so that Double Fantasy came across as a conversation. 

John has been recording cassette demos at the Dakota. One, originally called "Tennessee", addressed everyone who thought he was crazy to be spending so much time at home with Sean when he could be out "riding on the merry-go-round" of fame. 

Lennon had paid all the costs of production so he would have total control. It would be up to Yoko to find a record company to release the album. We will revisit a session next week when Cheap Trick enter the studio to record two tracks .

A bit of the recording:

40 Years Ago: John and Yoko perform with Zappa June 6, 1971

On June 6, 1971 John and Yoko joined Zappa and The Mothers on The Fillmore East stage for a guest appearance at the end of the concert.
First they performed an Olympics cover called "Well". (The Young Rascals took The LA band's 1965 tune "Good Lovin' to Number one; NRBQ recorded their "Same Old Thing" for Yankee Stadium ).
The rest of the songs were jams, including one called "Scumbag".
Yoko, as usual, is very present.

Zappa gave Lennon tapes of the show. John and Yoko included the concert as a bonus on their 1972 double album Some Time In New York City. For a variety of reason, this did not sit well with Zappa.
The way Phil Spector mixed the tapes was dishonest. (Flo & Eddie vocals both left out of the mix; cheers and applause edited in)
But what truly pissed Zappa off is that John and Yoko took full songwriting credit for "Jamrag", which included elements of Zappa's "King Kong" from the Uncle Meat album.
Years later, Zappa would still be grinding his teeth about that move:

Today Some Time is an interesting time capsule. John and Yoko at their most political. Not always at their most musical.
Upon its release Milwaukee Sentinel music writer Stuart Wilk wrote "John, Yoko and The Plastic Ono Band have produced another shrill, superficial look at trendy leftist politics and have plunged even further into their endless echo chamber."

By the way: How many Turtles were on the stage that night?
The answer is three:
Flo (Mark Volman), Eddie (Howard Kaylan) and bass player Jim Pons.