Starting Over: The Making of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Double Fantasy

By Ken Sharp

The murder of John Lennon on December 8, 1980, sent shockwaves around the world. The most acclaimed singer/songwriter of his generation, first a Beatle and then a boundary-pushing solo artist, was senselessly silenced forever at age forty; immediately, his final musical statement, an intimate, pop-infused collection called "Double Fantasy," released only weeks before his death, skyrocketed to #1 worldwide, as did its poignantly titled single, "(Just Like) Starting Over."

His first studio recording since 1975’s Rock ’n’ Roll—and his first musical endeavor of any kind since taking a much-needed hiatus to raise Sean, his son with Yoko Ono—"Double Fantasy" represents more than a comeback album to Lennon fans and music critics alike. It captures a cultural icon at the pinnacle of his creative success and personal fulfillment; thirty years later it remains a musical touchstone and an affecting reminder of what could have been.

"Starting Over" is an oral history of the making of Double Fantasy and the definitive account of John Lennon’s last days. From early demos to sessions at New York City’s The Hit Factory, from the electrifying chemistry of the studio band to keeping the project under wraps to the album’s release and critical reception, here is fascinating, insightful commentary from all of the key players involved in its extraordinary creation: Yoko Ono, David Geffen, producer Jack Douglas, engineers, arrangers, session musicians, music journalists, and even Lennon himself via archival interviews.

"Starting Over" is the essential portrait for anyone who hears both a beginning and ending in the tracks of Double Fantasy.

Ken Sharp is a New York Times Best Selling writer who has authored or co-authored over twenty music books. His books include: Starting Over: The Making of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy, Elvis: Vegas ‘69, Nothin’ to Lose: the Making of KISS (1972-1975), Elvis Presley: Writing for the King, Sound Explosion: Inside LA’s Studio Factory with the Wrecking Crew, Overnight Sensation: The Story of the Raspberries, Raspberries: TONIGHT!, Eric Carmen: Marathon Man, Reputation is a Fragile Thing: The Story of Cheap Trick, Play On!: Power Pop Heroes, Kooks, Queen Bitches and Andy Warhol: The Making of David Bowie’s Hunky Dory, KISS: Behind the Mask, Meet the Beatles...Again!, Small Faces: Quite Naturally, Rick Springfield: A Year in the Life of a Working Class Dog, Power Pop, The KISS Years!, and KISS Army Worldwide!: The Ultimate KISS Fanzine Phenomenon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ken Sharp
• Release date: Oct 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005580766

Ken Sharp

Ken Sharp is the author of Starting Over: The Making of John Lennon & Yoko Ono's Double Fantasy, Elvis: Vegas '69, KISS: Behind the Mask, and numerous other books. He lives in Los Angeles.

Book preview

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Starting Over

The Making of

John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s

DOUBLE FANTASY

Ken Sharp

Jetfighter

16946 Burbank Blvd # 211

Encino, CA 91316

Copyright © 2010 Ken Sharp

www.ken-sharp.com

Book cover image courtesy of Roger Farrington.

Book cover design by John Sellards.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce the book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information contact: [e-mail]

Dedicated to the memory of John Lennon and my beloved basset hound, Herman.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Cast

Watching The Wheels

An Offer I Can’t Refuse

Secret Sessions

Meet the Band

Practice Makes Perfect

Starting Over

Keeping It Quiet

In the Studio

A Lost Song

The Cheap Trick Sessions

That’s a Wrap

The Beatles

Lights, Camera, Action!

Hidden Mics

Sonic Architecture

Picture Perfect

Double Fantasy

Finishing Touches

By the Numbers

Feeding Frenzy

Fantasy Becomes Reality

Spreading the Gospel

In the Media

Sound Off

Touring

The Final Sessions-Walking on Thin Ice

December 8th, 1980

Double Fantasy Redux

Double Exposure

Freeze Frame

Endnotes

Acknowledgments

Selected Bibliography

Introduction

December 8, 1980….10:30PM

John Lennon is on top of the world. Double Fantasy, the music icon’s first new album in five years, has just been released and is heralded as a triumphant artistic comeback, marking a celebrated return to the top of the music charts. (Just Like) Starting Over, the album’s first single, is warmly embraced by rock radio and becomes a smash number one hit.

Ensconced inside New York’s Record Plant, Lennon’s just finished the mix on a new Yoko Ono song, Walking on Thin Ice, which he excitedly predicts will be Yoko’s first number one record. Saying a quick goodbye to producer Jack Douglas, Lennon and Ono exit the studio onto the darkened streets of New York City. They hop into a private limo, which takes the couple on a short drive back to their home at the Dakota on West 72nd Street. Minutes later Lennon will be shot dead at the hands of a crazed assassin.

Shortly after 11PM, Monday Night Football sportscaster Howard Cosell breaks the tragic news to a stunned nation that Lennon has been killed. With news of Lennon’s senseless murder, Double Fantasy, his final musical statement, rockets to number one around the world.

Rewind to 1975…

Retiring from the music world in 1975, after the birth of John and Yoko’s son, Sean, on October 9th (also John’s birthday), the former Beatle bid farewell to life as an internationally renowned rock star and spent the next half a decade happily living his life out of the media spotlight, spending his time as a house husband, raising Sean, baking bread, and writing the occasional song.

During that self imposed five-year retirement from the music world, Lennon is the source of intense media scrutiny. Pundits endlessly speculated how such a revered musical icon could disappear altogether and transform into a real nowhere man. Yet freed from the shackles of contracts and unyielding public and critical expectation, Lennon felt free for the first time in decades. No longer under the media microscope, he retreated to embrace his family life and recharge his creative batteries.

In the summer of 1980, a June trip to Bermuda found Lennon newly inspired to write and record once again. With an Ovation acoustic guitar in hand and two Panasonic boom boxes set on record, he composed many of the songs that would form the basis of Double Fantasy and the follow-up posthumous release, Milk and Honey. These include Nobody Told Me, Borrowed Time, I’m Losing You, Woman, I Don’t Wanna Face It, Beautiful Boy, and I’m Stepping Out.

Soon, plans were set in motion for a new album by John and Yoko. Enlisting producer Jack Douglas (Aerosmith/Cheap Trick/Alice Cooper) and a seasoned studio band numbering guitarists Hugh McCracken and Earl Slick, bassist Tony Levin, drummer Andy Newmark, and keyboardist George Small, the troupe entered New York’s Hit Factory during the first week of August 1980 and over the next few months Lennon and Ono worked steadily on their new record.

The music world had changed dramatically since the release of Lennon’s 1974 album, Walls and Bridges, his last studio album of original material. By 1980, the new wave/punk sounds of the Clash, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello & the Attractions, and Blondie dominated the musical landscape. Pink Floyd’s concept album, The Wall, was hailed as a masterpiece while Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers’ third album, Damn the Torpedoes, ushered them into superstardom. Lennon’s first album in five years was highly anticipated by critics and the public, though many openly wondered how the Eighties zeitgeist would impact the new record.

Signed to David Geffen’s new label, Geffen Records, on November 17, 1980, John and Yoko’s Double Fantasy was unveiled to the world. Save for a flash of anger powering the track I’m Losing You, this is a kinder, gentler Lennon, his songs a celebration of domesticity and love. Gone was the primal scream howl of Plastic Ono Band, the political proselytizing of Sometime in New York City, or the blue heartbreak that seemed to engulf Walls and Bridges. No longer an angry young man nor a rebel with a cause, Lennon at 40 reveled in the contentment of his family life. His clear adoration of his son, Sean, was elegantly expressed in Beautiful Boy. Yoko also found her voice as a solo artist. For the new album, with songs like Kiss Kiss Kiss and I’m Movin’ On, she crafted a batch of her most accessible songs, which still managed to retain her trademark experimental flair.

With Lennon’s new single, the retro sounding Elvis-Roy Orbison hybrid (Just Like) Starting Over racing up the charts and talk of a tour in 1981, it looks like Lennon’s amazing comeback was a fait accomplit. Sadly, his tragic assassination less than a month later at the hands of a deranged fan silenced the musical legend but his music lives on.

Starting Over: The Making of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy documents the extraordinary tale behind Lennon’s last album. The book is constructed as an oral history told by the album’s key principals including Yoko Ono, producer Jack Douglas, engineers, arrangers, the entire studio band, Geffen Records honcho David Geffen, key record company personnel, music journalists, photographers, and Lennon himself via archival interviews. Together they help weave the most comprehensive portrait of Lennon’s last days.

Four decades since its release, Double Fantasy is recognized as one of music’s most seminal and beloved albums. For the first time ever, Starting Over: The Making of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy, offers the definitive account behind the creation of that historic record, which would ultimately serve as John’s last musical statement.

Cast

John Lennon

Yoko Ono

Jack Douglas (producer)

David Geffen (owner, Geffen Records)

Ed Rosenblatt (president, Geffen Records)

Hugh McCracken (guitar)

Earl Slick (guitar)

George Small (keyboards)

Andy Newmark (drums)

Tony Levin (bass)

Rick Nielsen (guitar, Cheap Trick)

Bun E. Carlos (drummer, Cheap Trick)

Howard Johnson (baritone sax)

Arthur Jenkins Jr. (percussion)

Eric Troyer (background vocals)

Tony Davilio (arranger)

Lee DeCarlo (engineer)

Paul Goresh (photographer)

Julie Last (assistant engineer)

Jon Smith (assistant engineer)

James Ball (assistant mix engineer)

Steve Marcantonio (engineer, Walking on Thin Ice session)

Rabiah Seminole (studio receptionist, Record Plant)

Kishin Shinoyama (album cover photographer)

Bert Keane (national promotion director, Warner Bros Records)

Bob Merlis (publicity director, Warner Bros Records)

Annie Leibovitz (photographer)

Bob Gruen (photographer and friend)

Stan Vincent (Jack Douglas’s business partner)

Jay Dubin (director, Double Fantasy recording session video shoot)

Ritchie Fliegler (sound engineer, Double Fantasy recording session video shoot)

Andy Peebles (disc jockey, BBC Radio One)

Dave Sholin (national music director and interviewer, RKO Radio Networks)

Ron Hummel (producer/engineer, RKO Radio Networks)

Laurie Kaye (scriptwriter and co-interviewer, RKO Radio Networks)

David Sheff (music writer, Playboy)

Robert Christgau (music writer, Village Voice)

Charles Shaar Murray (music writer, NME)

John Swenson (music writer, Creem)

Jon Young (music writer, Trouser Press)

Bill King (music writer, Atlanta Constitution)

Watching The Wheels

After years in the spotlight, by the time Lennon’s Rock ‘N Roll album hit record stores, he was burnt out and desperately needed to take a break. As it turned it out, that break would be a long one…five years.

John Lennon: Making music was no longer a joy. For years, I had been under this pressure to produce, produce, produce. My head was cluttered. Every time I’d sit down to write, there would be a cloud between me and the source, a cloud that hadn’t been there before. I was trapped and saw no way out. Everything was crazy. I realized that I wasn’t making records for me anymore, but because people and record companies expected me to. Still it was hard for me to admit that I was allowing some illusion to control me. After all, wasn’t I the great pop seer? Hadn’t I written ‘The Dream Is Over’? Was I not the great John Lennon who could see through all the world’s hypocrisy? The truth was I couldn’t see through my own. It’s easy to see thy neighbor and say, ‘You and your phoniness.’ The trick is to see your own. Finally, Yoko said, ‘You don’t have to do it anymore. You exist outside of the music.’ I was shocked. I had never thought of that. That was a frightening concept for me. My whole security and identity was wrapped up in being John Lennon, the pop star. Could the world get along without another John Lennon album? Could I get along without it? I finally realized that the answer to both questions was yes.¹

Yoko Ono: He knew he existed outside of music, I didn’t have to tell him but it was a nice reminder. He was trying to tell people, Listen, you thought that I was not doing anything for five years but I was doing a lot, just not anything to do with music. A lot of guys now understand that wisdom that they could be at home and bring up a child and that they wouldn’t lose their dignity by doing that.

John Lennon: I’d been under contract since I was 22 and I was always ‘supposed to.’ I was supposed to write a hundred songs by Friday, supposed to have a single out by Saturday, supposed to do this or that. I became an artist because I cherished freedom—I couldn’t fit into a classroom or office. Freedom was the plus for all the minuses of being an oddball! But suddenly I was obliged to the media, obliged to the public. It wasn’t free at all! I’ve withdrawn many times. Part of me is a monk, and part a performing flea! The fear in the music business is that you don’t exist if you’re not at Xenon with Andy Warhol. As I found out, life doesn’t end when you stop subscribing to Billboard.² For five years, I’d been so locked in—the home environment—and completely switched my way of thinking that I really didn’t think about music at all. My guitar was sort of hung up behind the bed literally.³ Musically my mind was just a clutter. It was apparent in Walls and Bridges, which was the work of a semi-sick craftsman. There was no inspiration, and it gave off an aura of misery. I couldn’t hear the music for the noise in my own head. By turning away, I began to hear it again. It’s like Newton, who never would have conceived of what the apple falling meant had he not been daydreaming under a tree. That’s what I’m living for... the joy of having the apple fall on my head once every five years.⁴ When I wrote ‘The Dream is Over’ (in 1970), I was trying to say to the Beatles thing, ‘Get off my back.’ I was also trying to tell people to stop looking at me because I wasn’t going to do it for them anymore because I didn’t even know what the hell I was doing in my own life. What I realized during the five years away was that when I said the dream is over, I had made the physical break from The Beatles, but mentally there was still this big thing on my back about what people expected of me. It was like this invisible ghost. During the five years, it went away. I finally started writing like I was even before The Beatles were The Beatles. I got rid of all that self-consciousness about telling myself, You can’t do that. That song’s not good enough. Remember, you’re the guy who wrote A Day in the Life. Try again.⁵

Bob Gruen (photographer and friend): While he was taking the five year break, I often wondered if he would ever return to music. He didn’t seem to need it. He seemed quite comfortable at home with Sean and enjoying his personal freedom. He seemed to enjoy not being in the public eye. He was in a very happy place. He came back when he was ready.

John Lennon: When I took the break I never had any time limit in mind. I wanted to be with Sean the first five years, which are the years that everyone says are the most important in a child’s life. When he was coming up on five, Yoko and I thought maybe it was time to record again.⁶

Yoko Ono: I had some songs and John had some songs but we didn’t have that many. When he was in Bermuda and I was here in New York I said to him on the phone, Why don’t we make an EP? In those days there were records called EP’s. But then I got thinking and just told him, Let’s do a full album. And the minute I said, Let’s do it he got so inspired and started to write so many beautiful songs. It was great. All I had to do was say Let’s do it and it took off from there. John and I both inspired each other very much. I’d write Let Me Count the Ways and I called him in Bermuda and said, Listen, what do you think about this? And then I’d play it to him. Then sometime later he’d call me back and say, Listen, just after you sang ‘Let Me Count the Ways’ it inspired me to write something, and he played Grow Old with Me and it was just fantastic.

John Lennon: It inspired me completely. As soon as she would sing something to me, or play the cassette on the phone, within 10 or 15 minutes, whether I wanted to work or not, I would suddenly get this song coming to me.⁷ I was in Bermuda in a disco...upstairs they were playing Rock Lobster (The B-52’s)...I called her (Yoko) on the phone and said there’s a group called B-52’s and there’s somebody doing your act...I said, Listen to it, they’re ready for you this time, kid.⁸

Bob Gruen (photographer and friend): [The B-52’s] are big Yoko fans. They were inspired by Yoko to make that undulating vocal sound. When John heard it and found out it was a hit, he realized this new generation was more open to hearing Yoko’s music and perhaps it was time to come back and make a new record.

John Lennon: On October 9th, I’ll be 40 and Sean will be 5 and I can afford to say, Daddy does something else as well. He’s not accustomed to it - in five years I hardly picked up a guitar. Last Christmas our neighbors showed him ‘Yellow Submarine’ and he came running in, saying, ‘Daddy, you were singing... were you a Beatle?’ I said, ‘Well, yes. Right.’"⁹

An Offer I Can’t Refuse

Jack Douglas served as an assistant engineer on Lennon’s Imagine album and also worked with Ono on two of her solo records, Approximately Infinite Universe and Feeling the Space. In 1980, a chance meeting with the former Beatle would land Douglas the producer’s chair on John and Yoko’s new recording project.

Jack Douglas (producer, Double Fantasy): I ran into John at a health food store restaurant over on the East Side about six months, maybe a year before we did Double Fantasy. In comes John, Sean, and the nanny. They were coming from swimming lessons at the YMCA. I hadn’t seen John in years. He comes up and goes, Hey, Jack, how ya doing? He wanted to know what’s happening and gave me his private number, which I never called. I didn’t want to bother the guy because he was raising his family.

Secret Sessions

Lennon’s reemergence onto the music scene would remain a closely guarded secret, enshrouded in a James Bond-like saga of mystery and intrigue.

Jack Douglas (producer, Double Fantasy): I got these instructions; John wants to talk to me about making this record, Don’t say anything to anyone. Just go to 34th Street, get on a seaplane and come out. I got flown to the big house out in Glen Cove. The seaplane landed right onto the beach. It was hush-hush. I knew I was being asked to do a record because I had already gotten the phone call from Yoko and John. I came out and Yoko handed me an envelope marked For Jack’s ears only. Inside was a cassette of all of John’s demos. She and I went into the house and she handed me a stack of her songs, dozens and dozens of songs. She’d been in the Record Plant recording demos with Elephant’s Memory. Then Yoko said, John’s gonna call you now. He was still in Bermuda at the time. He told me he felt he couldn’t write a song anymore and that these songs were really shitty. Even the cassette itself was narrated by John. Each of the songs started out with John saying, Here’s another one, the same old crap.

Stan Vincent (Jack Douglas’s business partner): Jack brought John’s demo tape to my beach house in Montauk (Hamptons, Long Island). That’s the first time we heard it. If Jack liked this tape and thought we could make a record, John would come out of retirement and fly from Bermuda to New York to do this album. If Jack didn’t think it had merit, then the record would not be made. So Jack pulls the tape out and hands it to me.