‘Double Fantasy’: The collaboration album John Lennon and Yoko Ono had to work on separately
By the time The Beatles broke up, Yoko Ono was one of the only reasons why John Lennon could carry on. She may have become unfairly blamed for the band breaking up, but looking at their final days together in the Get Back documentary, Ono is an emotional weight for Lennon, and by his side when things start to go a little bit haywire. Time can do a number on anyone’s relationship, and when they finally reconnected, Lennon knew that he was free to fly without Ono for the first time.
Things didn’t get off to the greatest start when the two started making music together, though. Their experimental albums might still be considered an acquired taste, but anyone who has the ability to stomach the first side of Life With the Lions without getting a migraine has truly ascended to another plane of existence. When Lennon was left to his own devices, though, having Ono in the background for albums like Imagine helped ground him when making tunes like ‘Oh My Love’ and ‘How?’.
At the same time, there had to come a point where their love started working against them. Some Time in New York City is still one of the messiest things they have ever put out together, and once they realised they couldn’t enact change this way, Ono felt that the only way to keep Lennon in her orbit was to let him go off on his own for a little bit.
If Mind Games and Walls and Bridges are any indication, it was that Lennon wasn’t fully ready to be on his own yet. He was still capable of writing the occasional great song, but a lot of the greatest moments on those albums were when he was still reeling from the loss of his other half, whether that was him desperately trying to apologise on ‘Aisumasen (I’m Sorry)’ or pleading with her to take him back on ‘What You Got’.
Right as he settled back into domestic life in the late 1970s and became a househusband, Lennon finally found a way to be at peace when writing music. His songs were now dictated by his love for his wife and newborn son, Sean, and after coming up with songs after sailing to Bermuda, Double Fantasy was meant to be a dialogue between him and Ono about where they are as they entered a new decade.
After spending years away from her, becoming a proper househusband made him finally comfortable to be on his own in the studio, with producer Jack Douglas saying, “Those two could not work at the same time. If she were there, it would have been impossible. I had to treat that album as two separate albums. I know that they’re both artists on the record, but I had to treat it as a John album and as a Yoko album. Yoko from 11 o’clock until about 6:30pm. And then she would go home. John would come in at 7pm and would work until about one or two in the morning.”
From a musical perspective, that separation actually led to a better overall product. Since the whole album was meant to be a back-and-forth conversation, having them separated led to them focusing on each of their songs as a reflection of how they were feeling, whether it was Lennon pouring out his heart on ‘Beautiful Boy’ or Ono settling into their new lives as parents on ‘Yes, I’m Your Angel’.
Then again, no amount of studio trickery was bound to hinder what Lennon was doing naturally. Yoko could have easily suggested going in different directions for certain songs, but when you’ve written something as perfect as ‘Woman’, there’s no real way that anyone could screw it up.
