‘Instant Karma’: The hit song John Lennon wrote, recorded, and released in one week
January 27th, 1970 was a big day for John Lennon. Earlier in the month, Lennon and Yoko Ono visited Ono’s former partner, Tony Cox, for the New Year. While there, the adults discussed the idea that karma can be an immediate punishment rather than a lifelong reckoning. Lennon took the idea to heart when, on the 27th, he woke up, went to his piano, and wrote what became ‘Instant Karma!’.
“It just came to me,” Lennon told David Sheff in 1980. “Everybody was going on about karma, especially in the Sixties. But it occurred to me that karma is instant as well as it influences your past life or your future life. There really is a reaction to what you do now. That’s what people ought to be concerned about. Also, I’m fascinated by commercials and promotion as an art form. I enjoy them. So the idea of instant karma was like the idea of instant coffee: presenting something in a new form. I just liked it.”
Although he had privately resigned from the band a few months prior, Lennon called his Beatles bandmate George Harrison and excitingly told him about the song, saying he wanted to record it immediately. Harrison recommended that he go to EMI Studios, where The Beatles had a permanent block on Studio 2. Harrison also suggested Lennon call Phil Spector, who was in town at the invitation of Beatles manager Allen Klein.
“John phoned me up one morning in January and said, ‘I’ve written this tune and I’m going to record it tonight and have it pressed up and out tomorrow – that’s the whole point: Instant Karma, you know.’ So I was in,” Harrison later recalled. “I said, ‘OK, I’ll see you in town.’ I was in town with Phil Spector, and I said to Phil, ‘Why don’t you come to the session?’ There were just four people: John played piano, I played acoustic guitar, there was Klaus Voormann on bass, and Alan White on drums. We recorded the song and brought it out that week, mixed – instantly – by Phil Spector.”
In just a few hours, Lennon managed to pull together an ad-hoc version of the Plastic Ono Band featuring Harrison on guitar, Klaus Voorman on bass, Billy Preston on organ, and Alan White on drums. After a few takes of the backing track, Lennon added piano along with Harrison and White, with Beatles roadie Mal Evans overdubbing tubular bells on top of the chorus. For a final touch, a group of patrons from the nearby Hatchett Club added a chorus of vocals. All the while, Spector was mixing in real time.
“It was great, ’cause I wrote it in the morning on the piano, like I said many times, and I went to the office and I sang it,” Lennon remembered. “I thought, ‘Hell, let’s do it,’ and we booked the studio. And Phil came in, he said, ‘How do you want it?’ I said, ‘You know, 1950 but now.’ And he said ‘Right,’ and boom, I did it in just about three goes. He played it back, and there it was. I said, ‘A bit more bass,’ that’s all. And off we went.”
Long before the Spector’s murder conviction, Lennon effused about his technique as a producer. “See, Phil doesn’t fuss about with fuckin’ stereo or all the bullshit,” Lennon added. “Just ‘Did it sound alright? Let’s have it.’ It doesn’t matter whether something’s prominent or not prominent. If it sounds good to you as a layman or as a human, take it. Don’t bother whether this is like that or the quality of this. That suits me fine.”
Spector wanted to add a string section to the song, but Lennon insisted that they release ‘Instant Karma!’ as quickly as possible. With the writing, recording and mixing completed in a single day, the production of the single was expedited so that ‘Instant Karma!’ came out just over a week after its recording. The song was a top ten hit in both the US and UK, and Lennon was so pleased with Spector’s work that he got him to shore up Let It Be and produce his solo albums John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine.
Check out ‘Instant Karma!’ down below.
