Listening to Lennon #7: Double Fantasy

Double Fantasy is an iconic album, for obvious reasons. Leaving behind Los Angeles, May Pang, the experiments (and exasperation) in the studio of Walls and Bridges, and the legal headaches (and rock and roll delights) of cranking out old covers on Rock 'n' Roll, Lennon settled back in New York City and reconciled with Yoko Ono, who gave birth to their one child together, Sean Lennon, on October 9, 1975. And Lennon promptly left the music business to focus on his son for close to five years. When he returned with Double Fantasy, his first musical collaboration with Ono since Some Time in New York City eight years before, he was 40 years old, looking into the 1980s, and ready for another stage in his life. And, of course, was tragically murdered less than a month after the album's official release. How could such a story not lend the album it left behind a certain mystique? 

But there's even more to it than that. There's Lennon's wild experience while sailing to Bermuda in June 1980, when sickness and fatigue left every other member of the crew unable to handle the ship's wheel, and Lennon guided the boat alone through a storm for six hours. He came out of that challenge invigorated, excited, but also feeling vulnerable in a manner unlike that produced by his many journeys through various therapies years before, and desperately wanting to make music again. There is, of course, his constant, never-finished feelings of affection and competition with Paul McCartney; "Coming Up," a disco-ish, heavily synthesized and drum machine-driven tune Macca had recorded in the summer of 1979, was released in advance of McCartney II in the spring of 1980, and John loved it--"It's driving me crackers!" he supposedly said, reigniting his competitive drive. (To be clear, while I like the song, I don't care much for the album.) And there was the increasing artistic maturity of his relationship with Yoko; the post-punk music in the clubs of NYC in the late 1970s, from the Talking Heads to the B-52s, struck him as providing a new idiom for some of Ono's avant-garde sensibilities, strongly calling him to write alongside them again. All together, by the summer of 1980, John and Yoko were both writing songs, and come the autumn they were in the recording studio--though keeping the news of their imminent re-emergence on the pop music scene as much a secret as possible. I wish I had memories of the impact of Lennon's return late in that year, but I wasn't a Beatles fan at age 11--and within weeks, the story of the Smart Beatle making music again was overwhelmed by the news of his death.

I can understand how the initial reviews of the album were less than enthusiastic, as most of the first side is only occasionally captivating. "(Just Like) Starting Over" is a fine and catchy pop song, but beyond the initial listening, it seems a little pleading. Ono's "Kiss Kiss Kiss" definitely shows a greater pop sensibility than what's she'd brought into the studio in the past, but still, this insistent faux-orgasm of the song is kind of embarrassing. Then comes Lennon's "Cleanup Time"--again, a nice effort at a soulful rocker, but nothing special, followed by Ono's "Give Me Something," which is just an unfinished dance-club riff.

But then listeners to the album are rewarded with a run of songs that shows not just how talented a musician Lennon was, but also smart, how capable of seeing, both musically and lyrically, how to put a musical statement together. "I'm Losing You" is a sharp, deeply introspective, self-critical, while still insistent number; it folds directly into Ono's "I'm Moving On," which is I think the first time in this whole series that I've heard her singing voice--pitched to accentuate the growling anger of the song--truly complement an arrangement (though she still insists on that weird cackle at the end). The songs are genuinely in conversation with each other, a conversation that one can imagine capturing key moments from all the ups and downs of John and Yoko's marriage over the years. Then comes the simply gorgeous, calypso-flavored lullaby/love song to Sean, "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)," followed by "Watching the Wheels," one of the very few straight-up superb pop songs whose autobiographical focus amounts to actual, rather than ersatz, Zen philosophy ("Ah, people asking questions / lost in confusion / Well, I tell them there's no problem / only solutions"). Yoko's "Yes, I'm Your Angel" is another smart take on her odd musical presence, turning her into in a vaudeville chanteuse. And then the best song on the album: Lennon's "Woman." Lennon called this, in an interview before his murder, a grown-up Beatles tune, the way he and the lads would have recorded "Girl" if they'd had more years and wisdom under their belts. It's by no means a fully feminist song; Lennon never achieved the kind of empathy that McCartney could manufacture on a moment's notice. But for an Englishman born and raised in the 1940s and 1950s, especially one with the complicated (and, yes, partly self-induced) traumas that Lennon carried, his appreciate of what women mean to him in this simple, melodious song is kind of beautiful, I think.

Yoko dominates the rest of the album with a few forgettable (though thankfully not particularly screechy) songs, with one last poppy, sappy ditty from John: "Dear Yoko." But overall, Lennon had every reason to be proud of this album; it's a strong B+ collection of songs. Tragic that he had so little time to reflect on what he and his wife had accomplished.