Background
Milk and Honey was the duo's projected follow-up to Double Fantasy,though Lennon's murder caused a temporary shelving of the project. It took Ono three years to be able to resume work to complete it. Ono's material largely comprises new recordings which she undertook during the album's preparation in 1983,which give her songs a more commercial and contemporary edge. Conversely,Lennon's material,being rough takes and rehearsal recordings,has a more casual feeling.
The album's title came from Ono,who explained that it referred to their journey to the US,"the land of milk and honey". "But also,in the Scripture,the land of milk and honey is where you go after you die,as a promised land",Ono went on to say. "So it's very strange that I thought of that title. Almost scary –like someone up there told me to call the next album Milk and Honey". [1] The cover is an alternate take from the same photo session that produced the front cover of Double Fantasy,though this photo appears in colour. [2]
Music and lyrics
"Nobody Told Me",a song Lennon intended for Ringo Starr's 1981 album Stop and Smell the Roses ,was released as a single and became a worldwide Top 10 hit. Other singles from the album were "I'm Stepping Out" and "Borrowed Time". The songs "Let Me Count the Ways" and "Grow Old with Me" were written by Lennon and Ono to each other using inspiration from poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. They are presented in their demo form. [3]
Ultimate Classic Rock critic Nick DeRiso called "I Don't Want to Face It" the most underrated song on Milk and Honey,describing it as being "complicated,just like Lennon,brutally frank and sort of tossed off,too". [4]
Release and aftermath
After falling out with David Geffen,whose Geffen Records had initially released Double Fantasy,Ono moved future projects to Polydor Records,which initially released Milk and Honey. [2] EMI,home of Lennon's entire recorded output—including that with the Beatles—acquired this and all Lennon releases in the late 1990s.
Milk and Honey did not match the commercial success met by Double Fantasy in the wake of Lennon's death,but it was still well received,peaking at No. 3 in the UK and No. 11 in the US,where it went gold. Jack Douglas,who had co-produced Double Fantasy with Lennon and Ono,also had input into the initial sessions for Milk and Honey,though Ono declined to credit him after their professional relationship soured following Lennon's death. Shortly after the album's release,Douglas filed a lawsuit against Ono,which resulted in him being awarded an undetermined share of revenues from Milk and Honey. [14]
In 2001,Ono supervised the remastering of Milk and Honey for its CD reissue,adding three bonus tracks and a 22-minute excerpt from Lennon's last interview in the late afternoon of 8 December 1980,5 hours before his death.
The bonus tracks include home demo recordings of "I'm Stepping Out" and "I'm Moving On" (from Double Fantasy) along with a version of "Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him" featuring Lennon's vocals only,which was planned to be included on the Ono tribute album that was released in 1984,titled Every Man Has a Woman .
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