Mind Games is the third solo studio album by English musician John Lennon. It was recorded at Record Plant Studios in New York in summer 1973. The album was released in the US on 29 October 1973 and in the UK on 16 November 1973. It was Lennon's first self-produced recording without help from Phil Spector. Like his previous album, the politically topical and somewhat abrasive Some Time in New York City, Mind Games received mixed reviews upon release. It reached number 13 in the UK and number 9 in the US, where it was certified gold in both territories.
The album was recorded while Lennon was having difficulties with US immigration and at the beginning of his 18-month separation from Yoko Ono.[2] The title track was released as a single at the same time as the album. The album itself was later reissued several times throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and as an expanded super deluxe box set in 2024.
Background
By the start of 1973, John Lennon began distancing himself from the political and social issues he had embraced in the previous 18 months.[3] It was also around this time that he and his wife, Yoko Ono, were going through marital problems.[3][4] As Ono was completing her fourth album, Feeling the Space, Lennon decided he also wanted to record a new album, and liked the studio musicians that their assistant and production coordinator May Pang had assembled for Ono's album.[3] Shortly thereafter, he asked Pang to book them for his sessions.[5] Wanting to produce an album that would be more accepted than his previous politically charged commercial flop Some Time in New York City, Lennon began writing and demoing a few songs for Mind Games in his Greenwich Village apartment.[3] He began composing after a period of almost a year of not writing any material.[4]
Amid frequent court appearances battling to stay in the United States, Lennon became stressed,[3] a situation that was only worsened by constant surveillance by the FBI,[3][4][6] due to his political activism.[3] Lennon said, "I just couldn't function, you know? I was so paranoid from them tappin' the phone and followin' me."[7] All this combined made Lennon begin to feel emotionally withdrawn.[7] Lennon put his suffering aside to write the songs for Mind Games,[7] writing all the songs for it in a week.[8]
Under the moniker of "The Plastic U.F.Ono Band", Lennon engaged the services of session drummer Jim Keltner, guitarist David Spinozza, Gordon Edwards on bass, Arthur Jenkins on percussion, Michael Brecker on saxophone, Ken Ascher on piano and organ, and the vocal backing of a group called Something Different.[9] Difficulties between Lennon and Ono became more and more noticeable around this time.[10] Just as the sessions were to get under way in June at New York's Record Plant Studios, John and Yoko separated.[2] At Ono's urging,[10] Pang became Lennon's companion and lover in what would become an 18-month relationship later renowned as Lennon's "lost weekend".[11]
Recording and content
Mind Games was recorded between July and August 1973 in Lennon's characteristic quick fashion, and was mixed over a two-week period.[7] Lennon produced the album by himself,[9][12] following his previous three-year partnership with Phil Spector.[13] When the album was remixed in 2002, many audio anomalies hidden in the original mixing were uncovered.[7] Some rough mixes appear on bootlegs and on 1998's John Lennon Anthology.[7]
The album continued Lennon's previous attempts to chronicle his life through his songs,[10] the tone of which displays a range of mixed feelings.[7] Among the sombre and melodic songs directed to Ono, "Aisumasen (I'm Sorry)" was originally titled "Call My Name",[12][14][15] a song in which Lennon was offering to comfort someone, whereas the final version sees him asking for forgiveness.[15][16][17] In "One Day (At a Time)", Lennon sings about his devotion to Ono.[18][nb 1] "Out the Blue" also reflects Lennon's devotion to his wife,[16] and reflects its author's self-doubt as a result of their separation.[17][19] "Out the Blue" incorporates several musical genres, starting with a gentle, melancholy acoustic guitar and moving through gospel, country, and choral music portions.[20][21][22] Another love song, "You Are Here" took its title from Lennon's one-off art exhibition at the Robert Fraser Gallery.[23] By the time of the Mind Games sessions, the composition had gone through several different themes, before Lennon settled on the theme of love and peace.[23] The original master take of "You Are Here" featured an extra verse,[24] that was about Japan and England.[23]
Other songs on the album are more light-hearted and optimistic, marking the return of Lennon's humour and wit after the uncompromising doctrine espoused on Some Time in New York City.[25] These tracks include "Intuition", in which Lennon relates how life experience has honed his instincts and how it's good to have gotten through it.[26] While demoing the song on piano in early 1973, with the lyrics still incomplete, he added a few lines from two previously released tracks – "How?", from Imagine (1971), and "God", from John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970).[26] "Only People" reflects his and Ono's personal philosophy.[27] Lennon later said that it failed as a song, however; in an interview with Playboy, he remarked: "It was a good lick, but I couldn't get the words to make sense."[27]
Also appearing on Mind Games are songs that indulged Lennon's affinity for pure rock 'n' roll, such as "Tight A$", the title of which was a pun on the expressions "tight as" and "tight ass".[28] The track is in the rockabilly style with a 1950s sound, along the lines of songs that inspired Lennon in his youth.[29][30] Another rock track, "Meat City" contains lyrics more in keeping with Lennon's earlier penchant for obscure imagery over the personal.[31] The song was a boogie piece until late in 1971, when it began to take its final form, although with improvised lyrics.[16][17] By late 1972, Lennon had rewritten the words and finished developing the melody.[17]
The song "Mind Games", with its "love is the answer" refrain and call to "make love not war", recalls Lennon's work with the Beatles in 1967.[25] He started writing the track during the band's Get Back sessions, in early 1969, with the title "Make Love, Not War". Lennon finished it after reading the book Mind Games: The Guide to Inner Space.[13][32][nb 2][33] Lennon had recorded demos of the retitled "Mind Games" on 28 and 29 December 1970, at his home studio, Ascot Sound Studios.[34]
"Bring on the Lucie (Freda Peeple)" dated from late 1971, having started out as little more than a chorus, after Lennon acquired a National guitar.[18] Once he had worked on the lyrics, the song went from a simple political slogan to a full-blown statement that hints at his earlier work, such as "Imagine" and "Power to the People".[18] "Only People" and the three-second silent "Nutopian International Anthem" were the only political tracks on the album.[2] The latter referred to "Nutopia: The Country of Peace", a conceptual country which the Lennons had announced at a press conference in New York City on April Fool's Day 1973.[26][35][36][nb 3] "I Know (I Know)" features lyrics in which Lennon apologises for his thoughtlessness and discusses the causes of his insecurity.[23] On some of the rough mixes available on bootlegs, the time-consuming overdubbing on the song is apparent, as Lennon gradually refined the arrangement.[23] The final track on Mind Games, "Meat City" contains a Lennon curse, "Fuck a pig!",[37] sped up and backwards, while the mix used as the B-side to the "Mind Games" single gave the same treatment to the phrase "Check the album!"[13]
"Rock and Roll People" was also recorded during the album's sessions and given to Johnny Winter for his John Dawson Winter III album. Lennon's version remained unreleased until 1986's posthumous Menlove Ave. album.[7][12]
Release and promotion
Tony King, vice-president of Apple Records in Los Angeles at the time, convinced Lennon to promote Mind Games, arranging interviews for Lennon with Billboard and Record World.[7] He also persuaded Lennon to do a television commercial in which King dressed up as the Queen of the United Kingdom and waltzed with Lennon (the commercial session can be seen in the 1988 film Imagine: John Lennon).[38] King reprised his role as the Queen for two radio spots promoting the album.[39]
Lennon created the Mind Games album cover himself, hand-cutting the photos. The front and back covers are similar; on the back sleeve Lennon is more toward the foreground, representing his symbolic walking away from Ono and her apparent mountainous influence on him.[5][7]
Mind Games was released on 29 October in America[40] and 16 November in Britain,[3][nb 4] around the same time as Ono's Feeling the Space.[43] Apple Records issued the title track as a single, with the release dates matching those of the album in the US and UK.[33][nb 5] The single reached number 26 in the UK, and peaked at number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US.[33] The album charted at number 13 in the UK and peaked at number 9 on Billboard's Top LP's listings.[3] Although Mind Games sold better than Some Time in New York City,[11] its release "came and went with barely a ripple", according to Beatles biographer Chris Ingham.[44] Author Peter Doggett similarly writes that the album "did nothing to alter [Lennon's] status as the least commercially successful Beatle".[45]
Jon Landau of Rolling Stone magazine assessed the songs on Mind Games as "his worst writing yet" and considered that Lennon was "helplessly trying to impose his own gargantuan ego upon an audience... [that] is waiting hopefully for him to chart a new course". While finding the music "listenable", Landau identified the album's lyrics as "misguided in so underrating his audience's intelligence" and added: "But then, perhaps Lennon's didacticism, preaching and banality are part of the mind game of the album's title..."[54] More impressed, Melody Maker's Ray Coleman found that "The raw nerves of a Lennon battered by America's curious logic and sheer hard-heartedness seem to have spurred him to write incisively..." Coleman concluded of Mind Games: "Musically or melodically this may not be a stand-out album, but if you warm to the rasping voice of Lennon and, like me, regard him as the true fulcrum of much of what came from his old group, then like any new Lennon album, it will be enjoyable and even important."[55] In Creem magazine, Robert Christgau described the album as "a step in the right direction... but only a step. It sounds like out-takes from Imagine, which may not seem so bad but means that Lennon is falling back on ideas (intellectual and musical) that have lost their freshness for him: Still, the single works, and let's hope he keeps right on stepping."[56]
Writing in their 1975 book The Beatles: An Illustrated Record, NME journalists Roy Carr and Tony Tyler opined that Mind Games "bears all the hallmarks of being made without any definite objective in mind – other than to redeem the unpleasantness of Some Time In New York City". While noting the singer's attempts to re-create "the lyricism and melodic inventiveness" of Imagine, Carr and Tyler continued: "The reason the total album is not more effective can be laid at the door of Lennon's personal situation, and on his tendency to react to events, instead of initiating them."[57] In The Beatles Apart (1981), Bob Woffinden considered that, aside from the "excellent" title track and "Bring on the Lucie", Mind Games "consisted of so-so songs that hardly lodged in the memory", and that "The best one can say of the album is that it's exceptionally well produced."[58]
In a more recent review, for AllMusic, critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine writes that "confusion... lies at the heart of the album. Lennon doesn't know which way to go, so he tries everything." Erlewine adds: "While the best numbers are among Lennon's finest, there's only a handful of them, and the remainder of the record is simply pleasant."[46]
Reissues
The album was reissued in the US on Capitol Records in 1978 and 1980, with the latter being a budget reissue.[nb 6][7] In the UK, the album was reissued on EMI's budget label, Music for Pleasure (MFP), on 28 November 1980, featuring a different album cover.[nb 7][7] After Lennon's death in December 1980, the album, along with seven other Lennon albums, was reissued by EMI as part of a box set, which was released in the UK on 15 June 1981.[nb 8][59] It was first issued on CD on 3 August 1987, this time on the Parlophone label,[nb 9][12] and several months later on 22 March 1988 in the US on the Capitol label.[61]
In 2002, a remixing of Mind Games for its remastered reissue, containing three previously unreleased demo recordings,[nb 10] was overseen by Allan Rouse, which was released on 21 October 2002 in the UK,[nb 11][12] and on 5 November 2002 in the US.[61] It was reissued again by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab in 2004 on CD[nb 12] and LP.[nb 13] In 2010, the original mix was remastered as part of the re-release of Lennon's entire catalogue, the album was available separately[nb 14] or as part of the John Lennon Signature Box.[nb 15][12]
Expanded versions of Mind Games were reissued on 12 July 2024 in several formats, including a super deluxe edition limited to 1100 units worldwide. A six CD & two blu-ray set contains four different mixes of the original album, a fifth disc (actually disc four in the set) of mini audio documentaries of each song & a sixth disc of outtakes. Disc one offers new stereo mixes of the original album created from high-definition transfers of the original multitrack recordings. Disc two's 'elemental' mixes are stripped back and without drums, emphasising Lennon's voice. Disc three's 'elements' mixes highlight musician performances. Disc five's raw studio mixes is what was recorded during the sessions with minimum effects.[67] A separate coffee table book was released on 24 September.[68]
Rock 'n' Roll is the fifth and final solo studio album by English musician John Lennon. Released in February 1975, it is an album of rock and roll songs from the late 1950s and early 1960s as covered by Lennon. Recording the album was troubled and spanned an entire year: Phil Spector produced sessions in October 1973 at A&M Studios, and Lennon produced sessions in October 1974 at the Record Plant (East). Lennon was being sued by Morris Levy over copyright infringement of one line in his Beatles song "Come Together". As part of an agreement, Lennon had to include three Levy-owned songs on Rock 'n' Roll. Spector disappeared with the session recordings and was subsequently involved in a motor accident, leaving the album's tracks unrecoverable until the beginning of the Walls and Bridges sessions. With Walls and Bridges coming out first, featuring one Levy-owned song, Levy sued Lennon expecting to see Lennon's Rock 'n' Roll album.
Walls and Bridges is the fourth solo studio album by English musician John Lennon. It was issued by Apple Records on 26 September 1974 in the United States and on 4 October in the United Kingdom. Written, recorded and released during his 18-month separation from Yoko Ono, the album captured Lennon in the midst of his "Lost Weekend". Walls and Bridges was an American number-one album on both the Billboard and Record World charts and included two hit singles, "Whatever Gets You thru the Night" and "#9 Dream". The first of these was Lennon's first number-one hit in the United States as a solo artist, and his only solo chart-topping single in either the US or Britain during his lifetime.
Live Peace in Toronto 1969 is a live album by the Plastic Ono Band, released in December 1969 on Apple Records. Recorded at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival, it was the first live album released by any member of the Beatles separately or together. John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono received a phone call from the festival's promoters John Brower and Kenny Walker, and then assembled a band on very short notice for the festival, which was due to start the following day. The band included Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, and drummer Alan White. The group flew from London and had brief unamplified rehearsals on the plane before appearing on the stage to perform several songs; one of which, "Cold Turkey", was first performed live at the festival. After returning home, Lennon mixed the album in a day.
Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions is the second of three collaborative experimental albums of avant-garde music by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, released in May 1969 on Zapple, a sub label of Apple. It was a successor to 1968's highly controversial Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, and was followed by the Wedding Album. The album peaked in the United States at number 174, 50 places lower than the previous album. The album, whose title is a play on words of the BBC Radio show Life with The Lyons, was recorded at Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London and live at Cambridge University, in November 1968 and March 1969, respectively. The Cambridge performance, to which Ono had been invited and to which she brought Lennon, was Lennon and Ono's second as a couple. A few of the album's tracks were previewed by the public, thanks to Aspen magazine. The album was remastered in 1997.
"Instant Karma!" is a song by English rock musician John Lennon, released as a single on Apple Records in February 1970. The lyrics focus on a concept in which the consequences of one's actions are immediate rather than borne out over a lifetime. The single was credited to "Lennon/Ono with the Plastic Ono Band", apart from in the US, where the credit was "John Ono Lennon". The song reached the top five in the British and American charts, competing with the Beatles' "Let It Be" in the US, where it became the first solo single by a member of the band to sell a million copies.
"Kiss Kiss Kiss" is a song by Japanese singer Yoko Ono. It was originally released on Double Fantasy, her joint album with John Lennon, as well as on the B-side of his "(Just Like) Starting Over" single. The disco and new wave-influenced song features Ono gasping heavily and appearing to reach orgasm.
Feeling the Space is the fourth solo album by Yoko Ono, released in 1973. It was her last one to be released on Apple Records.
"Mind Games" is a song written and performed by John Lennon, released as a single in 1973 on Apple Records. It was the lead single for the album of the same name. The US single and album were released simultaneously on 29 October 1973. The UK single and album were issued simultaneously on 16 November 1973. In the US it peaked at No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 10 on the Cashbox Top 100. In the UK it peaked at No. 26.
"Every Man Has a Woman Who Loves Him" is a song by Yoko Ono from the album Double Fantasy with John Lennon. Other versions were released, including one released as a single where Ono's voice was removed, leaving what had been Lennon's backing vocal as the primary vocal.
"Aisumasen (I'm Sorry)" is a song written by John Lennon released on his 1973 album Mind Games. The song is included on the 1990 box set Lennon.
"Out the Blue" is a song written by John Lennon and originally released on his 1973 album Mind Games. The song is included on the 1990 boxset Lennon, the 2005 two-disc compilation Working Class Hero: The Definitive Lennon, the 2010 album Gimme Some Truth and the 2020 compilation album Gimme Some Truth. The Ultimate Mixes.
"I Know (I Know)" is a song written by John Lennon released on his 1973 album Mind Games. The song is included on the 1998 box set John Lennon Anthology and the 2020 compilation album Gimme Some Truth. The Ultimate Mixes.
"Meat City" is a song written by John Lennon, released as the 12th and final track on his 1973 album Mind Games. The song is also the B-side of the single of the same name, and is included on the 2010 album, Gimme Some Truth.
"Sisters, O Sisters", also known as "Sisters O Sisters", is a song written by Yoko Ono that first appeared on John Lennon's and Yoko Ono's 1972 Plastic Ono Band album Some Time in New York City, backed by Elephant's Memory. It was also released as the b-side to the couple's "Woman Is the Nigger of the World" single. It has been covered by a number of artists, including Le Tigre and Tater Totz.
"You Are Here" is a song written and performed by John Lennon from his 1973 album Mind Games.
"What You Got" is a song written by John Lennon that was first released on his 1974 album Walls and Bridges. It was later released as the B-side to his top 10 "#9 Dream" single.
"Beautiful Boys" is a song written by Yoko Ono that was first released on Ono's and John Lennon's 1980 album Double Fantasy. It was later released as the B-side of Lennon's #1 single "Woman."
"Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)" is a song by Yoko Ono that was originally released by Plastic Ono Band in October 1969 as the B-side of the "Cold Turkey" single, and was later released on Ono's 1971 album Fly. Several live versions have been released, including on Plastic Ono Band's Live Peace in Toronto 1969 and the John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band With Elephant's Memory album Some Time in New York City in 1972. An early version was titled "Mum's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow". It has been covered by several other artists.
"Listen, the Snow Is Falling" is a song written by Yoko Ono and recorded by Ono and the Plastic Ono Band that was first released as the B-side of John Lennon's 1971 single "Happy Xmas ." A version of the song was later released on a reissue of Lennon and Ono's Wedding Album and was covered by Galaxie 500.
Nutopian International Anthem is an instrumental by the English musician and former Beatles guitarist John Lennon from his 1973 album Mind Games.
References
Footnotes
↑ While he was recording the song, singing in his normal vocal register throughout the recording, Lennon adopted a falsetto when attempting a vocal overdub.[18]
↑ He later encountered the author in a restaurant, and when the author asked about Lennon's reaction to the book, he replied: "I am one of your fans. You wrote Mind Games."[32]
↑ The album's inner sleeve featured a "Declaration of Nutopia", in which people could become a citizen of Nutopia if they spoke about Nutopia.[26]
↑ With the respective catalogue numbers: US Capitiol SW-3414[41] and UK Apple PCS 7165.[42]
↑ While "Mind Games" was the single in other countries, "Bring on the Lucie (Freeda Peeple)", backed with "You Are Here", was a single in Venezuela.[26] (Venezuela Apple 4AP 1844)[26]
1 2 Urish, B. & Bielen, K. (2007). The Words and Music of John Lennon. Praeger. p.49. ISBN978-0-275-99180-7.
1 2 3 du Noyer, P. (1999). John Lennon: Whatever Gets You Through the Night. Thunder's Mouth Press. p.74. ISBN1-56025-210-3.
1 2 3 4 Blaney, John (2007). Lennon and McCartney: Together Alone – A critical discography of their solo work. Jawbone Press. pp.81, 83. ISBN978-1-906002-02-2.
1 2 Masters, Robert; Houston, Jean (1998). Mind Games: The Guide to Inner Space (1st Quested.). Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical Pub. House. p.XII. ISBN0-8356-0753-4. OCLC375606.
↑ Miles, Barry; Badman, Keith, eds. (2001). The Beatles Diary After the Break-Up: 1970–2001 (reprinted.). London: Music Sales Group. ISBN9780711983076.
↑ Madinger, Chip; Easter, Mark (2000). Eight Arms to Hold You: The Solo Beatles Compendium. Chesterfield, MO: 44.1 Productions. p.578. ISBN0-615-11724-4.
↑ "Classifiche". Musica e dischi (in Italian). Retrieved 23 January 2024.Select "Album" in the "Tipo" field, type "John Lennon" in the "Titolo" field and press "cerca".
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