"Double Fantasy" sounds like an accurate description of John and Yoko's marriage. The loving public marriage they pretended to have, and the toxic private marriage they really had.
I found this so interesting! I remember Fred Seaman said he bought Paul's Coming Up single and played it for John and said it impressed and inspired him, bringing out that sense of competition that he hadn't felt for years. Great video! Loved seeing all those photos from that period too.
I remember also hearing it was specifically the live version released overseas and not the US single version of Coming Up that impressed him. The live version is awesome, it seems to have more energy and interplay between the musicians. Paul's voice is more rockin too.
Thank you Well hello there for liking the video. I appreciate your compliments and your memory of Fred saying he played Paul's song for John and how it impressed and inspired him. That was interesting.
Life really is sad. Tragically so. Yet, we struggle through this old world, always trying to look up. Kind of makes it more sad actually. I don't know where I am going with this.
@@loosilu So true. She was a blight on his life, keeping him in the depressed state he was in when she found him. He needed some real therapy. Instead she brought him heroin, astrology, and attention seeking stunts. Other than those bindings that she used to control him, she ignored him or sent him away entirely to have affair after affair.
Hard to believe she had the ordasity to think she was an equal to John's song writing ability and being worthy to have her crap on the same album as John, and to think of herself as a rock star, holy crap.....he should have stood up to her when she failed to put anything together...i don't see her as an artist in any form other than a con artist, she was nothing other than the mother of John's child, but I guess we have to respect Johns choice of choosing her as a wife, poor fellow
After the many John Lennon uploads on You Tube, you’ve managed to post a very good video. Thank you, I loved all the pictures that went along with the narrative. Because of the genius of John, Yoko’s songs on the album managed to sound decent mixed between John’s excellent song writing skills. You have to wonder if John was alive today if he would have still been with her. I doubt it. I always felt she had some mystical hold on him. She’s also been a long time heroin user over the years. Oh well, we’ll never know. I’m thankful I got to experience John Lennon in my lifetime. He certainly made significant musical contributions to the world and he’s sorely missed!
Hi Bill thank you for liking the video. I am glad you liked the pictures. Your question about whether John and Yoko would still have been together if he had lived is a good one. It is hard to say.
She was and is a witch. This is widely known. Also widely known, the fact that John was going to divorce her. There have been books written on these subjects. It’s not pure conjecture. Many people from the inner circle have attested to this. Either every single one of them is inexplicably lying (and all telling the exact same lie) or it’s true. 🍏
He married his mother, he had childhood issues. He may have gone back to May Pang. She says he may hv gone back to Yoko bcs he'd given her full control over his assets & would hv lost most if he divorced her; & that was afraid of being deported. I have no respect for him, after the way he treated Julian & Cynthia. He was weak, & gave his soul over to Yoko.
I remember reading an interview with producer Jack Douglas in a recording magazine. In the interview he said that after the album was finished, Lennon met him at the studio to wrap things up business wise. Lennon stated clearly that he was done working with Joko. Unfortunately we didn't get to hear what that might have sounded like.
I think Double Fantasy served to shake off the rust for Lennon after not recording for 5 yrs which in the music industry is a long long time...i think the album after DF would have been interesting but as you said we didnt get to hear what that might of sounded like
Really? Ive heard a number of interviews with Jack Douglas and he never brought that up. Did Douglas relate what were the reasons why Lennon said he was done working with Yoko? Or was he just done with Yoko?
@@johnschulenberg7560 Joko is Yoko thinking she could sing and thinking she could write a song. What a JOKE she was. At the time of DOUBLE FANTASY, I was thinking they were close to splitting anyway.
From everything I have seen from Joko, l would not be surprised if she decided against the divorce because she wanted to be on half of the album. Joko at this point had the most control of John’s money and she wanted more money and to be someone in the music industry. This was Joko’s opportunity to try to be someone in the music world. Unfortunately for her, she is and has only been a wife of a music legend.
Fred was a hero who got the truth out. Anyone who did that, Yoko made sure had a rough road. She had ALL of John's money and used it to push her self serving PR versions of events, total lies. The last thing she wanted was someone out there with John's diaries. She stole them back and probably burned them.
Very hard to trust a person who stole and stored John’s diaries, letters and other belongings and admitted to it in court. He also made a fortune on this book, a book that portrayed Yoko as a monster and John as a loser. His account might or might not be true, but in either case it was a betrayal of John’s trust and he did it for $$$.
Great video. I read this book years ago. Yoko ended up hating Fred Seaman and sued him for stealing Lennon's diaries and tapes after he was murdered. Worth a read for anyone who wants to know more about John's final years.
it's too bad Lennon couldn't stick to his first thought which was correct: after 5 years being away from the music scene--he should've done this album as a solo effort & forgot about Yoko. Her efforts didn't help this album.
I had a great laugh hearing that John felt like Paul trying to produce an album and pushing the others around him to do their work. Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think? 😂
Somebody has to take charge to produce a fraction of the output they were producing. No doubt all of them learned from each other, but particularly from John who was the leader of the group after all.
@@Photologistic I think the point though is that John was bent out of shape at McCartney's taking charge of The Beatles from Brian's death onward, not realizing that SOMEONE HAD TO DO IT with Brian gone. Lennon was very hard on Macca for stepping into that role. After all Macca was on fire, in his prime. While Lennon himself was flaking off with Yoko. Hopefully Bermuda is when Lennon begins to really appreciate what Paul brought.
@@charwest9449 I agree completely, and it was sad to see John getting burned out. Huge Macca fan here, but somehow John, not sure if it’s the vocals or the sense of humor or musical style, John is my favorite.
Double Fantasy will always be the tale of two albums, because it was not nearly working out to be the hit during Lennon's final days that it obviously became after he was killed. Those songs suddenly felt prophetic even though Lennon was not writing them in that way. It certainly worked out for Yoko.
@@thebeatlesforever Yoko's attempt at music will never be anything more than amateur night at the improv. The equivalent of "primitive" in art. Kitchy, no subtlety, no skill, just a sentence blurted out with a band behind it.
Not really. He spent a lot of time in Long Island, Florida, Bermuda or traveling the world-all alone. As a matter of fact even Sean said he hardly knew his mother and she was a stranger to him when John died.
It's crazy to find out finally that Yoko manipulated John and took advantage of his fears and insecurities. Cynthia loved him when he had nothing. Instead of finding another, "mommy", he should have stayed with his girl. I know coz I made that exact same mistake, lol
@@vitavomloehbergyour entitled to your opinion. I’m a huge Beatles/Lennon fan . Been so for decades. I happen to love Fred’s book. I found it to be balanced and meshed with much of the information that appeared before and after Fred’s observations.
After a 5 yr Hiatus. John & Yoko's Double Fantasy And Milk & Honey . I always felt John's Songs should have stood Alone apart from Yoko. That hurt Commercially . Watching the Wheels was his last Masterpiece. Also I would have loved the other Version of I'm Losing You featuring member of Cheap Trick. It Rocked. I say have them both. One as a Reprise . I always felt John had alot left. John loved Yoko. But there was a side to Her that held him back. May Pang didn't. John was very Creative in that period. WALLS AND BRIDGES is right up there with POB & Imagine. Thanks for the insight.
Thank you Bill for your comments. You are right I think it would have been better if John had done all the songs for the album. Yoko was more advent Garde and John was rock and roll. Walls and Bridges was a great album
@Lucie Melahn I agree . Linda was great for Paul. May was with John. Cynthia as well. John was a tortured Soul. But that's what some of your greatest Artist are. When John was locked in. I still feel he was the Best of the Three. POB & Imagine are Masterpieces. Walls and Bridges ( My Favorite) As well. To this Day Jules is very close to MAY PANG. A Gentle Soul.
John had a belief that people didn't want him. He suffered from feelings of abandonment. I have had this issue with my dad and I exhibited several symptoms or styles as they call it. It hurts all the time. Yoko and Johns separation could of possibly deepened his emotional pain. There are treatments these days which can change everything but sadly back then treatments would of been poor. Loved the video and your well paced and soothing narration. subbed:)
That's a very good point. For someone who had felt abandoned by his true loves (his parents) as a child, so much so that he identified with the orphans in Strawberry Fields, it was the height of emotional cruelty and sadistic control to keep sending John away time and again, which Yoko always did, and always threatened to do. She coldly used his fear of abandonment to control him.
That should have been totally his album. But he should have had gotten out much more, and let musicians who had grown out of the rock star lifestyle, ones who admired him and just plain loved music, hang around him and also jam with him. John should have stood his ground with Yoko. His marriage was dissolving again. He needed to have the guts to split from her for good. Now that she had fame and loads of money, she didn’t need him.
Yoko had a live-in “companion” , Sam Havadtoy that summer of 1979 when John was in the Bahamas. Yoko was trying to stop Heroin while a John was away. Havadtoy didn’t want to marry Yoko which may be why Yoko decided against divorcing John. After John died, Havadtoy moved in with Yoko & stayed until 2000.
You got that right! Plus while John was with May, Yoko had the hots for studio musician David Spiinozza...She's no angel that's for sure. I wish he would have stayed with May.
@@claresherman2278 I know that Eliot Mintz, Yoko’s right hand man, who lived with the Lennons from time to time, is gay, but not Havadtoy or his predecessor, artist Sam Greene who lived with Yoko from 1978-79. Havadtoy came when Greene left. The story goes that after John’s death, Yoko insisted Havadtoy wear John’s clothes.
Loved your narration, Everything about it!. not a wasted breath or second. Even a few things that I hadn't heard before. I'll have to check out your other pieces. Nice Journalism my friend. ♥❤👍👍
I don't go with the constant criticism of Yoko and would rather respect John's feelings and choice. I thought some of Yoko's songs were interesting, such as Kiss Kiss Kiss, and earlier albums such as Fly and Infinite Universe have some good music (surely with John's input). But I'm a Lennon fan and would have preferred a Lennon solo album. We can do that ourselves by putting together our Lennon Fantasy album, by amalgamating the tracks from DF and Milk & Honey, plus maybe Free As A Bird, Real Love and adding the Cheap Trick version of Losing You as a reprise.
Loved the pictures and your narration. I used to own a similar model of Ovation guitar John is playing. I loved that guitar. I remember when DF came out. I was very disappointed. The hits "Starting Over" and "Watching The Wheels" were very commercial and hygienically safe. I liked "Woman" and "Beautiful Boy" but still, hardly what I expect from John. This album shows how 'wimped out' John was at that time. I think had he lived into the eighties, maybe the new wave and leaving Yoko might have pushed him back into himself again. Musicians have to careful not to let a woman take you over and allow her to follow her feminine agenda. It will suck the mojo and creativity out of the man.
Wow! Finally something fresh on here about one of The Beatles. This sounds realistic. There is no point in trying to create a wedge here and trying to make Yoko the bad guy because in the end John would sided with her anyway. That was his wife and neither of them were perfect. Geffen was smart wanting to talk to Yoko first and look what he wound up with. A hit record with both of their music and surprisingly good output from Lennon.
It was not a collaboration. He wrote his, and she wrote hers. He was only polishing hers (over her objections) so they wouldn't be an embarrassment to his album that she insisted on horning in on. She was still hooking on to HIS fame as she had always done.
They didn't collaborate. She forced herself onto the album and they worked separately. They worked poorly together. She was never the artistic partner John believed at the start.
The shot of the John is bed caught my attention because I bought a red edition of The Strat. That's the same thing that John is playing. It was a special Strat that came out in 1980. John is shown playing his five days before before he was murdered.
I take anything Fred Seaman said with a grain of salt at best. I could never trust a man who most likely stole Johns dairy’s and notebooks. God bless you John, it was you that opened my eyes and my brain and you will forever be my hero Peace-n-Love❤
John and Yoko had reunited 5 years before recording Double Fantasy. You keep making it sound like they had just gotten back together shortly before recording it.
Well I am afraid that at the end of the day Yoko was a parasite. But John sadly had a mommy complex and May Pang would have been so much better for him. The worst part was Yokos shite treatment of poor Julian. Don't believe me go look at some of Julian's interviews about the dragon lady. Case closed.
Julian's comments in recent years about John have been more balanced. He agrees that John had not been a great father (as he himself admitted at the time) but he also acknowledges that John was making attempts to improve their relationship in 1980. Of course John thought he had 30-40-50 years left in which to do this.
Julian has also been pretty civil and diplomatic about Yoko in recent years. Julian is very close to Sean and he knows if he attack Yoko Sean would react badly.
@@JStarStar00 Yes, but that's not the same as erasing what Yoko actually did to him and all of John Lennon's family. Julian's just staying mum and tolerating the narcissist for Sean's sake.
This is a wonderful insight into how things were when John decided it was time to do 'Double Fantasy'. I enjoyed the narration very much. I must say, back in 1980, I always thought the song "I'm losing you" seemed out of place on the album. Knowing that John normally wrote meaningful songs about some aspect of his relationship with Yoko, I couldn't get my head around why that song should be on the record. Now I know, but it's a sad revelation. Also, I always knew John had engineered Yoko's input on the album but I loved her songs. I really felt that they were a well-balanced inclusion. They were a revelation in themselves and I thought, avantgarde as they were, that they were charming and had actual potential as pop songs. Still one of the best albums of all time.
Yeah Losing You was good and the Yoko part of it - Moving On - was what i thought was her best on the album...the whole piece actually worked pretty well - but yer right it did cast a weird shadow on all the marriage and parenthood bliss heard on the rest of Double Fantasy.
Great video! Thank you so much for producing and posting. Poor John and his mother issues. Yoko Ono was an established and rather well regarded conceptual artist of the 60s when she met Lennon. Probably unsure about this maternal role at first, she seemed to have no problem assuming the power and control the mother-seeking Lennon assigned her.
Giving half the album to Yoko really tanked the sales. John’s songs were really fantastic , but as a vinyl album , it was a pain having to “jump” over the crap from Yoko. I guess they didn’t need the money.
yeah its true that if you took john's songs from Milk&Honey and put them onto Double Fantasy in place of yokos stuff you would have had a damm good record- but what i wanted to hear is what Lennon would have done the next album as i think Double Fantasy was bit Lennon shaking off the rust per se and the next album woulda been killer but who knows?
I think John on Double Fantasy was really driven by the challenge to make Yoko's music accepted and popular - John was no idiot he was well aware of what people were saying about Yoko's musical abilities and for a guy who had achieved the toppermost of the poppermost i think that challenge of making Yoko "big" was irresistible ...whether Lennon achieved that goal though is another matter - but he gave it his best shot anyways.
I so agree. He at least should've put her songs on one side and his own on the other. It's like John was trying to force-feed her lousy "songs" to an audience that had no desire for them.
Good job, but I would disagree about the reason John worked fast in the studio? You mention they where paying for the recording time out of their own pocket, at this point in his life John had more money than he ever had, and he was well known for his speed in the studio, he had a short amount of patience and didn’t like spending lots of time on perfection, he was a 2or3 takes type of artist. What you don’t realize is even if you are signed by a label, the artist usually pays for the recording, they need to sell some records to cover that, then they get their share
Excellent vid, this is all new fascinating stuff. Although Double fantasy is a top album without Yoko it would have been even better. There is no doubt Lennon was back on top form and had some great stuff yet to come out, Milk and honey had some great stuff on it also. His musicians were totally on the nail also, and there was obviously a great rapore going on, apart from the coke head drummer. If only At this point Lennon had left Yoko come back to England and worked with Paul again who was also on top form at this time, then that would have been some album.
I believe John and Paul would have done something if he John hadn't been murdered. John knew Yoko was a no-talent hack and once he got back in the studio it sounds like he was finally starting to see the world without his Yoko color lenses on. That take is in line with what John's sister and his former wife said in terms of where he was at with her at that point in their marriage. As for Paul, Wings was history and I believe Paul would have jumped at the opportunity to produce a record with John. A Beatle reunion may have happened way down the road but only for a one-time event, maybe their enshrinement in the Rock and Roll HOF. Based on the interviews George gave he was much happier being on his own and I don't think John and Paul would have used Ringo. That would have created too much controversy. John and Paul were always the engine that drove the Beatles and I think a record with just the two of them would have been fantastic. Can you imagine a John and Paul tour back at that time? That 15-time loser took away so much from the world when he murdered John. The only time I ever cried over a celebrity passing away. RIP John.
John was worried when Paul got arrested in Japan, he honestly thought Paul was set up. He was also heard saying several times “They better not be abusing him-not that I care-but they better treat him good!” LOL
He was warned by Dylan who said she had a bad reputation on NY, and by George H who said to her directly, "you have very bad vibes." So often codependents don't listen and become defensive of the abuser.
@October In books like Frederic Seaman’s “The Last Days Of John Lennon”, May Pang’s “Loving John”, Albert Goldman’s “The Lives Of John Lennon”, and John Green’s “Dakota Days”-all unauthorized but reliable accounts of the Lennons and their less-than-happy marriage-regardless of the propaganda maligning and discrediting them as merely “hit-jobs with an axe-to-grind”-you’ll get the sad-skinny, contrasting reality with the authorized, homogenized-myth perpetrated for decades by the Lennons themselves, as well as the Lennon Estate after John’s tragic death… Research it for yourself and draw your own conclusions…
Cuando fui😢a comprar el álbum doble fantasía, el vendedor me dijo que me recomendaba más la colección de John Lennon, pero yo quería ese, el nombre sonaba bien, aún así me dijo que si no me gustaba me lo podía cambiar, tenía 12 años, cuando llegué a casa, de la emoción no me fijé qué lado puse, y eran canciones de Yoko, sonaba como guajolote sin corral, me sentí estafada, creí que me habían dado un disco equivocado, revisé y sí era, sin dudarlo fuí a cambiarlo, no es mala actitud hacia Yoko, pero me parece que se colgaba de John, para obligar a sus seguidores a escuchar sus chillidos, el arte se goza, no es para sufrirlo, murió John, y quién quiere escuchar graznar a la señora ?
Very interesting video. Thanks. When I got the Double Fantasy cassette and heard Yoko I wanted to trash it. Her voice is like listening to fingernails being scraped over a chalkboard. The worst crap I ever heard. I had a double cassette recording system so I made another tape and I cut all of Yoko’s garbage out leaving just Lennon’s songs. They were great. I loved Watching The Wheels and Woman the best. A side story. When Watching the Wheels was recorded a producer at the studio saw a street musician and told him he’d give him $50 to play his hammer dulcimer in a song. The poor street musician sat in and playing his track on Watching the Wheels. Then after he was paid and out the door he learned that he was playing on a John Lennon song and muttered “fifty bucks!”. That producer took advantage of his poverty. When you listen to that song you can easily see how the hammer dulcimer made that song great. His contribution will be heard forever but he will remain an unknown. Hopefully he learned not to let predators rip off his talent.
It’s funny to hear that the husband would push the wife to do something she wasn’t qualified for and wasn’t interested in when the genius McCartney was just a phone call away
As a long-time fan of the Beatles, I respect the fact that John loved Yoko. However, I considered her a no-talent hack. Or more politely, an esoteric talent. Shrieking in a bag takes little creativity.
It's all a marketing exercise....she would have been great with social media...imagine (pardon the pun) doing all those stunts (events!) with modern social media at her disposal... 🙂
Her music in the seventies and on double fantasy wasn’t shrieking in a bag. I’m not saying it was great but it was a singer singing songs she wrote, not too avante garde
@@julianciahaconsulting8663 The difference with Linda is she never claimed to be a musician or singer- and she still managed to be a hundred times better than Yoko. And she was a brilliant photographer.
Linda knew her limits and didn't do more than she could. she trusted her husband when it came to good music. Poor John..... only trouble with this wife 🤣
Thank you for making the video, sadly Fred Seaman has got discredited over the years by none other than Mother but it’s ok we can see how John felt at the time with his songs.
Speaking of streets I know that's Hell's Kitchen but does anybody recognize the street they're standing on here. 6:18 I remember the building with the pillars across the street in the pic. Looks so familiar.
It's easy to not include her in a playlist now. But back then you had to get up each time to move the needle on the vinyl to skip her song to just hear John's, and then again to skip her next song, etc... Or else try to record it to a cassette tape from the vinyl, where again you had to stop and start recording to skip her songs before you got your final mix. So of course people were very annoyed with her to have to do that if you wanted to skip her songs, CDs weren't even a thing yet. It would have been better if they had just put all of John's songs on the A side with all of hers on the B side. Making playlists now is SO much easier than trying to make a cassette mix tape way back then, LOL.
It is really pity that Frederick didn't tell John what he saw in New York, If John had found out what was going on behind his back, perhaps things would comes out completely different.
Seaman, gotta love that name,was a lowlife opertunist,got the job from his relative,Seans nanny, but yes apparently marriage wasn't as perfect as they put on for the public
Mrs. Oh No had no ear for music and was a junkie. John fell for a complete dud and then when he tried to get away, she, in true narcissist fashion, went to any lengths to reel him back in.
The one big reason why Yuky Ono dropped the pursuit of a divorce, was that her lawyer informed her that she would get little financial benefits, then John informed her that he was ready to make a new album, and suddenly she relished at the possibility of $$$$. from the sales. In fact,at the time she was dating her home designer, who also lived with Yuky in her apartment...a real witch that one.
@13:20: "David Jeffen"? It's pronounced 'Geffen', a very famous name in the music industry. John & Yoko may hv bn living together but she was still having an affair w/ the Italian guy who was with her in NY while John was in Bermuda. She told John she was dating other men. Narrator should have known this, rather than making up a romanticized version of what was really going on btwn them.
John should never of got involved with Ono,should of stayed with Cynthia, what was he thinking,Ono can't sing only screech,no talent. He payed for the decorations, after selling his english mansion.
