As if to further distance themselves from the radical left-wing politics of the previous year, in early May 1973 the Lennons made another symbolic move: leaving the Village, they relocated to a 12-room apartment in the Dakota building overlooking Central Park. Lennon had done little since Some Time In New York City other than write and demo a few songs for his next album, Mind Games. Ono, however, had busied herself with a number of recording and performance projects. Their marriage was going through a rough patch and by Lennon’s own admission, they were growing apart. “Now she knows how to produce records and everything about it, I think the best thing I can do is keep out of her hair,” he told Chris Charlesworth of Melody Maker.
According to Ono, Lennon was going through a phase of soul-searching that led him to give her more space – to the extent that he was happy to sit in the wings while she took centre stage. When she began recording her follow-up to Approximately Infinite Universe, she took complete control of the project. He turned up to a few sessions, playing guitar on ‘Woman Power’ and ‘She Hits Back’, but Feeling The Space was Ono’s album from start to finish. Although he had little to do with the record, Lennon was impressed by the New York musicians she’d hired. So much so that he decided to use them for his own album.
Lennon knew he had to produce something to surpass the disappointing Some Time In New York City. Adverse criticism had shattered his confidence and his battle to stay in America was also weighing him down. The constant court appearances and FBI surveillance were also affecting his work. “I just couldn’t function, you know? I was so paranoid from them tappin’ the phone and followin’ me.” As his relationship with Ono disintegrated, he found himself adrift from everything that had grounded him. Where previously he’d used his suffering to drive his songwriting, now he eschewed it. Instead of channelling his pain, he put it to one side and wrote an album of well-crafted but uninspired songs.
Lennon’s disappointment at being treated like property had turned to anger on more than one occasion. Speaking in 1970, he had been adamant that he would never allow the music business to have the upper hand again. Now here he was producing an album simply to fulfil contractual obligations. Big business had beaten him, again. That Lennon should take an extended sabbatical as soon as his contract ended says much about his desire to escape an industry to which he felt shackled.
Faced with similar uncertainties, Paul McCartney forged Band On The Run, an album that many still argue is among his best. Even Ringo Starr, admittedly with the help of Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison, turned in a confident album packed full of classy pop songs. Mind Games, however, was downbeat album of mixed themes and emotions. From the cover depicting Lennon, bag in hand, walking away from Ono, to its syrupy over-production, Mind Games saw Lennon retreating into his own world of thoughts and dreams. Circumventing the passion he’d employed previously, Lennon played it safe. Mind Games was an album that he or, more likely, his record company thought he should make. Ironically, the record was Lennon’s first not to play mind games with his audience. Rather, it presented a picture of the artist as a conformist rather than a rebel.
Tony King, who was working for Apple in Los Angeles, suggested to Lennon that he play up this image. King encouraged him to get out and promote the record by arranging for him to be interviewed by trade magazines Record World and Billboard. “I started working on the Mind Games album,” said King, “the promotion, fixing John up to do interviews, … getting him to do stuff I thought he should be doing because he hadn’t been doing these things. While he had been with Yoko he had been involved with all these semi-subversive activities, which had not given him a great reputation in America. He said to me at the time, ‘Look, I’ve got this album, what do you think I should do?’ I said, ‘Honestly, you’ve just got to go out and make a few friends, because you’ve lost a bit of support because you’ve been involved with things of a controversial nature.’ So he said, ‘Fine, you organise it, I’ll do it.’ And he did.”
Recording began in July and continued through August. As usual, Lennon recorded quickly, perhaps a little too quickly. The album was mixed over a two-week period, which left many of the production subtleties buried in his dense mix. The rough mixes that have surfaced on bootlegs and the John Lennon Anthology offer a glimpse of what the album might have sounded like had Lennon the confidence to let the songs stand on their own merits. The album was remixed at Abbey Road in 2002 and reveals much that had been hidden by Lennon’s rushed job. The album produced just one outtake. ‘Rock And Roll People’ had been in a work in progress for some time, and still needed a lot of work doing to it. It was left in the can and eventually issued on the patchy Menlove Ave. album.
Mind Games songs
As 1972 slipped into ’73, Lennon began to distance himself from the radical politics he’d spent much of the previous eighteen months engaged in. The Army fatigues of the radical activist cum street fighter were exchanged for less militant garb. Growing tired of the lack of political success, he transformed himself into the very thing he’d once despised, a safe middle-of-the-road pop star. His reasons for leaving the Yippies were personal rather than political. Lennon wanted to make America his home and the only way he could do that was to appease the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service and, of course, the FBI, by rejecting activism and the radical Left. He had already been instructed to leave the country and successfully appealed against the order. Then, on 23 March 1973, he was told to leave the country within sixty days. Again, he appealed. The US government were still out to get Lennon, but he wouldn’t give up without a fight. His battle with the US authorities dragged on until July 1976, by which time they relented and granted him a green card.
Although it lacked the obvious political tendency of Lennon’s previous singles, he originally conceived ‘Mind Games’ as a protest song in the same vein as ‘Give Peace A Chance’. Lennon began work on the song as early as 1969, completing a working version titled ‘Make Love, Not War’ in 1970. Never one to waste a good tune, he used the melody as the basis for another song he was working on at the time, ‘I Promise’. Demos of both songs were recorded at his Tittenhurst home in 1970, and examples of each appear on the John Lennon Anthology.
‘Mind Games’ remained unfinished until Lennon began work on the follow-up album to 1972’s Some Time In New York City. Aware that the aphorism ‘make love, not war’ was well past its sell-by date, he found the inspiration he needed to finish the song in a book. Mind Games: The Guide To Inner Space by Robert Masters and Jean Houston was about consciousness-raising – something the Lennons had been preaching for years. Their desire for revolutionary change was still present, only now it was tempered with a yearning for something more spiritual and lasting. The avant-gardism and in-your-face sloganeering of earlier works was replaced by an ambiguous mysticism.
Lennon’s return to ‘pop’ confirmed his earlier acknowledgement that the public would only accept radical ideas if they were sugar-coated. Having ditched Elephant’s Memory, Lennon found himself solo again and employing top New York musicians to create the lush pop soundscapes he now desired. But Lennon created the hypnotic leitmotif of ‘Mind Games’ by himself. He told Andy Peebles in 1980: “The seeming orchestra on it is just me playing three notes on a slide guitar. And the middle eight is reggae. Trying to explain to American musicians what reggae was in 1973 was pretty hard, but it’s a reggae middle eight if you listen to it.”
The album continues with ‘Tight A$’, the first John Lennon song in some time that really had little to say. Gone are the visions and diatribes; in their place: sex and drugs. And that’s about as deep as it gets. The return to jokey wordplay was a timely reminder of Lennon’s talent, but only served to reveal how sterile his work had become.
An early demo begins with the guitar riff that would, with a little more work, become the instrumental ‘Beef Jerky’. Holed up in Record Plant East, Lennon led his team of crack session musicians through several extended takes of the song. Take four was deemed best and edited for use as the master.
‘Aisumasen (I’m Sorry)’ introduces a dramatic change in mood. Whereas Ono had once brought Lennon unbounded joy, which had inspired him to write some of his most beautiful and moving love songs, here she is the root of deep-seated depression. The Lennons were drifting apart, and by the time Lennon came to record Mind Games they were no longer a living together. Like most men, Lennon had a roving eye. But unlike most men, he was in the unique position of being able to draw on his fame, wealth, and status to seduce whomsoever he fancied. Lennon was also capable of gross insensitivity. One particular incident found him seducing another woman within Ono’s earshot, and became a source of much regret.
‘Aisumasen (I’m Sorry)’ was a very public apology, but like several other songs recorded for Mind Games it had a long gestation period. It began to take shape in 1971. Originally titled ‘Call My Name’, it featured Lennon in the role of comforter, but by the time he recorded it properly, the tables had turned. It was Lennon who now found himself in need of comfort but, despite his pleas, he wasn’t about to get any from Ono. The break-up hit Lennon hardest, and ‘Aisumasen (I’m Sorry)’ reveals just how much he relied on Ono for support. Without her, he was incomplete and adrift. He quickly returned to his old ways. Drinking to obliterate his pain, he became the archetypical hedonistic rock star, a figure every bit as pathetic as the one in this song.
‘One Day (At A Time)’ is a good song spoilt by an uncharacteristic falsetto vocal, suggested by Ono. While recording the track, Lennon sang his guide vocals in his usual register, only adopting his falsetto when he came to deliver the vocal overdub. In its rough form, without Something Different’s backing vocals (described by one journalist as sounding like “a dozen school girls from a church choir”), the song has a genuine honesty that was masked by Lennon’s saccharine production. In its naked form, it reveals exactly how Lennon felt about Ono, but when he dressed the song with layers of unnecessary overdubs, it became impossibly idealistic. He had sung about his devotion to Ono on several occasions, but never had he made his feelings for her appear this tired.
Dating from late 1971, ‘Bring On The Lucie (Freeda Peeple)’ saw Lennon return briefly to the kind of political commentary that, until Mind Games, had been his post-Beatle stock in trade. Written while he was fully engaged with radical politics, the song has more humour than anything that found its way onto Some Time In New York City, yet it retains real bite. Unfortunately, Lennon’s band of super-slick New York session players were incapable of producing a musical setting to match his pungent lyrics. Despite Lennon’s opening war cry, the band settle into a comfortable groove that misrepresents its author’s original intent. Even Lennon manages to conceal his real feelings. Far from sounding angry, he gives the impression of weary resignation, an emotion that only months earlier he wouldn’t have dared to contemplate.
The song began life as little more than a chorus, played on a newly acquired National guitar (a fragment from Lennon’s composing tape would be included as a bonus track on the remastered CD of Mind Games). Working on his lyric, Lennon developed its simple political sloganeering into a well observed, even prophetic, lyric full of revolutionary zeal that echoes earlier pleas for social, political, and personal change, which he’d championed with ‘Imagine’ and ‘Power To The People’.
Even though he was under FBI surveillance and threatened with deportation, Lennon sailed close to the wind with a personal attack on Nixon and his government. He was never one to pull his punches, and his critique of Nixon and his administration was as libellous as his remark about Mr. Justice Argyle, whom he called an “old wanker” when recording his message of support for Oz magazine.
The song closes with Lennon citing further evidence of state-sanctioned violence against both Americans and Vietnamese. Despite the fact that Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho had signed a ceasefire agreement, the Vietnam War still raged. Lennon’s demand that they “stop the killing now” fell on deaf ears, but by early 1974 Richard Nixon had been impeached and his days as President were rapidly coming to an end, as was the war.
Some more Cage-like high jinx follow, with the six seconds of silence intended as the national anthem for a new country, Nutopia. In the spirit of Fluxus, the Lennons announced at a bizarre press conference on April 1 1973 the birth of their conceptual country and their citizenship of it. They based the concept for their imaginary country on an idea first proposed by Thomas Moore in 1516. His book Utopia took its name from a word that has its origins in modern Latin and means literally ‘not place’. It was fitting, then, that Lennon’s national anthem should consist of ‘not sound’ and that the country’s flag should be plain white.
The theme was extended to the album’s inner sleeve which carried a ‘Declaration of Nutopia’ that offered citizenship to anyone who could declare their awareness of Nutopia. Like the song ‘Imagine’, Nutopia offered boundless possibilities and freedoms that flew in the face of state-sanctioned laws concerning citizenship and national identity. While poking fun at the American authorities, it also raised public awareness of the Lennons’ plight.
Lennon was often at his best when exploring the darker side of life. Whenever he addressed his addictions, neurosis, or paranoia, he had a knack of writing insightful and enlightening songs. However, when it came to celebrating his own genius and the miracle of life, he was less successful. Set to a bouncy cadence that underscores a self-congratulatory lyric, ‘Intuition’ seems somehow ill-fitting on an album that appears to celebrate the darker side of personal relationships. Given what he was going through, the line “It’s good to be alive” seems as out of place as the song’s contrived cheeriness, more readily associated with Tin Pan Alley than an artist of Lennon’s calibre.
Lennon wrote the song on piano, recording rough demos on the instrument in early 1973. With the lyrics still unfinished, he included a few lines from two earlier songs, ‘How?’ and ‘God’, to fill in the gaps.
The next song on Mind Games, ‘Out The Blue’, is an exquisite ballad that ranks among Lennon’s finest. From the graceful acoustic guitar introduction to the majestic piano motif and inventive McCartneyesque bass lines, it reveals more than a glimpse of Lennon’s genius.
Not for the first or last time, he acknowledges the debt he owed Ono. Like many songs in his canon, it was driven by a powerful devotion that was often stretched but never broken. Lennon was the hardest hit by the trial separation. While Ono remained focused and controlled, he slipped into a drunken twilight zone of his own making. If previously he had written love songs to express his security, now he wrote them to remind Ono how insecure he was without her.
‘Out The Blue’ formed part of a very personal musical dialogue between two remarkably mercurial individuals. Although Lennon and Ono were happy to present themselves as the perfect couple, they were never afraid to admit their failures. Lennon’s acknowledgement of emotional insecurity may have been an attempt to rebuild the bond with Ono that he’d temporarily lost. It was also an honest expression of self-doubt, the like of which he hadn’t committed to tape since John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.
‘Only People’ found Lennon reworking a theme that lay at the heart of his and Ono’s personal philosophy. They both believed that collective change through self-realisation would beneficially transform the world. Speaking on The Mike Douglas Show, John had prefigured the song’s message when he said: “Only people can save the world.” Ono’s rephrased statement, “Only people can change the world,” which was more in line with their intended goal, was printed on the inner sleeve of Mind Games.
The pair had addressed many times the notion that socio-political change could be obtained through collective potential. Unlike their early avant-garde recordings, which proffered genuine alternatives to conventional models of being, their orthodox protest songs were less successful. Despite their immediacy, songs like ‘Give Peace A Chance’, ‘Instant Karma!’, and ‘Imagine’ all worked within the system that they wanted people to transcend. These songs may have aroused debate, but they failed to threaten the system of order and control that the Lennons seemed determined to undermine. Like the politically correct songs written for Some Time In New York City, ‘Only People’ merely appeals to those already swayed by Lennon’s argument.
Lennon recognised that ‘Only People’ failed as a song. Talking to Playboy magazine, he said: “It was a good lick, but I couldn’t get the words to make sense.” Even if he’d managed to write a more considered lyric, it’s difficult to believe that the song would have been taken up in the same way as ‘Give Peace A Chance’. Its happy-clappy gospel feel may have been great to sing along to, but the track lacks the bite of ‘Instant Karma!’ or the pseudo religiosity of ‘Imagine’, which are the qualities that made those two songs so appealing.
The couple had travelled a long way in their short marriage, and much of the journey was recorded in song. Imagine featured some of Lennon’s most heartfelt and joyous love songs. It also had songs of self-doubt, but nothing as emotionally irresolute as ‘I Know (I Know)’. A mere two years had passed since the Imagine album, and his love for Ono was as strong as ever – but how the tone had changed. ‘I Know (I Know)’ suggests that Lennon was no more emotionally stable post-primal therapy than before. If he had learnt anything, it was to forgive and recognise his shortcomings. For ‘I Know (I Know)’ finds him in conciliatory mood, apologising, again, for his thoughtlessness. He acknowledges that he still has a lot to learn, but more importantly that he knows the cause of his insecurity.
The song features a delicate guitar figure that echoes the fingerpicking folk style that Lennon learnt from Donavan while in Rishikesh, India, in 1968. Employed sparingly throughout, it gives ‘I Know (I Know)’ an honesty that enhances his plea for his lover’s absolution. However, its considered, reflective mood balances Lennon’s feelings of angst with those of unbridled optimism. Working with a small band, he fashioned a musical setting that was the match for anything on Imagine. The rough mixes that have surfaced on bootlegs reveal the painstaking overdubbing process he employed to develop his arrangement.
The phrase “you are here” had haunted Lennon for some time. It first appeared as the title for his debut one-man show at the Robert Frazer Gallery, London. The show, which opened on July 1 1968, was obviously influenced by Ono and Fluxus. Visitors were invited to contribute to the event, either by placing money in a hat, inscribed by Lennon “for the artist thank you”, or by returning cards attached to helium-filled white balloons, which Lennon and Ono had released into the sky. Lennon intended to publish a book based of the replies he received; typically, he never got around to it. At the heart of the exhibition was a white circular canvas upon which he’d written “you are here”. Lennon next had the words printed on T-shirts, which he and members of Elephant’s Memory sported during the early 1970s.
By the time he came to shape the song, his original concept had taken on many different forms and meanings. From conceptual joke to installation art, from fashion statement to love song, it occupied him for over five years.
As a song, ‘You Are Here’ combined two themes close to Lennon’s heart – love and peace. While it was obviously a love song written for Ono, it was also about the coming together of individuals, countries, and cultures. Lennon imagines a world without differences, modelled on his own relationship with Ono. The global harmony he envisions is as graceful and beatific as the melody he fashioned to support his words. The song originally had an extra verse, edited from the completed master, that made further references to the differences and similarities between Japan and England. A version with the extra verse was issued on the John Lennon Anthology.
Mind Games data
Apple issued the album in the USA with generic Apple labels and in a printed inner sleeve. The album was reissued by Capitol in 1978 with purple labels with a large Capitol logo. In 1980, Capitol issued a budget-price version with a new catalogue number, SN-15968.
Apple issued the album in Britain with the same packaging as the American release. The album was reissued on November 27 1980 on EMI’s budget MFP label (MFP 5058) with a new cover and generic MFP labels.
Mind Games was issued on 8-track in Britain (8X-PCS 7165) and America (8XW-3414).
EMI issued the album on CD in Britain on August 3 1987 (CDP 7 46769 2), and Capitol issued the CD in America seven months later, on March 22 1988. The album was remixed, remastered and reissued on CD with three bonus tracks on October 7 2002 (UK) and November 5 2002 (USA). MFSL Original Master Recordings issued the remastered CD on November 22 2004 and a vinyl edition (MFSL-1-293) in 2005.
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