Double Fantasy | Page 3 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Five years is a dangerously long time to avoid any kind of musical activity. Especially when you’re an artist prone to bouts of creative atrophy.

A self-confessed dreamer, he has always produced his best work in the midst of some kind of catalytic event. In the early days of The Beatles this frisson came through his part supportive, part competitive writing relationship with Paul McCartney : then came another period of inspiration during the final crumbling of his first marriage, followed by perhaps his most consistently fruitful era under primal therapy from which was born his most significant solo album.

As suggested by his uninspired comeback single “(Just Like) Starting Over” which opens this album, the time spent in seclusion and semi-retirement appears to have dulled the man’s sensibilities.

The inauspicious cover, depicting the happy couple in a kiss, reflects the music… which is a continuation of their public declaration on the unending beauty of their relationship.

In other words, it’s more songs about Yoko, John and Sean. And yes, it’s a godawful yawn.

Domestic democracy has ensured that Lennon gets seven tracks and Yoko the same. Her “Kiss Kiss Kiss”, the other half of the single, is the album’s second track. It’s typical of much of her music on the record, featuring her improved vocals, slight melody lines, and obscure lyrics.

“Cleanup Time”, the next Lennon composition, gives the backup musicians – including Earl Slick and Hugh McCracken on guitars, Tony Levin on bass, George Small on keyboards and Andy Newmark on drums – room to stretch out.

It’s set at mid-pace, as are most of the other Lennon tracks, leaving it to Yoko to try her best at generating some kind of energy which she attempts with the mercifully short “Give Me Something “.

Lennon’s “I’m Losing You ” is next up. One of the album’s strongest tracks echoing the “White Album ” and at least proving the man is still capable of summoning a tortured, aching vocal.

Yoko answers John’s requiem to lost love with her own version on the same theme, “I’m Moving On”.

Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)” ends the first side in the same mushy vein as it began. Basically a lullaby to his son, it boasts a haunting melody and a simplistic lyric, but ultimately reinforces the album’s incestuous feel, ending with daddy Lennon saying goodnight to his baby boy.

You don’t need to be a Lennonologist to realise that “Watching The Wheels “, which opens the second side, is the key track. Taking its momentum from a similar piano motif to that on “Imagine “, it’s Lennon’s answer to his critics, and after this debacle there’ll be plenty of them.

“Yes, I’m Your Angel” is Yoko’s worst track on the album. Half waltz, half music hall ballad, she croons along to the kind of whimsical pap McCartney used to slip onto Beatles albums.

A ringing Argent-style guitar riff opens John’s “Woman “, which is the nearest sound to the Fab Four on the album. The melody is passable but by now tributes to Yoko are wearing more than a little thin.

As an old companion of John Lennon once said: “Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs”. The trouble is they just don’t know when to stop.

Review by Ian Pye for Melody Maker (22 November 1980)

Yeah, a lot of the reviews for DF were pretty damning. There was more than one publication that went back and revised their reviews in the wake of John’s murder, softening their initial dismissals of the album. There’s few albums which have had such a screeching U-turn about their worth because of events.

The initial reviews were probably rather too harsh, with critics disappointed that it wasn’t the raging discontented John, while a lot of the revisions were probably too generous as it took on the mantle of being John’s last album.