Greg Prato, reporting for Ultimate-Guitar.com:
When John Lennon decided to come out of his five-year musical career hiatus at the dawn of the 1980s, one of the first people he enlisted to produce what would become the fifth studio album credited to the former Beatle and his wife, Yoko Ono – Double Fantasy – was Jack Douglas.
Looking back however, Lennon's decision was a bit of a head-scratcher – Douglas was known primarily for his work with hard rock and heavy metal bands (Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Montrose, etc.), whereas it was supposedly new wave (The B-52's, in particular) that had rekindled his desire to return to music.
But there was one band that Douglas had previously worked with that was much more in line with Lennon's work with the Beatles (and his early solo work) – Cheap Trick. So, when it was time to begin work on what was envisioned as one of the harder rocking tunes on the album ("I'm Losing You") and a tune that Ono had penned ("I'm Moving On"), Douglas immediately thought of two Trickers to lend a hand – guitarist Rick Nielsen and drummer Bun E. Carlos.
On Tuesday, August 12, 1980, both Nielsen and Carlos found themselves at the Hit Factory in New York City, about to begin work on the tunes – and meeting both Lennon and Ono for the first time. In the 2020 book "John Winston Ono Lennon", Carlos took a trip down memory lane – as evidenced by the following excerpts.
"We met John and I noticed he was as tall as all the other English guys I met – he wasn't like, nine feet tall. But he played me and Rick a cassette of him doing it acoustic. John had gone somewhere to the Virgin Islands or the British West Indies the winter before that – he had two ghetto blasters and he'd play acoustic guitar and sing into one, and then he'd aim the other one and record it again, and do little overdubs. So, he had a cassette tape of all his songs. He played this acoustic version of 'I'm Losing You,' and then Jack said, 'Can you guys come up with an idea for this? An arrangement or something?' Me and Rick said, 'Yeah. Give us a few minutes.'"
"We went into the studio, and to me and Rick, it seemed like it had a 'Cold Turkey' type of feel to it. Rick's like, 'I got a riff that might work' – a little riff that starts it off. Somebody came in, and they had sheet music for the thing. I walked over to Tony [Levin, who was playing bass] and said, 'Can you tell me what this says? Does the bridge come after two verses?' And he was like, 'What? You've never done a session before?' I was like, 'Not really. I'm in a band – I'm not a session cat.' So, we ran it down a few times with John – he was playing live on guitar with a vocal track, and Tony on bass, George Small on piano, Rick on guitar, and me on drums. We ran it down a few times, did a couple of takes, and got a take. Then Rick started doubling the guitar solo on it."
And then Carlos recalled Lennon immediately proceeded to bestow praise upon the guitarist known for his zany stage outfits and multi-necked guitars. "Me and Lennon were sitting there in front of the board on chairs or a couch, looking out that window. And Lennon goes, 'Ah, this is great! This guy is really good! I used Clapton on 'Cold Turkey', and he kind of froze up – and he was only playing one riff! This is great!' Then Lennon whips out a guitar, and goes, 'Check this out – it's my 'Day Tripper' guitar. I had it refinished.'"
"And I'm sitting there, going, 'Holy fucking cow'." He showed me that, and I go, 'Oh, 'Day Tripper'...that's #10 in Phoenix this week!' He goes, 'What do you mean?' And I said, 'We did a single of it for Epic Records for this new record, this ten-inch disc they're putting out ['Found All the Parts']. It's #10 in Phoenix this week.' He was like, 'Oh. Hey...you want to smoke a joint?' And I was I was like, 'We've been in Canada for a week – they don't have pot up there. Yep – bring it on!' So, we sat there and smoked a doobie while Rick was doubling his guitar part."
Read Greg's full report at Ultimate-Guitar.com.
