\u201cI wrote it for breakfast, recorded it for lunch and we\u2019re putting it out for dinner.\u201d That\u2019s the way John Lennon told the story of \u201cInstant Karma,\u201d one of his most memorable songs as a solo artist and the third Lennon single to appear before the official breakup of the Beatles. The only exaggeration in John\u2019s description was the part about dinner: \u201cInstant Karma\u201d wasn\u2019t actually released to the public until 13 days after it was written and recorded over the course of a single Tuesday, on January 27, 1970. By any measure, it was one of the fastest pop songs ever to come to market.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstant Karma\u201d came during a tumultuous time for John Lennon personally and for the band he was in the midst of leaving behind. The Beatles had spent the better part of 1969 trying to decide whether or not they were still a band, abandoning recording sessions that had just begun and canceling plans for their first live performances in more than three years. The material for both of the band\u2019s last two albums\u2014Abbey Road and Let it Be\u2014was recorded that year, but Let it Be sat unreleased and without an agreed-upon producer. Lennon, meanwhile, was moving in a new direction. \u201cGive Peace a Chance,\u201d recorded during the famous June 1969 \u201cbed-in,\u201d had already come out under the name \u201cThe Plastic Ono Band,\u201d as had \u201cCold Turkey,\u201d his wrenching account of kicking heroin that same year. By January 1970, John had walked away from the Beatles, and the Plastic Ono Band was the only musical entity he considered himself part of.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The January 27 session came about spontaneously. Lennon wrote the song that morning and, as he said, \u201cI knew I had a hit record.\u201d What got the record finished that same day and gave it its incredible sound, however, was the unexpected appearance of Phil Spector that evening in the EMI studios. After several run-throughs under Spector\u2019s direction, John said, \u201cSuddenly we went in the room and heard what he\u2019d done to it\u2026it was fantastic. It sounded like there was [sic] fifty people playing.\u201d John\u2019s happiness with the results would lead directly to Spector\u2019s taking over the dormant Let it Be project\u2014a development that ended up driving a further wedge between Lennon and McCartney prior to the official breakup of the Beatles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cI wrote it for breakfast, recorded it for lunch and we\u2019re putting it out for dinner.\u201d That\u2019s the way John Lennon told the story of \u201cInstant Karma,\u201d one of his most memorable songs as a solo artist and the third Lennon single to appear before the official breakup of the Beatles. The only exaggeration in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3506],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.beanybux.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}