Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions

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Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions

Studio album by John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Released	9 May 1969
Recorded	November 1968 and 2 March 1969
Genre	Avant-garde
Length	50:56
Label	Zapple Records
Producer(s)	John Lennon and Yoko Ono
All Music Guide link
John Lennon and Yoko Ono chronology
Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins (1968)	Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions (1969)	Wedding Album (1969)

Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions was an experimental album released by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1969 and the successor to 1968's highly controversial Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins. The title parodies the BBC radio drama Life with the Lyons, which had been a favourite of Lennon's.

The album features an extended and improvised recording entitled "Cambridge 1969", recorded on 2 March at Cambridge University, before a live audience. The piece consists of Yoko Ono's vocalizations accompanied by imaginative guitar feedback from John Lennon. Saxophonist John Tchicai and percussionist John Stevens join John and Yoko towards the end of the piece. The remainder of the album was recorded on a cassette tape in their suite at Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London during November 1968, where Yoko Ono would suffer the couple's first of three miscarriages. "No Bed For Beatle John" consists of John and Yoko setting press clippings about themselves to music in an acapella chant style. "Baby's Heartbeat" is in fact a crude recording of the ill-fated child's actual palpitations. This is followed "Two Minutes Silence" which is exactly what its title implies - a nod to composer John Cage's silent piece 4'33". The album closes with "Radio Play" which is nearly 13-minutes worth of radio static along with brief moments of John Lennon making phone calls in the background. Incidentally, The Beatles song "Ob-La Di, Ob-La-Da" comes through amidst the static on the radio during this recording.

The album's front cover photo was taken while Ono was bedridden at Queen Charlotte's with Lennon by her side, while the back cover was a news photo of Lennon and Ono leaving Marylebone Police Station, after their arrest for hashish possession on 18 October 1968. (The back also carried a 'quote' from Beatles producer George Martin: "No comment.")

Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions failed to chart in the UK, but managed a #174 peak in the US; Lennon told the media later they'd sold about 60,000 copies in the States. (He and Ono were disappointed that Apple Records in the UK hadn't given any promotion to the album, or included it in any advertising.)

Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions was initially released on the Apple Records subsidiary label, Zapple Records, but was reissued through Rykodisc in 1997 with two previously unreleased bonus tracks, "Song For John" and "Mulberry". These two tracks stem from the Queen Charlotte Hospital recordings - the source for the second half of the LP.

[edit] Track listing

All pieces by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

"Cambridge 1969" – 26:29
"No Bed For Beatle John" – 4:41
"Baby's Heartbeat" – 5:10
"Two Minutes Silence" – 2:00
"Radio Play" – 12:35
"Song For John" - 1:29 (CD Bonus Track)
"Mulberry" - 8:47 (CD Bonus Track)

John Lennon
Studio Albums
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band \| Imagine \| Mind Games \| Walls and Bridges \| Rock 'n' Roll
With Yoko Ono
Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins \| Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions \| Wedding Album \| Some Time in New York City \| Double Fantasy \| Milk and Honey
Live Albums
Live Peace in Toronto 1969 \| Live in New York City \|
Compilations
Shaved Fish \| The John Lennon Collection \| Lennon Legend: The Very Best of John Lennon \| Peace, Love & Truth \| Working Class Hero: The Definitive Lennon
Posthumous Albums
Menlove Ave. \| Acoustic \| Wonsaponatime
Soundtracks
Imagine: John Lennon \| The U.S. Versus John Lennon
Box sets
Lennon \| John Lennon Anthology
Books
In His Own Write \| A Spaniard in the Works
Related Articles
The Beatles \| Lennon-McCartney
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Yoko Ono
Studio albums
Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band \| Fly \| Approximately Infinite Universe \| Feeling the Space \| A Story Season of Glass \| It's Alright (I See Rainbows) \| Starpeace \| Rising \| Blueprint for a Sunrise
With John Lennon
Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins \| Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions Wedding Album \| Live Peace in Toronto 1969 \| Some Time in New York City Double Fantasy \| Milk and Honey
Compilations
Walking on Thin Ice \| Onobox
Other Albums
New York Rock \| Every Man Has a Woman \| Yes, I'm a Witch This box: view • talk • edit