| "The Ballad of John and Yoko" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by The Beatles | ||||
| B-side | "Old Brown Shoe" | |||
| Released | 30 May 1969 | |||
| Format | 7" | |||
| Recorded | 14 April 1969 EMI Studios, London |
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| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 2:59 | |||
| Label | Apple | |||
| Writer(s) | Lennon–McCartney | |||
| Producer | George Martin | |||
| Certification | Gold (RIAA)[1] | |||
| The Beatles singles chronology | ||||
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"The Ballad of John and Yoko" is a song written by John Lennon,[2][3] attributed to Lennon–McCartney as was the custom, and released by The Beatles as a single in May 1969. The song, chronicling the events surrounding Lennon’s marriage to Yoko Ono, was the Beatles’ 17th and final UK number one single.[4]
Contents |
The song is a ballad in the traditional sense of a narrative poem in a song, not in the sense used in modern pop music where the term usually refers to a slow, sentimental love song. Authored by Lennon while on his honeymoon in Paris,[3] it tells the events of his marriage (in March 1969) to Ono and their publicly-held honeymoon activities, including their ‘Bed-In’ at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel and their demonstration of ‘bagism’.
Lennon brought the song to McCartney’s home on 14 April 1969, before recording it that evening.[5][6][7]
The song was recorded without George Harrison (who was on holiday) and Ringo Starr (who was filming The Magic Christian).[8][9] In his biography, McCartney recalls that Lennon had had a sudden inspiration for the song and had suggested that the two of them should record it immediately, without waiting for the other Beatles to return.[8] Reflecting this somewhat unusual situation, the session recordings include the following exchange:
This session also marked the return of Geoff Emerick as recording engineer of a Beatle session after he quit working with the group during the tense White Album sessions nine months earlier.[9]
Per Ian MacDonald[10] and Mark Lewisohn:[9]
Backed with Harrison’s "Old Brown Shoe", the single was released in the United Kingdom on 30 May 1969; Lennon and Ono were performing a second Bed-In at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal at the time. The United States release followed a few days later on 4 June.[11]
In the UK and Europe, it was the first Beatles single to be released in stereo. It was therefore the first release not given a mono mix.[9]
The song has been included on several compilation albums: Hey Jude (US, 1970), 1967–1970 (1973), 20 Greatest Hits (UK, 1982), Past Masters (1988) and 1 (2000).
Several US radio stations declined to broadcast the song[12][13] because of what they saw as sacrilegious use of the words Christ and crucify in the chorus:
Christ, you know it ain’t easy,
You know how hard it can be,
The way things are going,
They’re gonna crucify me.
The Spanish government under Franco objected to the song due to its statement that Gibraltar was "near Spain". The status of Gibraltar was a subject of debate between Spain and the United Kingdom at that time.[2]
The single became the Beatles’ 17th and final UK number one;[4] it reached number eight in the US.[14]
| Preceded by "Dizzy" by Tommy Roe |
UK number one single 11 June 1969 (three weeks) |
Succeeded by "Something in the Air" by Thunderclap Newman |