Private, personal home movies filmed by Lennon of himself & Yoko Ono at the Dakota in 1973 are available for the first time
In May 1973, three months before work would begin on John Lennon’s fourth solo album, Mind Games, John and Yoko Ono moved into their newly purchased apartment in the Dakota building on West 72nd Street in New York City, high above Central Park and with a beautiful view over the area, which would later be dedicated to John and named Strawberry Fields, where the now world-famous “Imagine” circle mosaic resides.
A new video out pairs a series of extraordinary and intimate never-before-seen home movies filmed by John of himself and Yoko in their famous residence, paired with the new Ultimate Mix of “Aisumasen (I’m Sorry),” Lennon’s aural apology to Ono from his Mind Games album recorded just a few months later.
Shot entirely by Lennon on an early Sony Portapak camera and reel-to-reel recorder, the black and white footage sees the Beatle filming himself (and the camera) in a mirror in the bedroom, playing in the music room with a transistor radio, Yoko giving press interviews on the phone for her well-received Approximately Infinite Universe album, with various perspectives from around their new apartment and views out of their windows on to the street below. It’s a riveting time capsule into the private lives of one of the world’s most famous couples. Although not evident in the footage, this was a time of personal and political upheaval. Yoko’s daughter, Kyoko, had been abducted by her father, Tony Cox, and John’s years-long deportation battle with the US continued to rage on while his high-profile anti-Nixon campaigning, anti-Vietnam war activism made him a target of a newly elected Richard Nixon, leading to surveillance by the FBI. He would eventually win the landmark immigration case, paving the way for many more creative people to legally work in the country.
The melancholic waltz “Aisumasen (I’m Sorry)” (“Aisumasen” is Japanese for “I’m sorry”), is John at his most vulnerable, with a beautiful acoustically remodeled guitar solo by David Spinozza. Newly mixed from the original tapes by producer Sean Ono Lennon with triple Grammy Award-winning producer/engineer Paul Hicks and engineering by Sam Gannon, the beautiful and deeply personal track sounds better than ever as the instrumentation, previously buried in a muddy and thin treble-heavy mix, has been made more prominent, allowing the playing of John Lennon (vocal, acoustic guitar, various percussion) and his sensational band of David Spinozza (electric guitar), Gordon Edwards (bass), Jim Keltner (drums), Ken Ascher (piano, organs), “Sneaky” Pete Kleinlow (pedal steel guitar) to shine through like never before. The new mix, like all of the Ultimate Mixes, is truly a revelation.
“Aisumasen (I’m Sorry)” (Ultimate Mix), which is also available stream now everywhere, is the third track to be released from the forthcoming Mind Games – The Ultimate Collection suite of releases, due July 12th via Capitol/UMe, celebrating and exploring John’s pivotal and intensely personal 1973 album, Mind Games. Available in several formats, including a limited edition deluxe box, Lennon’s fourth solo record, Mind Games, has been completely newly remixed and expanded to offer an immersive, deep listening experience and in-depth exploration of this classic, yet underappreciated record.
