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TL;DR:

  • One Yoko Ono song is about having difficulty communicating.
  • Yoko expected a sound effect from the song to become controversial.
  • The tune appeared on a hit album she made with John Lennon.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono in black-and-white
John Lennon and Yoko Ono | Bettmann / Contributor

Many of John Lennon’s classic rock albums feature contributions from other artists. For example, there’s a Yoko Ono song on one of John’s albums that features a risque sound effect. Yoko expected this song to provoke controversy.

Yoko Ono became upset because communication was ‘getting more and more difficult’ even though the media was growing

The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features an interview from 1980. In it, Yoko discussed Double Fantasy, her 1980 collaboration album with John. She spoke at length about the message of one track from the album: “Kiss Kiss Kiss.”

“And in the age when the communication media is expanding more and more and there’s big communication, the individual communication is getting more and more difficult,” Yoko opined. “There’s an alienation between individuals. 

“I think women feel the frustration more than men — again, it’s the woman, or at least the feminine side of men and women, that is ignored by society — the male society,” she added. “That side of us is suffering. That side of us is reaching out to be touched, wanting to be held, wanting to communicate.” Yoko said “Kiss Kiss Kiss” had a message similar to her earlier song “Looking Over from My Hotel Window” from the album Approximately Infinite Universe.

Yoko Ono’s song ‘Kiss Kiss Kiss’ has a really sexual sound effect that she felt was less upsetting than the sound of an airplane

Yoko discussed one of the noses from “Kiss Kiss Kiss.” “There is the sound of a woman coming to a climax on it, and she is crying out to be held, to be touched,” she revealed.

“It will be controversial, because people will feel it’s less natural to hear the sounds of a woman’s lovemaking than, say, the sound of a Concorde, killing the atmosphere and polluting nature,” she said. “But the lovemaking is the sound that will make us survive.”

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How the song and its parent album performed on the pop charts in the United States and the United Kingdom

“Kiss Kiss Kiss” was the B-side to John’s song “(Just Like) Starting Over.” The latter never charted on the Billboard Hot 100. Meanwhile, Double Fantasy reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for eight weeks and stayed on the chart for 77 weeks.

According to The Official Charts Company, “Kiss Kiss Kiss” did not chart in the United Kingdom either. On the other hand, The Official Charts Company says Double Fantasy peaked at No. 1 in the U.K. for two weeks and stayed on the chart for a total of 36 weeks. It doesn’t seem like “Kiss Kiss Kiss” was controversial enough to impede the success of Double Fantasy in the U.S. or the U.K.

“Kiss Kiss Kiss” might be provocative but it has an interesting message about communication.

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