1 Question From a Producer Inspired a Song From John Lennon’s ‘Double Fantasy’
TL;DR:
- A conversation with a producer inspired a song from John Lennon’s Double Fantasy.
- John came up with the song immediately after having the conversation.
- American audiences really embraced Double Fantasy.
John Lennon‘s Double Fantasy features songs inspired by John’s life. For example, one track from the album was inspired by a conversation the “Imagine” singer had with a music producer. John initially added some lyrics to the track that didn’t fit with the rest of the song.
1 song from John Lennon’s ‘Double Fantasy’ was about abandoning drugs and alcohol
The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono includes a 1980 interview. During the interview, John was asked about his song “Cleanup Time.” “It’s a piano lick with the words added,” he said. “It’s pretty straightforward if you read the lyrics, right?”
A conversation with Lennon’s producer inspired “Cleanup Time.” “The song came from a talk with Jack Douglas on the phone before I’d met him, before the session,” he said. “I was in Bermuda and we were talking about the ’70s and that. We were talkin’ about cleanin’ up and gettin’ out of drugs and alcohol and those kinds of things — not me personally, but people in general.”
Douglas first engineered Lennon’s 1971 album Imagine. The two bonded during the experience and continued to collaborate. Douglas produced Double Fantasy along with Lennon and Yoko Ono.
2 songs from ‘Double Fantasy’ originally had completely different lyrics
One sentence from Douglas inspired the track. “He said, ‘Well, it’s cleanup time, right?'” John recalled. “I said, ‘It sure is,’ and that was the end of the conversation.”
John ad-libbed some lyrics that went unused. “I went straight to the piano and started boogyin’, and ‘Cleanup Time’ came out,” he recalled. “I just sang ‘Show those mothers how to do it’ on the track you heard, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the song. It’s like ‘[Just Like] Starting Over‘ had a whole different set of lyrics originally.”
How John Lennon’s ‘Cleanup Time’ performed on the pop charts in the United States and the United Kingdom
“Cleanup Time” was never a single, so it did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100. John included the track on the album Double Fantasy. The album topped the Billboard 200 for eight weeks, staying on the chart for a total of 77 weeks. None of John’s other post-Beatles albums performed as well on the chart.
According to The Official Charts Company, “Cleanup Time” didn’t chart in the United Kingdom either. Meanwhile, Double Fantasy topped the U.K. chart for two weeks. It stayed on the chart for a total of 36 weeks.
“Cleanup Time” was not a hit but it has an interesting origin story.
