Mind Games

This article is about the John Lennon album. For the title track, see Mind Games (song). For other uses, see Mind Games (disambiguation).

Mind Games
Studio album by John Lennon
Released	2 November 1973 (US) 16 November 1973 (UK)
Recorded	Record Plant Studios, New York, July – August 1973
Genre	Rock
Length	40:41
Label	Apple/EMI
Producer	John Lennon
John Lennon chronology
Some Time in New York City (1972) Mind Games (1973) Walls and Bridges (1974)
Singles from Mind Games
"Mind Games" Released: 16 November 1973

Mind Games is John Lennon's fourth post-Beatles album, and was recorded and released in 1973. Like his previous album, the politically topical and somewhat abrasive Some Time in New York City, Mind Games was poorly received by music critics. It reached #13 in the UK and #9 in the US, where it went gold.

The album was recorded at the beginning of Lennon's 18-month separation from Yoko Ono.

Background

In mid-1973, as Yoko Ono was completing her fourth album, Feeling the Space, Lennon decided he also wanted to record a new album. He liked the musicians assembled for Ono's album by their assistant and production coordinator, May Pang, and he asked Pang to book them for his sessions. Lennon then quickly wrote the songs for Mind Games.

Just as the sessions were to get underway in June at New York's Record Plant Studios, the Lennons separated. With Ono's approval, Pang would become Lennon's companion and lover in what would become an 18-month relationship known as Lennon's 'lost weekend'. Lennon's design for the Mind Games sleeve represented his symbolic walking away from Ono and her apparent mountainous influence on him.

Under the incarnation of 'The Plastic U.F.Ono Band', Lennon engaged the services of session drummer Jim Keltner, guitarist David Spinozza, Gordon Edwards on bass, Arthur Jenkins on percussion, and the vocal backing of a group called Something Different. Lennon produced the album without the aid of Phil Spector.

Songs

The tone of this album ranges from somber and melodic songs directed to Ono ("Aisumasen (I'm Sorry)", "One Day at a Time", "Out The Blue", and "You Are Here"), to more light-hearted and optimistic tracks ("Intuition", "Only People") and a few that indulge Lennon's affinity for pure rock 'n' roll ("Tight A$" and "Meat City").

The title track (with its "love is the answer" refrain and call to "make love not war") was begun during the Beatles' Let It Be sessions, and became a Top 20 US hit.

"Bring on the Lucie (Freda Peeple)", "Only People" and the three-second silent "Nutopian International Anthem" were the only political tracks on the album. The latter referred to “Nutopia: The Country of Peace”, a conceptual country which the Lennons had announced at a press conference in New York City on April Fool's Day 1973.

Mind Games's closer, "Meat City", contains a Lennon curse, ("Fuck a pig!"), sped up and backwards-masked, while the mix used as "Mind Games"'s single B-Side gives the same treatment to the phrase "Check the album!"

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Robert Christgau	(C+)
Rolling Stone (1974)	(unfavourable)
Rolling Stone (2002)
MusicHound

Rolling Stone magazine assessed the album as "his worst writing yet" and found Lennon to be "helplessly trying to impose his own gargantuan ego upon an audience ... waiting hopefully for him to chart a new course".

Writing for Allmusic, critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote of the album ; "While the best numbers are among Lennon's finest, there's only a handful of them, and the remainder of the record is simply pleasant."

Track listing

All songs written and composed by John Lennon. 

Side one
No.	Title	Length
1.	"Mind Games"	4:13
2.	"Tight A$"	3:37
3.	"Aisumasen (I'm Sorry)"	4:44
4.	"One Day (At a Time)"	3:09
5.	"Bring on the Lucie (Freda Peeple)"	4:12
6.	"Nutopian International Anthem"	0:03

Side two
No.	Title	Length
7.	"Intuition"	3:08
8.	"Out the Blue"	3:23
9.	"Only People"	3:23
10.	"I Know (I Know)"	3:49
11.	"You Are Here"	4:08
12.	"Meat City"	2:45

Bonus tracks on 2002 re-issue
No.	Title	Length
13.	"Aisumasen (I'm Sorry)" (Home version)	3:35
14.	"Bring on the Lucie (Freda Peeple)" (Home version)	1:02
15.	"Meat City" (Home version)	2:37

Personnel

• John Lennon: lead, harmony and background vocals; rhythm, slide and acoustic guitar; clavinet and percussion.
• Ken Ascher: piano, hammond organ and mellotron.
• Jim Keltner: drums.
• Rick Marotta: drums on "Meat City" with Jim Keltner.
• Gordon Edwards: bass.
• David Spinozza: lead guitar.
• Arthur Jenkins: percussion
• Sneaky Pete Kleinow: pedal steel guitar.
• Michael Brecker: saxophone.
• Something Different Choir: background vocals.

Charts

Chart positions

Chart (1973–74)	Position
Australian Kent Music Report Chart	8
Canadian RPM Albums Chart	28
Dutch Mega Albums Chart	7
Italian Albums Chart	14
Japanese Oricon LP Chart	6
Norwegian VG-lista Albums Chart	7
Spanish Albums Chart	9
UK Albums Chart	13
U.S. Billboard 200	9

Year-end charts

Chart (1974)	Position
Australian Albums Chart	34
Italian Albums Chart	30

Certifications

Region	Certification
United Kingdom (BPI)	Gold
United States (RIAA)	Gold

Aftermath

In 2002, Yoko Ono supervised a remixing of Mind Games for its remastered reissue with three previously unreleased demo recordings; it was reissued in 2005 by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab. In 2010, the original mix was remastered as part of the re-release of the entire John Lennon catalogue.

References

• Landau, Jon. Rolling Stone. Mind games; 3 January 1974 [cited 5 September 2011].