“I wanted to represent it in a way that gave it a second chance” – Sean Ono Lennon
Sean Ono Lennon has done an absolute miracle of a job remixing this all too often dismissed album. His Dad knocked off Mind Games in a matter of weeks whereas Sean painstakingly labored over this project for as long as it took to uncover layer upon layer of previously inaudible exquisite instrumentation and back up vox, while simultaneously presenting it with a “less is more” sensibility. When you listen to Mind Games now, you will truly be hearing it for the very first time. Again. It’s a gift.
John Lennon showing five year old son Sean the mixing console at The Hit Factory, 353 West 48th Street, New York, where his final album Double Fantasy was recorded.
Sean Ono Lennon’s newly remixed multiple disc labor of love collection of John Lennon’s original 1973 Mind Games album consists of six CDs, four of which feature different mixes of the 12 song record, each on its own dedicated disc, for a total of 72 songs.
All 72 tracks from the deluxe set are available for streaming on the standard music apps as well as iTunes.
Disc one offers new stereo mixes of the original album created from high definition transfers of the original multitrack recordings.
Disc two Elemental Mixes are stripped-back, with John’s voice to the fore, and without drums over more stripped-down backing tracks.
Disc three Elements Mixes actually removes Lennon’s vocals altogether, singling our key instruments at a time.
Disc four Evolution Documentaries is comprised of 12 mini audio documentaries, one for each song. These aural music docs aid the listener in witnessing the growth and development of each song from home demo to guide track, early takes to final mix.
Disc five Raw Studio Mixes features only what was recorded during the original recording sessions with no overdubs or reverb effects.
The sixth disc consists entirely of outtakes from the original recording sessions which took place at Record Plant in New York, 321 West 44th Street, between July and August of 1973.
Originally released October 29, 1973, less than three weeks after Lennon’s 33rd birthday, Mind Games is Lennon’s fourth solo album following Plastic Ono Band, Imagine and Sometime In New York City. It is notable for being Lennon’s first self produced album and was issued one month before Paul McCartney’s solo breakthrough album Band On The Run.
Only one single was released from the album, its title track, which was a top 20 hit in America and the UK.
During what has become known as Lennon’s “Lost Weekend”, his highly publicized year and a half separation from wife Yoko Ono, Lennon began writing and demoing songs for Mind Games in his Greenwich Village apartment.
John Lennon’s Greenwich Village apartment on 105 Bank Street, NYC
Of this period in his parents marriage which ultimately gave rise to his father’s creation of the Mind Games album, Sean Ono Lennon said:
“What really struck me in this case, with this album, is that people always talk about how they went through a separation and my dad went to L.A. and all this stuff happened. And I find it really remarkable how clear it is that he was committed to my mom and was in love with her, even in this supposedly troubled time. On the album cover, he made her a giant mountain, and he’s this little tiny figure dwarfed by her kind of incredible magnificence. And all the songs are basically about how much he loves her. So it was very touching in a way, because I went into it thinking, “Oh, this is the album right after he went to L.A. and that lost weekend happened…” They call it The Lost Weekend, even though it was more like a lost year. But what struck me is that even at the time that supposedly was a troubled time, that there was zero doubt, if you pay attention, that he was in love with my mother and was committed to her in the ways that matter most”
Lennon has spoken at length about his love for his father’s album Mind Games and what he hoped to achieve in revisiting it:
“I just grew up with it as one of my dad’s records, and it was one of my favorites”
“Mind Games” was always one of my favorite albums, and certainly one of my favorite John Lennon albums. So I just felt like it was an amazing opportunity to be able to work on music that I really love from my father. But then there was another level to it, which is that at the time it came out, it was sort of not very well-received, and I think it fell through the cracks a little bit. There’s a lot of reasons for that that have probably nothing to do with the music”
“And I don’t think my dad was necessarily that interested in going out of his way to promote the album in a way that they might’ve done in the Beatle era. He did some work to promote it, but he was at a different point in his life where he didn’t feel like he needed to do 10,000 photo shoots and tour and all that. So, for many reasons, there was a confluence of events that that led to that record slipping through the cracks. So I felt lucky to have this chance to reinvestigate an album that I always felt was really amazing, and try to represent it to the world in a way that gave it a second chance, you know?”
“But it was the first record that my dad chose to produce himself, so it was up to him to oversee the album all the way through to the end, which involves a lot of work that isn’t as fun. The final mix and final mastering, he’d never really had to worry about, because he always had producers running that part of it technically. So I think maybe there wasn’t quite as much attention paid to the final, final, final polishing process. And that’s a very hard part of music — it’s boring and not as fun as writing the songs, recording the songs… Maybe he just didn’t have as much focus for that very last bit. I’m not sure, though. I am obviously speculating, but I want to be very clear that I don’t know what happened, and I don’t know that it was the mixes. But I do know that we spent a lot of time trying to make the record sound better than it had ever sounded, and I think we’ve done that”
“But for me, the stuff that I’m proudest of are the final (Ultimate) mixes of the songs, because they took a lot of work and love. And I think “Out the Blue” and “Aisuimasen (I’m Sorry)” really sound better than they’ve ever sounded to me, for sure. You know, I’ve had my whole life to listen to my dad’s music, and so I feel like I have an advantage, in that way, of revisiting a song that was probably mixed a couple weeks after it had been recorded. And I was listening to “Aisuimasen” when we started the mix, and I was like, “You know, this really sounds like it’s in the vein of a song from ‘Plastic Ono Band,’” his first solo album. I was like, “But it feels like they didn’t really have the punch and the dryness on the drums and the kind of palette and the soundscape that they had on ‘Plastic Ono Band,’ which was so potent and so tight and beautiful.” So I really tried to pretend. I’m like, “Well, what would ‘Aisuimasen’ have sounded like if it had been on ‘Plastic Ono Band’?” That was the perspective I took for it, and I really think that it worked. I think it took the song to a place where it has a lot more oomph, a lot more impact. I think that’s just just me being a big fan of my dad’s work and kind of having a sense of, like, what kind of John Lennon song is it? I’m very proud of that, actually, because when I hear that song now, it moves me in a way that it never quite did before”
“And I always love “Plastic Ono Band,” but you have to kind of strap yourself in and get a box of Kleenex to listen to that record. Whereas “Mind Games” is a record you can just put on and, like, go for a drive or clean your house — but also have a deep experience. But it’s not like “Plastic Ono Band” where it demands a level of kind of emotional self-exploration that can be intense”
“We also have a website citizenofnutopia.com that’s part of the experience. Basically, it’s about meditation, because “Mind Games” is about looking inward as well as outward. So there’s a sort of meditative, positive thinking, positive manifestation aspect, but there’s also a game aspect and a puzzle aspect to what we’re doing. It’s almost hard for me to explain to people all the levels of this project and how they intertwine. But an important part of it is the Citizen of Nutopia website, and there’s things that are gonna be coming later this year that will develop on that theme as well, that will expand upon the theme. It’s worth signing up, is all I’m saying. It’s free, and it’s just for fun, but it’s worth going to the site and figuring out what your Nutopia citizen ID is”
In addition to the website, Mind Games has also gone on to inspire the creation of a free mental health wellness app, Lumenate, for all to enjoy and benefit from. Of the app Lennon said recently:
“I’m a partner and advisor on the company that owns Lumenate, Beckley Waves, so the guys who made the app are my friends. We did it together. Part of the concept was to connect mental health with mind games, and that’s why we have a donation to Mind, the U.K. mental health charity, on the Nutopia website, trying to raise money for them. With the Lumenate app, I wanted to encourage people to meditate to expanded soundscape versions of the “Mind Games” music. So we did nine meditation mixes, which are filled with things like binaural beats and rhythms that will put your brain into a deeper state of consciousness. And they actually work! I really recommend everyone go try it. And that’s free as well, so it’s all just for fun. It was just to make it more interesting. Because these records have come out so many times in the past; I don’t want to just put ’em out in a normal way. Like, what’s the point? So I’m trying to do things creatively, because there’s no point in putting them out if we’re not gonna try to do something different”
Of Mind Games enduring legacy, Lennon went on to remark:
“It’s still coming, there’s more coming later this year, and I think it’s gonna be fun for people. We’ve got many layers to this boxed set besides the actual cube. We’ve got the Citizens of Nutopia website, the Lumenate app, the meditation, and we also have something else launching that’ll be tied to that, and it’s all gonna be kind of interconnected in a fun way”
And so, as Mind Games continues on its journey through infinity, we remember the words of John Lennon himself:
“We all been playing those mind games forever
So keep on playing those mind games together
Faith in the future, out of the now
Yeah we’re playing those mind games forever
Projecting our images in space and in time
Yes is the answer and you know that
for sure
Yes is surrender you got to let it
You got to let it go”