THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Anchored by the buoyant peace-and-love anthem, Mind Games, John Lennon’s fourth album of the same name was surprisingly written and recorded during an incredibly tumultuous time in the rock legend’s life. In 1973, at age 33, John found himself in personal and political upheaval. A years-long deportation battle with U.S. immigration continued to rage on while his high-profile anti-Nixon campaigning, anti-Vietnam war activism, as well as the overtly political messages on his polarizing 1972 album, Sometime In New York City, made him a target of President Richard Nixon, leading to surveillance by the FBI.
This was the dramatic backdrop as John entered N.Y.C.’s Record Plant in August ’73 with a select band of world-class session musicians (jokingly named The Plastic U.F.Ono Band) — drummer Jim Keltner, guitarist David Spinozza, pianist Ken Ascher, bassist Gordon Edwards, pedal-steel player “Sneaky” Pete Kleinow, saxophonist Michael Brecker, drummer Rick Marotta, backing vocalists Jocelyn Brown, Christine Wiltshire, Angel Coakely and Kathy Mull — to make his fourth post-Beatles solo album in just three years. John would channel this period of extraordinary activity to make a deeply personal and engrossing album of self-reflection that explored themes of love, heartbreak, peace, spirituality and social injustice, giving us yet another window into his life and soul, and some of his best solo songs, on Mind Games.
The John Lennon Estate celebrates this pivotal and intensely personal 1973 album with a suite of completely newly remixed and expanded Ultimate Collection editions, offering an immersive, deep listening experience and in-depth exploration of this classic, yet underappreciated record.
Fully authorized by Yoko Ono Lennon and produced by Sean Ono Lennon, who oversaw the creative direction, the Ultimate Collection is from the same audio team that worked on the critically acclaimed Imagine and John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band Ultimate Collections, including triple Grammy-winning engineer Paul Hicks and mixers/engineers Sam Gannon and Rob Stevens. The definitive Ultimate Collection puts listeners in the center of the studio and explores the album’s 1973 recording sessions at the Record Plant in New York City, from inception to the final master, through scores of unreleased outtakes, unadulterated versions, instrumentals, stripped-down mixes, studio chatter and more, revealing how these songs evolved and came to life.
Yoko Ono Lennon says: “John was trying to convey the message that we all play mind games. But if we can play mind games, why not make a positive future with it — to be a positive mind game? Mind Games is such an incredibly strong song. At the time, people didn’t quite get the message because this was before its time. Now, people would understand it. I don’t think in those days people knew they were playing mind games anyway.”
Mind Games: The Ultimate Collection offers six different unique listening experiences that are at once immersive and intimate, ranging from the brand new Ultimate Mixes of the timeless album, which put John’s vocals front and center and sonically upgrade the sound, to the Elements Mixes, which isolate and bring forth certain instruments from the multitrack recordings to highlight playing previously buried in the original mix, and the Raw Studio Mixes, which allows listeners to hear the recording that John and the band laid to tape, mixed raw and live without vocals effects, tape delays or reverbs.
The Evolutionary Documentary is a unique track-by-track audio montage that details the evolution of each song from demo to master recording via demos, rehearsals, out-takes, multitrack exploration, and studio conversations. The Out-Takes allow listeners to hear compelling different takes of each song while the Elemental Mixes, a new set created especially for the Mind Games: The Ultimate Collection, inhabit a world between the minimalism of the Elements Mixes and the Ultimate Mixes, stripping the songs back to simpler, lean-back arrangements with John’s voice to the fore, and without drums. An array of listening options, including high-definition, studio-quality audio in stereo and enveloping 5.1 and Dolby Atmos mixes, are available on Blu-ray.
All of the tracks have been completely remixed from scratch from the 15 original two-inch multitrack session tapes using new 192-24 digital transfers. The Ultimate Collection includes previously unreleased out-takes and stems plus additional never-heard-before audio from archive ¼” reel-to-reels, cassettes, and videotapes.
Mind Games: The Ultimate Collection releases will be available in a variety or formats, ranging from digital and 2CD and 2LP versions to a deluxe box set featuring six CDs and two Blu-ray discs. The pièce de résistance is a Super Deluxe Edition, available in a limited edition of only 1,100 copies worldwide.
Released on Oct. 29, 1973 in the U.S. and Nov. 16 in the U.K., John Lennon’s fourth solo album Mind Games, was recorded in New York with the same musicians that played on Yoko Ono’s Feeling The Space record. With her songs having become more sophisticated, Yoko enlisted a group of experienced session musicians to help realize them, in place of the looser, jammier band Elephant Memory that played on John and Yoko’s Sometime In New York City the year prior.
Writing for Mind Games was nearly as quick as its recording with John writing and working out a handful of new songs the week of July 16, 1973, just two weeks before going into the studio. Recording commenced Aug. 1 and wrapped August 5 with overdubs taking place Aug. 6-16, mixing Aug. 21-Sept. 18 and master tape assembly Sept. 19-21. The album was self-produced by John, with production help from Yoko, and marked his first solo effort without Phil Spector at the helm. It was engineered by Roy Cicala and Dan Barbiero, with some studio assistance by a young Jimmy Iovine, who started at the studio as an assistant towards the end of the sessions.
Despite most of the songs being written just before they were recorded, the title track, Mind Games, dates back to 1970 when it had the working title of Make Love, Not War. John was inspired to complete the soaring pop song after reading the 1972 book Mind Games: The Guide to Inner Space, written by Robert Masters and Jean Houston, which stressed the tapping of our mental potential to effect global change. In the tradition of Yoko’s Imagine poems, it was suggesting, “mind games” as a positive and creative idea.
Many of the tracks on Mind Games feature John chronicling his own life and the rocky relationship he was experiencing with Yoko at the time. The melancholic waltz Aisumasen (I’m Sorry) (Aisumimasen is Japanese for “I’m sorry”), is John at his most vulnerable, reflecting on his relationship and the remorse for the emotional pain he’s inflicted. Standout Out The Blue sees John expressing his doubts over the couple’s separation as the song begins with just John and a gently strummed acoustic guitar, resembling his work with The Beatles, before the band and backing singers kick in and the song builds to a soaring climax with John singing: “Like a U.F.O., you came to me / And blew away life’s misery / Out the blue life’s energy / Out the blue you came to me.”
The lilting One Day (At A Time), sung by John in a rare falsetto and featuring a classic sax solo from Michael Brecker on one of his earliest sessions, is a song about enjoying the here and now and reminding that “one day at a time is all we do,” while Tight A$ is an innuendo-laden, rollicking country rocker with the band firing on all cylinders, including some brilliant pedal steel playing by “Sneaky” Pete Kleinow. John’s politics are showcased on tracks Bring On The Lucie (Freda People) and Only People, but in a much lighter and wittier way.
At the center of Mind Games lies the Nutopian National Anthem, a brief, silent three-second repose. Nutopia is the imaginary country created by John and Yoko in 1973 during their immigration woes — a conceptual nation that exists only in one’s mind, without borders, founded on love and open to everyone.
Upon its original release Mind Games sold reasonably well, peaking in the U.S. at No. 9 on Billboard and No. 13 in the U.K. The track Mind Games, the only single released from the record, hit No. 18 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 26 in the U.K. Although the album received mixed reviews in 1973, over the last 50 years it has become something of a cult classic among fans.
The Super Deluxe Edition
Truly a work of art and in a class of its own, the Super Deluxe Edition box is, in essence, a time capsule into John and Yoko’s world around the writing and recording of Mind Games, including the times leading up to and after its release in 1973. As innovative as it is elaborate, the box set is presented in a 13-inch cube, a perspex reproduction of Yoko’s 1966 artwork Danger Box. Once lifted, four sides, featuring artwork from Mind Games on shiny mirror board, fall to reveal nine individual boxes of various shapes and sizes interlocked together, each with its own look and focus. Hidden throughout the comprehensive and creative set are many Easter eggs, some of which can only be revealed by using other items in the box to see them, along with loads of other hidden secrets, surprises, puzzles, and “mind games”. The box is housed inside a striking 13” packing container cube adorned with custom art.
The Super Deluxe Edition includes:
MIND GAMES – THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION – 7x LP VINYL BOX
Four gatefold LPs comprising 12 tracks each of the Ultimate Mixes, Elemental Mixes, Elements Mixes, Evolution Documentary, Outtakes and Raw Studio Mixes with bespoke inners, posters and postcards with Easter eggs hidden throughout.
MIND GAMES – THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION – DELUXE BOX SET
Six CDs, Two Blu-Rays, 128-page hardback 10” book, poster, postcards, ID Card
HOLOGRAM VINYL EP BOX – MIND GAMES/MEAT CITY
Exclusive bespoke Karmic Wheel hologram-engraved picture disc enclosed in reproduction of Lennon’s Build Around It artwork.
MAGIC BOX – 2x LP PICTURE DISC BOX SET
The Ultimate Mixes and Outtakes on two color picture vinyl discs, visually reimagined by Zoetrope animation artist Drew Tetz with a new poster, postcards, additional zoetrope and bar animation elements and an ultraviolet flashlight. Also includes exclusive portraits designed by map portrait artist Ed Fairburn of fold-out 46-inch-square maps of Liverpool (John) and Tokyo (Yoko), containing over 700 locations of interest, highlighted in ultraviolet ink and every location detailed in accompanying booklets.
THAMES AND HUDSON BOOK
A 288-page deep-dive coffee-table hardback book — in the words of John and Yoko and the people who were there — on the events of John and Yoko’s lives, including the making of the Mind Games album and everything surrounding it, featuring brand new interviews with all their friends, colleagues, musicians and engineers, exclusive never-before-seen photographs by Bob Gruen, Michael Brennan, Tom Zimberov, Koh Hasabe and David Gahr and exclusive photos, lyrics, letters, original tape boxes and memorabilia from the John Lennon & Yoko Ono Lennon Archives.
CITIZEN OF NUTOPIA BOX
Exclusive reproduction memorabiliaJohn and Yoko including a large white Nutopian Flag, a Nutopian Embassy Plaque, Citizen Of Nutopia ID Card, Great Seal of Nutopia stamp, reproduction of John and Yoko’s Declaration of Nutopia from April 1973, You Are Here, and yin-yang fishes and Not Insane badges.
YOU ARE HERE BOX
A limited edition, 12-inch circular canvas reproduction of Lennon’s artwork You Are Here, 1968 with a certificate of authenticity.
I-CHING BOX
Three customized John and Yoko I-Ching coins, ultraviolet flashlight and magic magnet.
