{"product_id":"double_fantasy","title":"Double Fantasy","description":"\u003cp\u003eDouble Fantasy is the fifth collaborative studio album by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, released on November 17, 1980 via Geffen Records — the label's first major signing — and the final album issued during Lennon's lifetime. The project marked Lennon's return to music after a five-year hiatus he had deliberately taken to raise his son Sean with Ono, and it was conceived in the summer of 1980 after Lennon, reinvigorated by a sailing voyage to Bermuda, found himself writing prolifically again. Recording took place at the Hit Factory in New York City between August and October 1980, co-produced by Lennon, Ono, and veteran producer Jack Douglas, with a seasoned band of session musicians including Tony Levin on bass, Andy Newmark on drums, and Earl Slick and Hugh McCracken on guitars. The album took its title from a species of freesia Lennon encountered at the Bermuda Botanical Gardens, whose name he felt perfectly described his relationship with Ono. Subtitled \"A Heart Play,\" the record is formally structured as a musical dialogue, with Lennon's and Ono's songs alternating throughout the track listing, creating what Lennon envisioned as a husband-and-wife conversation conducted through music. No record label would touch the project initially — Geffen stepped in only at the last hour — and upon release the album was met with widespread critical dismissal, with many reviewers finding its celebration of domestic bliss self-absorbed and its lack of political edge disappointing from the man who had written \"Working Class Hero.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe album's themes are deliberately intimate and personal, centered on three interlocking subjects: the couple's love for one another, their devotion to Sean, and the texture of their domestic life together. Lennon's contributions are among his most melodically polished solo work — \"(Just Like) Starting Over,\" a playful rockabilly-tinged celebration of renewal modeled on Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison; \"Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy),\" a tender lullaby to Sean; \"Woman,\" one of his most openly romantic melodies; and \"Watching the Wheels,\" a serenely defiant explanation of why he had chosen househusband life over rock stardom. The sequencing creates genuine dramatic tension: \"I'm Losing You\" and \"I'm Moving On,\" placed back-to-back, stage a barely veiled marital argument, while the closing track \"Hard Times Are Over\" — an Ono composition written as far back as 1973 — ends the record with words of fragile optimism. Ono's contributions, initially dismissed by most critics, have been reassessed significantly over the decades: as the BBC's Sean Egan noted, the album \"is a far, far tougher record than is understood by those who have only heard the singles,\" with Ono's songs drawing from the avant-garde and new wave traditions she had helped inspire — the B-52's' \"Rock Lobster\" was, by Lennon's own account, directly influenced by her work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Record Store","offers":[{"title":"CD \/ Album - SHM-CD","offer_id":53588958708026,"sku":"38317","price":32.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/2041\/0682\/files\/Screenshot_2026-06-10_at_1.30.23_PM.jpeg?v=1781112818","url":"https:\/\/recordstore.ca\/products\/double_fantasy","provider":"Record Store","version":"1.0","type":"link"}