Music Monday: John Lennon and The B-52s

John Lennon
Original image found at fuse.tv

There’s a story about the late John Lennon and a vacation he took to Bermuda with his son Sean about 6 months before his assassination happened in December 1980. So this would be around July of that year.

John heard the song “Rock Lobster” while at a place called Disco 40 in Bermuda and thought it sounded a lot like Yoko’s vocal style. In the 5 or so years before this time, John had effectively taken a break from recording new music. He was so taken by the music of the B-52s that he started writing and recording again once he and Sean returned home from Bermuda.

Bermuda Tapes

The history of this event has been documented in an iPad app project called “The Bermuda Tapes” which talks about this event and how it was both the restart and the all-too-soon end to his musical career, culminating in the album “Double Fantasy” which would be the last album release while he was still alive.

I’ve not tried the app, but have read up a lot on all of this and am truly amazed at how this all came about, being both a fan of Lennon and the B-52s.

B-52s

the B-52s
Original image found at Pop Matters

Fred Schneider, lead singer of the B-52s, was ecstatic to learn that it was a song he recorded with Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson, that got John Lennon to end his music making dry spell. He verified that Cindy Wilson was indeed doing an homage to Yoko Ono on the song “Rock Lobster”.

I hadn’t heard the story until a few years ago and it fell off my radar until recently during one of my rabbit hole Google searches with music and bands.

If you’ve never heard this story, read the article linked above and listen to the Bermuda Tapes video above. Then listen to the vintage recording of “Rock Lobster” and try to hear Yoko’s homage that was part of this now classic song.

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