Detail :

John's first solo album release, and first of his "experimental" outings.

Credited to John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The original premise of the "Unfinished Music" series was that John and Yoko were going to chronicle their lives together on record release, this is the first of these. Recorded one May morning between midnight and dawn in 1968 at John's Kenwood mansion in Weybridge (probably Sunday 19th May 1968). John's wife, Cynthia, had gone on holiday to Greece with Jennie Boyd and Magic Alex. Yoko had expressed an interest in John's avant-garde recordings using his home recording system, and they decided to make an album together.

So, John's first recording venture without his fellow Beatles was this wierd album of sound effects and bodily noises. More interesting than the "music" (sorry, John) was the album cover. The naked photographs were taken in the basement of Ringo's gaff in Montague Square, London in early October 1968. There was no way John was going to allow a professional photographer to take the pictures as he was too embarrased, so he set the camera up using a delayed shutter release and took them himself.

That was the easy bit ... next was convincing the other Beatles to approve the project ... that took almost six months !

And even though Paul was strongly against the sleeve, he still contributed with a one line sleeve note which reads:

"When two great Saints meet, it is a humbling experience. The long battles to prove he was a Saint."

Next obstacle was the record company, who refused release unless the pictures were changed. But, eventually the album was distributed by Track records in the U.K. (as catalogue number 613 012) ... under one condition ... that it was wrapped in a brown paper bag.

But even with approval, the record company printers wouldn`t print it, and many record shops refused to stock it. Even the music press opposed it and no editor would accept any of the adverts. Not surprisingly, it sold only around 5,000 copies and did not enter the charts.

It was also the first solo Beatles album to be deleted by E.M.I. ... although it was re-instated into the catalogue in January 1975 when being distributed by Charmdale. But, by 1978 it was deleted again.