Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins:John Lennon & Yoko Ono

Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins is an album released by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in November 1968, on Apple. Following Lennon's wife, Cynthia Lennon, going on holiday, it was the result of an all-night session of musical experimentation in Lennon's home studio at Kenwood. Lennon and Ono's debut album is known not only for its avant garde content, but also for its cover. The album cover features Lennon and Ono naked, which made the album become controversial – to both the public and the record company, EMI, who refused to distribute it. To calm down the controversy, the album was sold in a brown paper bag, and distributed by Track and Tetragrammaton, in the United Kingdom and the United States, respectively. The album, while failing to the chart in the UK, reached number 124 in the US. The album was followed by Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions.



Contents
[hide]  *1 Background  ==Background[ edit] == Beatle John Lennon met Yoko Ono in November 1966,[2]  at the Indica Gallery in London, thanks to its owner, John Dunbar.[3] [4]  Dunbar was helping Ono set up a conceptual art exhibit,[3]  which Lennon was asked to preview.[5]  Lennon called the exhibition "positive".[6]  Wife Cynthia Lennon, feeling miserable and distanced from John,[7]  went on holiday[8] [9]  to Greece with Jenny Boyd and Magic Alex.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-10" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[nb 1] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-JPGR_11-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[10]  Lennon called Ono and invited her over for the night.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-AYNWL44_7-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[7]  The album itself began when Ono had mentioned her curiosity into Lennon's avant-garde home recordings,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-JPGR_11-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[10]  after Lennon asked "Do you want to hear some of the things I've been playing around at in my studio?"<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-AYNWL44-45_12-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[11]  Lennon then proceeded to play her some of his tapes:<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen8_9-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9]  comedy recordings and electronic sounds, both of which Lennon knew the rest of the Beatles wouldn't allow inclusion on their albums.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-AYNWL45_13-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[12]  After hearing the tapes, Ono was awestruck and recommended the pair do their own recording.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen8_9-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[9] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-JLS_14-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[13]  Cynthia would later return abruptly to find Ono with John.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-AsM161_15-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[14]  The "Unfinished Music" series was an attempt for Lennon and Ono to keep a record of their life together.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-JPGR_11-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[10]  With Ono's Grapefruit in mind, Lennon and Ono had imagined that the sound was not printed into the vinyl's grooves, but was meant to be thought of by the listener's mind.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-AsM161_15-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[14]  Lennon described "Unfinished Music" as "saying whatever you want it to say. It is just us expressing ourselves like a child does, you know, however he feels like then. What we're saying is make your own music. This is Unfinished Music."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-pob_16-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[15] ==Recording<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">]  == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The recordings that ended up on the album consist largely of tape loops, playing while Lennon tries out different instruments (piano, organ, drums) and sound effects (including reverb, delay and distortion), changes tapes and plays other recordings, and converses with Ono, who vocalises ad-lib in response to the sounds.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-AsM161_15-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[14] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-17" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[16] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-W.26M6_18-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[17]  Both Ono and Lennon have had experience in musical experimentation: Ono staged various multimedia events in New York in the early 1960s, and Lennon with his audio experimentation in the Beatles.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen7_19-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[18]  While Lennon's songwriting partner Paul McCartney had experiments that did feature on Beatles albums, Lennon's experiments did not.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen7-8_20-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[19]  Lennon's longtime friend Peter Shotton remembered later in his memoir that many of the loops heard on the album were made by Lennon and himself, in the days before the recording.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-21" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[20]  Lennon recorded directly to two-track stereophonic, but much of the source material was monophonic. A recording of "Together", written by George Buddy DeSylva, Lew Brown, and Ray Henderson, is heard in the background.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-pob_16-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[15]
 * 2 Recording
 * 3 Cover
 * 4 Release and aftermath
 * 5 Track listing
 * 6 Personnel
 * 7 References

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Shortly after the release of the album, Lennon said in an interview that he believed the album "can change people", as others "have changed my head, just with their records."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen9_22-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[21]  Lennon then claimed "that's what Yoko and my singing is, to change it like that".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen9_22-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[21]  Lennon recalled Ono's influence on him, and making the album, in an interview in 1980 with Playboy's David Sheff: "Well, after Yoko and I met, I didn't realize I was in love with her. I was still thinking it was an artistic collaboration, as it were – producer and artist, right? ... My ex-wife was away ... and Yoko came to visit me. ... instead of making love, we went upstairs and made tapes. I had this room full of different tapes where I would write and make strange loops and things like that for the Beatles' stuff. So we made a tape all night. She was doing her funny voices and I was pushing all different buttons on my tape recorder and getting sound effects. And then as the sun rose we made love and that was Two Virgins."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-23" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[22]  The album was Lennon's first recording project that did not feature any help from the rest of the Beatles.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-W.26M6_18-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[17]  Parts of the album become reminiscent to that of later editions of the Beatles' Christmas flexi recordings.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-W.26M6_18-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[17] ==Cover<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == A pirate CD issue with brown flap obscuring most of the cover, partially imitating the brown bag that enclosed LP editions.<p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Lennon and Ono used a time-delay camera, which was set up by Tony Bramwell, to take nude photographs of themselves for the album's cover, which were taken at 34 Montagu Square,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen9_22-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[21]  in early October 1968.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-JPGR_11-3" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[10]  Lennon explained that they "were both a bit embarrassed when we peeled off for the picture, so I took it myself with a delayed action shutter."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen9_22-3" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[21]  The front cover showed them frontally nude<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Beatles.hk_8-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[8]  while the rear cover showed them from behind. Lennon's idea was to have the nude shot for the front album cover.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen10_24-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[23]  Neil Aspinall said that Lennon gave the roll of film to an Apple employee, known as Jeremy, with instructions that the pictures were to be developed.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen9_22-4" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[21]  Jeremy said that the pictures were "mind-blowing", Aspinall, however, said that "Everything was always "mind-blowing" to Jeremy" then going on to say: "but – just that one time – he was actually right. He couldn't believe it."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen9_22-5" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[21]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The cover provoked an outrage, prompting distributors to sell the album in a plain brown wrapper,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Beatles.hk_8-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[8] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-25" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[24]  covering the nude front cover.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-pob_16-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[15] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen10_24-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[23]  Quotes from Genesis Chapter 2 were placed on the back of the brown bag,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-pob_16-3" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[15]  which were chosen by Derek Taylor.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-26" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[25]  The album's title came from the couple's feeling that they were "two innocents, lost in a world gone mad", and because after making the recording, the two consummated their relationship.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-27" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[26]  Lennon had said that the album cover "just seemed natural for us. We're all naked really."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-28" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[27]  Ono saw the cover as a significant declaration: "I was in the artistic community, where a painter did a thing about rolling a naked woman with blue paint on her body on a canvas; ... that was going on at the time. The only difference was that we were going to stand together, which I thought was very interesting ... it was just standing straight. I liked that concept."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen9-10_29-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[28]  Copies of the album were impounded as obscene in several jurisdictions<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-pob_16-4" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[15]  (including 30,000 copies in New Jersey in January 1969).<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-30" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[29] Lennon commented that the uproar seemed to have less to do with the explicit nudity, and more to do with the fact that the pair were rather unattractive (and the photo unflattering; Lennon described it later as a picture of "two slightly overweight ex-junkies").<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-31" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[30] ==Release and aftermath<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins was released by Apple in the US in stereo on 11 November 1968,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-33" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[nb 2]  and in mono and stereo on 29 November 1968 in the UK.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-34" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[nb 3] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen3_2-3" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[2]  The mono version was issued only in the UK via mail order.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen10_24-2" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[23]  The album was distributed by Track in the UK and Tetragrammaton in the US, after EMI refused to produce the cover or sleeve the record, because of the cover photo,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-pob_16-5" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[15] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen10_24-3" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[23]  unless it was changed.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-36" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[nb 4] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-JPGR_11-4" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[10]  EMI, however, pressed the record in Britain, while the album cover was printed by Technik.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen10_24-4" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[23]  Apple got around the sleeve packing problem by hiring several Apple scruffs to package the album.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen10_24-5" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[23]  Apple employee Jack Oliver had the Apple scruffs packing the record into sleeves "in the basement of the old Apple shop".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen10_24-6" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[23]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">It had taken Lennon six months to persuade the fellow Beatles to agree to the release of the album, and despite being against the cover, fellow Beatle Paul McCartney<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-JPGR_11-5" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[10]  was asked to provide a note on the album cover, which read: "When two great Saints meet, it is a humbling experience. The long battles to prove he was a Saint."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Beatles.hk_8-3" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[8]  In the UK, the quote, and album title, was on the album's back cover.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen10_24-7" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[23] Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins failed to chart in the UK (and only 5000 British copies were ever pressed),<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-JPGR_11-6" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[10] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-pob_16-6" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[15]  but managed to reach number 124 in the US,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen3_2-4" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[2]  after 25,000 copies had been sold.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-pob_16-7" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[15] Several months after the release of the album, Capitol issued to employees promotional blank picture disc copies of the album, in June 1969.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen10_24-8" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[23]  The couple released two related recordings later on,Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions and the Wedding Album.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-37" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[33]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The cover art changed three times, one for each of the album's three 8-track issues: Tetragrammaton had the back cover used as the front cover art, North America Leisure Corp reinstated the original front cover, and finally General Recording Tape released the 8-track with a paper sheet sleeve.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen10-11_38-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[34]  The album was reissued in the US during the 1970s and 1980s. One edition on the Rock Classiscs label,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-40" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[nb 5] claimed to be distributed by Tetragrammaton and not mastered from the original tape, but merely transferred from another copy with audible surface noise,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen11_39-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[35]  released in January 1993.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-JPGR_11-7" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[10]  The album was officially reissued on Rykodisc on 3 June 1997,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-41" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[nb 6]  under the observation of Ono,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-JPGR_11-8" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[10]  with an additional bonus track — "Give Peace a Chance"'s B-side "Remember Love".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-pob_16-8" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[15] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen11_39-3" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[35]  This edition of the album is slightly edited; it is missing about 30 seconds of audio from the end of second side,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen11_39-4" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[35]  as well as a few seconds from the start of side two.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-pob_16-9" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[15]  Several pirate copies of the album do exist.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Listen10_24-9" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[23]

<p style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">The album was disliked critically and by Lennon's fans.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-42" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[36]  Actress Sissy Spacek, using the pseudonym Rainbo, recorded the song "John, You Went Too Far This Time" about the album cover.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-44" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[nb 7] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-tca_45-0" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[38] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-46" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[39] William Ruhlmann of Allmusic said the album was "not unlike what you might get if you turned on a tape recorder for a random half-hour in your home", calling the music "naked".<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-AM_32-1" style="line-height:1;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;">[31] ==Track listing<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] == <p style="margin-top:0.5em;line-height:20.363636016845703px;color:rgb(37,37,37);font-family:sans-serif;">All selections by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, except where noted.

==Personnel<span class="mw-editsection" style="-webkit-user-select:none;font-size:small;margin-left:1em;line-height:1em;display:inline-block;white-space:nowrap;unicode-bidi:-webkit-isolate;font-family:sans-serif;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">[ edit<span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color:rgb(85,85,85);">] ==
 * Side one
 * 1) "Two Virgins Side One": – 14:14
 * 2) *"Two Virgins No. 1"
 * 3) *"Together" (George Buddy DeSylva, Lew Brown, Ray Henderson)
 * 4) *"Two Virgins No. 2"
 * 5) *"Two Virgins No. 3"
 * 6) *"Two Virgins No. 4"
 * 7) *"Two Virgins No. 5"
 * Side two
 * 1) "Two Virgins Side Two": – 15:13
 * 2) *"Two Virgins No. 6"
 * 3) *"Hushabye Hushabye" (composer unknown)
 * 4) *"Two Virgins No. 7"
 * 5) *"Two Virgins No. 8"
 * 6) *"Two Virgins No. 9"
 * 7) *"Two Virgins No. 10"
 * Bonus track
 * 1) "Remember Love" (Ono) – 4:05
 * John Lennon - vocals, piano, organ, percussion, effects<span class="plainlinks noprint Inline-Template" style="line-height:1;vertical-align:text-top;white-space:nowrap;">[disambiguation needed] , tape loops
 * Yoko Ono - vocals, tape loops
 * Pete Shotton - tape loops