Walls and Bridges - Recording

Recording

Recording sessions for Walls and Bridges began in June 1974 at Record Plant East in New York City. Musicians included Jim Keltner on drums, Klaus Voormann on bass, Jesse Ed Davis on guitar, and Arthur Jenkins on percussion.

Walls and Bridges has a variety of musical stylings and many of the lyrics make it clear that Lennon both enjoyed his new-found freedom and also missed Ono. "Going Down On Love", "What You Got" and "Bless You" address his feelings toward Ono, while the first track written for the record, "Surprise Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradox)" was written for Pang. "Steel and Glass" included a sinister riff reminiscent of "How Do You Sleep?", Lennon's audio argument with Paul McCartney from the Imagine album, though the digs this time were directed at former Beatles manager Allen Klein. "Scared" is a haunting track exploring Lennon's fear of ageing, loneliness and the emptiness of success. It also included the seemingly prophetic lyric: "Hatred and jealousy gonna be the death of me."

The album also includes some of Lennon's most uplifting songs, namely its two singles "Whatever Gets You Thru The Night" (which features Elton John on piano and harmony vocals) and "#9 Dream" (the instrumentation literally evokes a dream). Another is "Beef Jerky", a funky Stax-inspired instrumental (the only instrumental to appear on a Lennon solo album).

Recalling the recording of the album, in an interview with Pete Hamill in Rolling Stone (5 June 1975), Lennon recalled: "Elton sort of popped in on the sessions for 'Walls and Bridges' and sort of zapped in and played the piano and ended up singing 'Whatever Gets You Thru the Night' with me. Which was a great shot in the arm. I'd done three quarters of it, 'Now what do we do?' Should we put a camel on it or a xylophone? That sort of thing. And he came in and said, 'Hey, I'll play some piano!'"

Another notable track is "Nobody Loves You (When You're Down and Out)", although written in 1973 was remembered by Lennon in an interview for Playboy magazine as expressing his feeling for the whole period. Lennon "always imagined Sinatra singing that one. I don't know why. It's kind of a Sinatraesque song, really. He would do a perfect job with it. Are you listening Frank? You need one song that isn't a piece of nothing. Here's one for you, the horn arrangement and everything's made for you. But don't ask me to produce it".

The final track is a casual cover of the Lee Dorsey oldie "Ya Ya", which Lennon tacked onto the end of the album with the credit: "Starring Julian Lennon on drums and Dad on piano and vocals". During one of his frequent visits from England to see his father during this period, eleven-year-old Julian attended the recording sessions. Lennon surprised Julian by including the track on the album. Pang recalled the younger Lennon's response, telling his father "If I'd known, I would have played better". Lennon also sends a message to publisher Morris Levy who was expecting this Lennon release to be the oldies album (see Rock 'n' Roll) at the beginning of the track: "OK we'll do sitting in the lala. That'll get rid of that!" which infuriated Levy.

Cut from the album at the last minute was a track called "Move Over Ms. L", one of Lennon's harder rockers, which would eventually appear as the B-side to the single "Stand By Me" the following year – the only example of a Lennon B-side not already available on an album.