Written by: Lennon
Recorded: 26 September - 23 October 1970
Producers: John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Phil Spector
Released: 11 December 1970
John Lennon: vocals, acoustic guitar
Available on:
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
Acoustic
Although written in India in 1968, John Lennon didn't record Look At Me in the studio until the Plastic Ono Band sessions towards the end of 1970.
The Beatles had spent time in India studying Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Both Lennon and McCartney found their stay an enormously creative time, and many of their compositions from the time were included on the White Album in 1968. Others were used on Abbey Road the following year, and a handful remained unused or were reworked on solo releases.
Look At Me was written around The Beatles' double album time, but I just never got it done. There are a few like that lying round.
Lennon Remembers, Jann S Wenner
When Lennon came to record his debut solo album, the lyrics to Look At Me were a perfect fit. Its questions - "Who am I supposed to be?"; "What am I supposed to do?"; "Who am I?"; "Who are we?" - may have emerged from a period in which his marriage to Cynthia Lennon and his place within The Beatles were both being questioned, but in the wake of his Primal Therapy in 1970 it provided a continuation of the self-analysis that ran throughout John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.
The final recording again looked back to 1968, incorporating the fingerpicking guitar style he had learnt in India from Donovan. Lennon had used the style on songs such as Dear Prudence, Julia and Happiness Is A Warm Gun.
Lennon recorded unreleased demos of the song in 1968 and 1970. Both featured the fingerpicked style and were almost identical to the album version.
A studio outtake was later issued on the Acoustic album and the John Lennon Anthology box set. Lennon played a steel string acoustic guitar on it, unlike the album version which was performed on nylon strings. It also featured Lennon strumming the chords rather than the arpeggios of the demos and album version.
The John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band recording also had double-tracked vocals by Lennon; the opening "OK?" "Yes thank you" showed that Lennon never lost his sense of humour, even when his lyrics were at his most soul-baring.
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The "OK" at the beginning was on one track and was John asking whether the recording had started. The response, "Yes, thank-you" is on the second track and is typical of John's studio comedy. (My favorite being a little known event when Paul was fooling around with 'World Without Love'. Paul:(sings) Please lock me away. John: Yes! OK!)
Anyway - this song is quite good and would fit very well among the tracks on the 'White Album'. But it is recorde close and stark here. There are some flaws which are left in but they aren't so bad as to be too distracting. John sounds very vulnerable. And as the song fades to end is when, for me, the isolation that he was experiencing is realized for the listener. He sounds so far away and more real as a person rather than a 'rock god' than ever before.