Ascot Sound Studios
Producers: John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Mal Evans, Phil Spector
Engineer: Phil McDonald
John Lennon had recorded a demo of ‘God Save Us’ on 13 April 1971, followed by a full band version on four days later.
The song, along with its b-side ‘Do The Oz’, was written and recorded in support of the defence fund during Oz magazine’s obscenity trial, and released as a single in July 1971.
Stan and some people from Oz rang up and said, ‘Will you make us a record?’ and I thought, ‘Well, I can’t,’ because I’m all tied up contractually and I didn’t know how to do it. So then we got down to would I write a song for them? I think we wrote it the same night, didn’t we? We wrote it together and the b-side. First of all we wrote it as ‘God Save Oz’, you know, ‘God save Oz from it all,’ but then we decided they wouldn’t really know what we were talking about in America so we changed it back to ‘us’.
Sounds magazine
Lennon evidently remained unhappy with ‘God Save Us’, and on 22 May re-recorded the song with some of the musicians that would record the Imagine album later that week.
The session took place at Ascot Sound Studios, his home recording facility at Tittenhurst Park near Ascot in Berkshire. Four takes were recorded, the last of which was chosen as the master. Lennon sang guide vocals on each.
This version of ‘God Save Us’ had Klaus Voormann’s bass guitar on track 1, and Jim Keltner’s drums on 2. Track 3 was initially used as an echo track.
Track 4 was left blank, and 5 had Lennon’s electric guitar. Track 6 had Nicky Hopkins’ electric piano, and saxophones by Phil Kenzie, Geoff Driscoll, and Dave Coxhill were on 7. Lennon’s lead vocals were recorded on track 8.
For contractual reasons Lennon needed another singer to replace his part. Bill Elliott overdubbed his lead vocals onto the master on 16 June.
I sang it just to show him how to sing it, how it should go, and we got this guy that Mal had found in a group called Half-Breed or something, and he sounded like Paul. So I thought, ‘That’s a commercial sound,’ – it would have been nice to have Paul’s voice singing ‘God Save Us’ – but the guy imitated more my demo, so he sounds like himself because he doesn’t sound like me really, but he doesn’t sound like Paul either.
The single’s b-side, ‘Do The Oz’ was also taped during the session, as was a version of Sam Cooke’s ‘Bring It On Home To Me’.
‘God Save Us’ was issued as a single by Apple in July 1971, but failed to chart in either the US or UK. It was credited to Bill Elliott & The Elastic Oz Band. Elliott, who appeared on the picture sleeve, later became one half of Splinter, a group signed to George Harrison’s Dark Horse label in the 1970s.
Lennon’s guide vocal performance of ‘God Save Us’ was included on the 1998 box set John Lennon Anthology, and also on the highlights collection Wonsaponatime. On both releases it was titled ‘God Save Oz’.
Various versions of ‘God Save Us’, including the demo and outtakes, were included in the 2018 box set Imagine: The Ultimate Collection.