Recording: Woman, Give Me Something, Kiss Kiss Kiss by John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Hit Factory, New York City
Producers: John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Jack Douglas
Engineer: Lee DeCarlo

An overdub session for John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy album took place on 15 September 1980.

This was for the recording of backing vocals for ‘Woman’, ‘Give Me Something’, and ‘Kiss Kiss Kiss’. Lennon and arranger Tony Davilio worked with the session performers: Cassandra Wooten, Michelle Simpson, and Cheryl Mason Jacks, who were members of The Ritchie Family and were credited as Cas Mijac on the album. Joining them for this session was Eric Troyer.

‘Woman’ had a Beatles feel and I think that’s why Jack chose to have me work on the song. I did have a sort of McCartney-ish voice, a little rougher and higher. I sat in the studio with John and he played this old beat-up Gibson guitar and we just went through the song. He just kept playing it and singing the lead vocals very patiently while we worked out the background parts. And that was astonishing. It was me and John, the arranger, Jack, and the girl singers. The initial background part was a little too ambitious, so John made a suggestion to simplify it. We changed things on the spot. John worked out the parts with us. The girls couldn’t stay in tune, so what happened was they started eliminating girls (laughs). We ended up singing, two girls and me, or maybe one girl and me. Then we layered some tracks that way. Then he dismissed the girls and I actually redid some of the girls’ parts and then I did a couple of tracks where I was sort of shadowing some of John’s leads. Jack always tells me, ‘I can hear you all over that track.’ I never heard the finished track until after he was killed. It’s just a staggering song, it’s so beautiful.