You Are Here

‘You Are Here’ was a love song written for Yoko Ono. It appeared on John Lennon’s 1973 album Mind Games.

By the time the album was recorded Lennon’s marriage to Ono had reached a low point, and the pair had begun the separation that lasted 18 months. Lennon took the break hard, pouring his emotions into a number of songs on Mind Games and the subsequent album Walls And Bridges.

‘You Are Here’ was one of Lennon’s most heartfelt, plaintive and poetic love songs. Its title was taken from an art exhibition he had held at the Robert Fraser Gallery in London in July 1968. The exhibition had been publicly dedicated to his then-girlfriend Yoko Ono: “To Yoko from John, with love”.

The centrepiece of the exhibition was a circular white canvas on which the words “You are here” were written. Lennon and Elephant’s Memory wore t-shirts bearing the phrase in 1972, during promotion for the Some Time In New York City album, suggesting he retained a liking for the phrase.

In 1968 Harry Nilsson visited The Beatles while they were recording the White Album. He and Lennon bonded, and challenged each other to write a song with the same title.

Lennon suggested ‘You Are Here’, presumably as he was already considering using it for the exhibition. Nilsson returned to the USA and recorded a demo of his song, which was later uncovered during the making of the 2010 documentary Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)? It was later included in the 2013 box set The RCA Albums Collection.

The lyrics of Lennon’s song were concerned with the coming together of two cultures, two people, as one. They contained a reworking of Rudyard Kipling’s maxim that “East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet”. Lennon claimed that twains shall meet: “From distant lands, one woman one man/Let the four winds blow”. There were also echoes of the ancient teaching, “Wherever you go there you are”

Lennon’s vision of global harmony had first been expressed in song on ‘Imagine’, with its plea to “Imagine there’s no countries”. Here, however, the countries coming together were England and Japan – “From Liverpool to Tokyo” – reducing the universal to their specific relationship.

I sort of attempted a Latinesque song in a ballad tradition.

In the studio

‘You Are Here’ was recorded in six takes on 3 August 1973 at New York City’s Record Plant studio.

Three tape reels were used. The first contained four takes, the first and last of which were complete. Take 4 lasted nearly 10 minutes, and included the song being repeated twice. It was a hidden track in the deluxe 2024 reissue of Mind Games.

Reel two contained take 5, which was complete and lasted 11 minutes. As with take 4, it consisted of the song being played twice.

The third tape reel had take 6, which was the master version. The basic recording had Lennon’s vocals and acoustic guitar, Ken Ascher’s electric piano, Gordon Edwards’ bass guitar, and Jim Keltner’s drums.

Overdubs included maracas, tambourine, güiro, and conga by Lennon; pedal steel guitar by ‘Sneaky’ Pete Kleinow; two organ parts by Ascher; and backing vocals by Something Different.

The recording of ‘Meat City’ began after take 6 on reel 3.

‘You Are Here’ was mixed on 4 September 1973. A second verse and chorus were edited out of the final version, but were included in the 2024 reissue of Mind Games.