{"id":600205,"date":"2026-05-23T18:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T18:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/600205\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T18:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T18:32:11","slug":"the-classic-rock-legend-john-lennon-couldnt-stand-working-with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/600205\/","title":{"rendered":"The classic rock legend John Lennon couldn\u2019t stand working with"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"John<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Tony Barnard \/ Los Angeles Times \/ UCLA Library<\/p>\n

Sat 23 May 2026 16:45, UK <\/p>\n

\u201cI had years of regret, and that final take running through my mind over and over again. The only way to put that to sleep was to do some heroin,\u201d Jack Douglas told me back in 2024.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

The producer, who passed away earlier this month at 80, was with John Lennon<\/a> in the studio a few fateful hours before the former Beatle was shot and killed. \u201cThe thing that made it really hard on me is that we were neighbours,\u201d Douglas explained. \u201cWe lived two blocks apart. I usually rode the limo home with John.\u201d <\/p>\n

However, on that particular night, he didn\u2019t. \u201cI had a young band that wanted to come in and work late that night,\u201c he recalled. \u201cI always think that if I would have ridden home with him maybe I would have seen the guy, jumped on him or jumped in the way.\u201d Years later, these ifs and buts subsided, and Douglas was able to reflect on their beautiful friendship. <\/p>\n

What he saw was a collaboration borne from a similar spiritual outlook. \u201cHe was very open to suggestion and very easy to work with,\u201d Douglas explained<\/a>. \u201cHe took direction without any problem. He would let me comp his vocals [the process of cutting pieces of vocal takes together] without being in the room saying this one or that one. He left it totally up to me.\u201d <\/p>\n

That was the crux of Lennon\u2019s creative view: leave people to their own devices. He was so focused on his own self-expression, once quipping, \u201cI like to write about me, \u2018cuz I know me\u201d, that he didn\u2019t want to get in the way of anyone else\u2019s. \u201cA lot of trust early on, he let me do arrangements on the songs from cassettes that he gave me,\u201d Douglas reflected. <\/p>\n

\u201cI arranged Double Fantasy<\/a> with the rhythm section without him even being there,\u201d he added. This was the boho vibe that Lennon always tried to foster in the studio. It was far from lazy, though. As Douglas mused, it was like \u201cmaking four records\u201d at once because various interplaying factors had to be neatly tessellated after the fact rather than adhering to one autocratic vision from the start.<\/p>\n

\"Jack<\/a>Credit: YouTube Still<\/p>\n

You\u2019d imagine that this was a very artist-friendly approach, but not everyone liked Lennon\u2019s way of working, and in those instances, the feeling was usually mutual. Eric Clapton, for instance, once said, \u201cGiven the choice between accomplishing something and just lying around, I\u2019d rather lie around. No contest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Needless to say, that meant that despite his supreme talents, when he was working with others, he craved some degree of framework. He wasn\u2019t the type to muscle in with an array of confident ideas regardless of his skill. So, when Lennon called him in to work on \u2018Cold Turkey\u2019, the clash seemed inevitable, and neither party could stand the unpleasant experience.<\/p>\n

Of course, they had previously worked together when Clapton came into the studio to record the \u2018While My Guitar Gently Weeps\u2019 solo<\/a> for The Beatles. But on that occasion, George Harrison had already worked the whole song out. By and large, the recruitment of Clapton was just a ruse to ensure that the song wasn\u2019t cut from the record by the harsh Lennon-McCartney partnership at the helm of the band\u2019s songwriting. <\/p>\n

In this environment, Clapton thrived, and his performance was stunning. But when it came to \u2018Cold Turkey, he \u201cchoked\u201d. The track was set to be Lennon\u2019s second solo single, and he was brimming with enthusiasm. But things weren\u2019t going to plan. There was an evident conflict between the way the bespectacled Beatle and the former Cream man were working.<\/p>\n

Lennon\u2019s frustrations with the so-called virtuoso would become public record years later when Cheap Trick\u2019s very own Rick Nielsen was brought in for Double Fantasy. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was in the studio, playing, and John looked at Jack Douglas and said, \u2018God, I wish I\u2019d had Rick on \u2018Cold Turkey.\u2019 Clapton choked up.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

It was high praise indeed for Nielsen, but it came at Clapton\u2019s expense in a way that Douglas might have envisioned with enough hindsight. \u201cIn the studio with John, you had to really stay ahead of him; if you got bogged down and he was waiting to record something, he would become very impatient,\u201d Douglas remembered. \u201cSo, I had to stay a few steps ahead of him.\u201d Clapton didn\u2019t. He hummed and hawed with more of a jazzy consideration. <\/p>\n

Lennon loathed this laboured approach, sensing time away from his family slipping by, not to mention the irksome loss of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll\u2019s zipping momentum. \u201cAs long as I was doing that and the rhythm section was attentive,\u201d Douglas says, \u201cit all went really smooth.\u201d By all accounts, the \u2018Cold Turkey\u2019 sessions weren\u2019t as cogent as that. Lennon was calling Paul McCartney a c**t while Clapton was contemplatively wondering what he wanted from him on guitar. That wasn\u2019t going to work. <\/p>\n

In short, the ridiculous work ethic of The Beatles is often noted as their secret weapon. However, it was a notably bohemian work ethic, built upon creative freedom, curated collaboration and playing to your peers\u2019 strengths. Clapton didn\u2019t neatly fold into that way of thinking. Thus, a collaboration for the ages ended up straining a friendship and maybe even precluding the early potential of Lennon\u2019s solo career in the process.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Tony Barnard \/ Los Angeles Times \/ UCLA Library Sat 23 May 2026 16:45,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,36499,25396,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-600205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-eric-clapton","tag-john-lennon","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}