“New York City” by John Lennon

"New York City" is John Lennon's dispatch from his new hometown, written after his 1971 move and fuelled by the people he met there. He had the first verse within weeks, with the rest only sketched; an early version turned up in Clock, the film he and Yoko Ono shot that September, and he kept adding words and cutting demos, among them an acoustic take from late 1971 later issued on John Lennon Anthology.

The finished track, recorded in 1972 with Elephant's Memory playing behind him as the Plastic Ono Band, landed on Some Time in New York City, with Lennon, Ono and Phil Spector producing. In some ways it picks up where "The Ballad of John and Yoko", which Lennon wrote and cut with the Beatles, left off.

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