“Whatever Gets You Thru The Night” by John Lennon featuring Elton John

"Whatever Gets You Thru the Night" led John Lennon's Walls and Bridges in 1974, a loose, rollicking party of a single that Lennon wrote, arranged and produced himself, and he brought a crowd. Elton John is all over it on piano, organ and backing vocals, Bobby Keys blows tenor sax with Ron Aprea on alto, Jesse Ed Davis plays electric guitar, Kenny Ascher adds clavinet, and Klaus Voormann and Jim Keltner hold down bass and drums.

It went all the way to number one on the Hot 100, Cashbox and Record World alike, the only solo chart-topper Lennon had in America in his lifetime, and it made him the last of the four Beatles to get there. Britain was cooler on it, stopping at 36.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.