‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ was written by John & Yoko and released on 1st December 1971 with B-Side ‘Listen, Snow Is Falling’ written by Yoko Ono.

‘‘Happy Xmas’ Yoko and I wrote together. It says, “War is over if you want it”. It was still that same message – the idea that we’re just as responsible as the man who pushes the button. As long as people imagine that somebody’s doing it to them, and that they have no control, then they have no control.”

– John Lennon

John: ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ we wrote together. Nothing more to say on that. It says it: ‘War is over if you want it.’ Because it was still that same message, the idea that somebody is either going to give us power or [has] taken our power or has made us go to war or not made you go to war or the president did this to us.
We are just as responsible as the man who presses the button. It’s that idea of God in the sky is a separate thing, you know? It’s all that separation. It’s all the same thing: nationalities, religions, authority. It’s all the same garbage. As long as we or as long as people imagine that it’s something people are doing to them, they have no control, then. They have no control.

Yoko: It was July 1971 in New York City. We were having our morning coffee in a hotel room facing the park. Then, still in the middle of our breakfast, we got this idea to write an Xmas song. We were fast workers, so the song was born by the time we fi nished our last morning coffee. That made John feel better. ‘This is going to be bigger than “White Christmas”, you’ll see.’ He wiggled his nose again, this time with satisfaction.

In November, John remembered the song and called the manager to release it as a single for Christmas. ‘John, it’s too late…printing the cover…advertising.’ ‘Well, try.’ The single was out, but the manager was right: it was too late for anything and it bombed. ‘Happy Xmas’ only became big after John’s passing in 1980.

John: What we wanted to do was have something besides ‘White Christmas’ being played every Christmas, you know, and there’s always war, right? There’s always somebody getting shot, so every year you can play it and there’s always somebody being tortured or shot somewhere, so the lyrics stand in that respect…. I’ve always wanted to write something that would be a Christmas record that would last forever, you know?

The basic idea of the poster event was Yoko’s. She used to do things like that in the avant-garde circle. Poster was a sort of media.

Jack Douglas: When we did the ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ record, Phil seemed much happier, more relaxed and more in control than he did on the Imagine sessions. Possibly because it was just a single.

It had lots of acoustic guitars in a circle around one microphone, which was one of Phil’s recipes. And lots of backing vocals and kids and sleigh bells! John & Yoko wanted to create a Christmas standard better than ‘White Christmas’ and they sure did. Every Christmas, there it is.

I was so happy to be a part of it. It was so much fun to watch John & Yoko work with the kids, who were so excited. It was funny, because they didn’t quite know who John was, which was kind of cool.

Arlene Reckson: By then, I was then the studio manager [at The Record Plant]. The night before the session, I got a request to get in a kids’ choir. Dee Lee, our African-American night-time receptionist said, ‘All those churches in Harlem have choirs.’ The very fi rst Harlem church that I called said ‘OK’. I said to Yoko and John, ‘Can I get a limousine to take me up there to talk to the vicar?’ and I went up.

The next day I hired a bus and went up to get the kids. I had to have each one of them provide a signed release form from their parents and they got on the bus with the woman who was the choir leader. I remember getting them all Happy Meals and I think that the donation John & Yoko made to the church was $500, which was a lot of money then.

Roy Cicala told John that I had organized all the kids, and he was really pleased and they got me in when they took that great group photograph. I’m standing to the right of Phil Spector.