‘Jealous Guy’ from the album Imagine was released posthumously with the B-Side ‘Going Down On Love’ from Walls and Bridges on 18th Nov 1985.

‘The lyrics explain themselves clearly: I was a very jealous, possessive guy. Toward everything. A very insecure male. A guy who wants to put his woman in a little box, lock her up, and just bring her out when he feels like playing with her. She’s not allowed to communicate with the outside world – outside of me – because it makes me feel insecure.’

– John Lennon, 1980

John: ‘Jealous Guy’ was originally a song called ‘Child of Nature’. The melody had been written in India. I never did anything with it but always liked the melody. The words were silly, anyway.

I sang it to Yoko, Phil Spector and a few people and they always winced. I decided to change it – and with Yoko’s help, I did.

Yoko: ‘Jealous Guy’ was a totally different song with the lyrics ‘on the road to Marrakesh’ and I said to John, ‘that’s a beautiful melody, but you have to think about something more sensitive. It’s in you.’ So whenever I hear ‘Jealous Guy’ I think ‘Oh my god!’ because he really did that.

Klaus Voormann (bass): When we were rehearsing, John would play the song on guitar or piano, and then we would start contributing what we thought was right. He was singing all the time. It was a great help and really made those songs work. If you pick the right people who can really play, they find their own way through. There’s not that much said or manipulated. It’s instinctive. Everyone is clever in his own way. You listen to everybody. You listen to the whole thing. And for me in particular, I always listened to the song and the words.

When I think of those sessions, I always think of ‘Jealous Guy’. I’m sitting there. I don’t even know what key I’m in. I have no idea. I just play. It just goes like a dream, you know? It’s such a beautiful song and it just flows. I close my eyes and listen to John, and just play. And then those notes come where there is space for them, or when I think they should be played at that particular moment.

Nicky Hopkins (piano): John is very definite about what he wants and there is no uncertainty working with him. He doesn’t want to spend much time recording. I played electric piano on [an out-take of] the ‘Imagine’ track and the main piano track on ‘Jealous Guy’ is me too. I was on ‘Crippled Inside,’ ‘Oh Yoko!’ and ‘Soldier’ too.

Yoko: Nicky Hopkins’ playing on ‘Jealous Guy’ is so melodic and beautiful that it still makes everyone cry, even now.

Jim Keltner (drums): Playing on ‘Jealous Guy’ was like being in a dream. Nobody in the world ever played piano like Nicky Hopkins, and Klaus has such a tremendous deep feel on the bass. Having John’s voice in your headphones, glancing up and seeing him at the microphone – 1971 – fresh from the Beatles and such a tremendous musician and songwriter – singing this beautiful, haunting little song. You only have a few of those moments in your life as a musician and that was one of them.

Alan White (good vibes): When we did ‘Jealous Guy’, Jim Keltner played the drums and I ended up playing vibraphone in the toilet in the corner of the studio. It had a little door, with a four or five inch crack, and I could see everybody through there. It was, ‘One, two, three, four…’ and then we were playing. John gave me a great credit on the album. On the sleeve notes inside the record, he wrote, ‘Alan White: Good Vibes’ which meant a lot to me. It was all good vibes when we were making Imagine. Everybody was really happy. And when everybody is happy in a studio, the happiness comes through the music – and there is a lot of great music on that album.

Joey Molland (acoustic guitar): John came into the studio and played us ‘Jealous Guy’. We had brought our acoustics; mine a Gibson J50 and Tommy Evans’ a Martin D41. We ran through the song once or twice, all very simple and natural. Tommy suggested a significant chord – a minor 9th or 6th. Yoko suggested it needed an intro, which Nicky played so beautifully.

Diana Robertson (secretary): While the Imagine sessions were going on, I remember everyone working very hard, staying up all night, making food – we were all so busy. I remember being called into the studio at about five in the morning to listen to ‘Jealous Guy’ when it had just been completed, which was quite incredible. It just sounded so amazing, you know, the first time we’d all heard it, really beautiful. Everybody suddenly stopped and they said, ‘Listen to this’ and we were all completely silent and just listened to it. People were practically in tears, it was just so lovely, so pure. I feel very privileged to have been there on that day.

John: When you are in love with somebody, you tend to be jealous and want to own them and possess them one hundred percent, which I do. But intellectually before that, when I thought, ‘Right, owning a person is rubbish!’ but I love Yoko. I want to possess her completely. I don’t want to stifle her – that’s the danger – is that you want to possess them to death – but that’s a personal problem.

It’s after the beginning, when it cools down a bit, then you can allow each other to breathe. At first, you tend to strangle each other a bit, because you have so little as a child, I think. Once you find it, you want to hang on to it. You grab it so much, you tend to kill it.

Yoko: We would argue, of course. We were two very temperamental, very emotional people. Friends and lovers, musicians and artists, man and woman, husband and wife. That was part of our communication. We were both shy, we didn’t go out often, certainly not to parties or anything like that. So we were literally together for fourteen years with very few breaks.

John and I stood for peace and love but standing for peace doesn’t make either of us holier than thou. John and I together were human beings, and by no means were both of us totally peaceful. Anger, hurt, vulnerability, were all a part of John. When we met we were like two driven people and it was like a fantastic meeting of two crazy souls.

John: Everybody’s continually searching for love and it manifests itself in many different ways. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing, basically, because I want love from all those people, that’s just the way it goes. I think it’s a lot healthier than it was and I hope it just goes on getting more and more healthy.

Yoko: We felt so lucky that we had found each other. Aside from the fact that we were both rebellious and emotional, we were true opposites. John was tallish. I was smallish. John made music for the people. I made music for the avant-garde – though I did not think of my music in those terms at the time (I thought I was big time!)

John was humble, in a way only a very successful person could be. l was proud, like most people living in an Ivory Tower, who never had to test the big water. Coming from a semi-working-class background, John was streetwise. I was totally inexperienced when it came to the games of the real world.

And we felt so, so lucky that we fell in love with each other. It was a blessing neither of us expected at that time in our lives. We couldn’t take our eyes off one another. We couldn’t get enough of each other, but the outside pressure was very strong. It was so strong that sometimes we had to separate from each other in order to protect our love. We thought we were clever, that we did everything right, and nothing and nobody could tear us apart.