lou .

[lennonssongs]

08 . 10 . 2026

fats domino and dave bartholomew wrote "ain't that a shame" in 1955, and it held special significance for john lennon as the very first rock 'n' roll song he ever learned to play.

his mother, julia, originally taught him the chords on a banjo before he transitioned to playing the guitar. lennon and mccartney frequently jammed on the track during their early years with the quarrymen, and the two briefly attempted it again during their final 1974 studio jam session in los angeles.

lennon self-produced this official version on the 22nd of october, 1974, for his cover album rock 'n' roll, featuring a backing band that included jesse ed davis on guitar, klaus voormann on bass, and jim keltner on drums.

capitol records originally intended to release the track as a single backed with "slippin' and slidin'," even going as far as distributing promotional copies to radio stations before pulling the release worldwide except in mexico .

[lennonssongs]

08 . 09 . 2026

john lennon wrote '#9 dream' after waking up with the melody and chorus refrain stuck in his head during the recording of his 1974 album, 'walls and bridges'. the song actually evolved from an earlier home demo titled "so long," which borrowed its string arrangement from a cover of jimmy cliff's 'many rivers to cross' that lennon had produced for harry nilsson.

its famous nonsense chorus phrase, 'Ah! böwakawa poussé, poussé," was originally written as "pussy, pussy." capitol records executive al coury warned lennon that radio stations wouldn't play the track with that phrasing, so backing vocalist lori burton suggested tweaking it to sound like french.

to achieve the track's floating atmosphere, studio engineer jimmy iovine heavily processed lennon's lead vocals using extreme echo, vocal doubling, and tape delay.

when the lyrics describe voices calling out his name, may pang's whispered response of 'john' was recorded, reversed, and layered into the mix.

released as the album's second single, the song fittingly peaked at number nine on the billboard hot 100 in early 1975 .