Fly is the second album by Yoko Ono, released in 1971. A double album, it was co-produced by Ono and John Lennon. It peaked at No. 199 on the US charts.
The album includes the singles "Mrs. Lennon" and "Mind Train". The track "Airmale" is the soundtrack to Lennon's time-lapse film Erection,
Ono described most of the songs on Fly as being "pieces [...] centered around a dialogue between my voice and John's guitar".
The track "Don't Worry, Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)" is dedicated to Ono's daughter Kyoko Cox and was previously released in 1969 as the B-side to the John Lennon-penned "Cold Turkey" by Plastic Ono Band.
"Mrs. Lennon" is the most conventional song on the album, described by Aaron Badgley of The Spill Magazine as a "traditional ballad [song]". The lyrics were written in 1969 and the music was written in 1971. The verse "Open your trousers, open your skirt, open your legs and open your thighs", Joe Jones built eight new instruments specially for the Fly album which could "play by themselves with minimum manipulation".
Two singles were released from the album. The first single "Mrs. Lennon" was backed with "Midsummer New York" and received a release in the United States in September 1971, followed by a UK release in October. The second single was "Mind Train", which was released only in the United Kingdom and France in January 1972. The single features a substantially cut-down version of the song on the A-side while the B-side was "Listen, the Snow Is Falling", which had previously been released as the B-side of "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" in the United States a month earlier.
Four songs from the album were part of the Imagine film, these were "Don't Count the Waves", "Mrs. Lennon", "Mind Train" and "Midsummer New York".
Fly peaked at number 199 in the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for 2 weeks.
On 1 February 1972, Lennon and Ono Lennon performed "Midsummer New York" backed by Elephant's Memory for an episode of The Mike Douglas Show, which aired on 15 February.
|rev2 = Pitchfork
|rev2score = 8.7/10
|rev3 = Rolling Stone
|rev3score = (mixed)
|rev4 = Spill Magazine
|rev4score = In a review of the 2017 reissue, Aaron Badgley of Spill Magazine praised the album and called it "complex" and "a work of art", noting that if people took the time to listen to Ono's music they would be surprised at how "brilliant and intelligent" it is.
Track listing
All songs written by Yoko Ono.
For unknown reasons, John Lennon was credited as co-writer of "Mind Train", "Mind Holes", "Toilet Piece/Unknown" and "Telephone Piece" on the disc faces of the 1997 Rykodisc reissue. Lennon has not been credited as co-writer of these tracks on any other release of Fly.
Personnel
- Yoko Ono – vocals, claves on "Airmale" and "Don't Count the Waves"
- John Lennon – guitar, piano on "Mrs. Lennon", organ, automated music machines on "Airmale" and "Don't Count the Waves"
- Klaus Voormann – guitar, bass guitar, bells on "Mrs. Lennon", cymbal on "O'Wind", percussion on "Don't Count the Waves"
- Bobby Keys – claves on "O'Wind"
- Eric Clapton – guitar on "Don't Worry, Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)"
- Jim Keltner – drums, tabla, percussion
- Ringo Starr – drums on "Don't Worry, Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)"
- Jim Gordon – drums on "Hirake", tabla on "O'Wind"
- Chris Osborne – dobro on "Midsummer New York" and "Mind Train"
- Joe Jones – automated music machines on "Airmale", "Don't Count the Waves" and "You"
- George Marino – mastering engineer
Charts
{|class="wikitable"
|-
!Chart (1971)
!Peak<br />position
|-
|U.S. Billboard 200
|align=center|199
|}
{|class="wikitable"
|-
!Chart (2017)
!Peak<br />position
|-
|U.K. Official Record Store Chart
|align=center|39
|}
Release history
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|-
!scope="col"|Country
!scope="col"|Date
!scope="col"|Format
!scope="col"|Label
!scope="col"|Catalog
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="2"|United States
|rowspan="2"|21 September 1971
|2xLP
|rowspan="4"|Apple Records
|SVBB 3380
|-
|2x8-Track
|8VV 3380
|-
!scope="row"|United Kingdom
|13 December 1971
|rowspan="4"|2xCD
|rowspan="3"|Rykodisc
|rowspan="2"|RCD 10415/16
|-
!scope="row"|United Kingdom
|rowspan="2"|1997
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="2"|Japan
|VACK-5371/2
|-
|24 January 2007
|Rykodisc, Apple Records
|VACK-1309
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="3"|United States & Europe
|rowspan="3"|14 July 2017
|2xLP
|rowspan="3"|Secretly Canadian, Chimera Music
|rowspan="3"|SC282/CHIM21
|-
|2xLP <small>(White)</small>
|-
|2xCD
|-
!scope="row" rowspan="2"|Japan
|2 August 2017
|2xCD
|rowspan="2"|Sony Records International
|SICX-84
|-
|9 August 2017
|2xLP <small>(White)</small>
|SIJP-49
|}