Milk and Honey (Remastered)

iTunes Review

After a five-year hiatus, John Lennon hit the recording studio armed with plenty of new material to reintroduce himself for the ‘80s. After choosing the songs that best fit this re-emergence and issuing them as Double Fantasy, he was preparing to finish the follow-up when tragedy struck and he was gunned down on Dec. 8, 1980. These nearly-finished tracks were assembled several years later by his widow, Yoko Ono. They show Lennon in slightly looser form, retaining jovial ad-libs and a vaguely rougher studio sound. The majority of Lennon’s cuts—“Nobody Told Me,” “Borrowed Time,” “I’m Stepping Out,” and “I Don’t Want to the Face It”—are a testament to his continued songwriting powers and are more inspired than much of his mid-‘70s work. “Grow Old with Me” is a poignant home piano demo. As with Double Fantasy, Milk and Honey is split up as a “dialogue” between Lennon and Ono. Her alternating tracks aren’t quite as inspired as Lennon’s, but several (such as “Don’t Be Scared” and “Let Me Count the Ways”) play perfectly into their supernatural mythology.