We’re back with another tune from our Messin’ With The Music series. Instant Karma! (the exclamation point is officially part of the title) was released by John Lennon in 1970. This song came out at the same time The Beatles were working on Let It Be. One interesting fact about the song is that it was written, recorded and released within a period of ten days. That’s an incredibly quick turnaround, especially for an artist at that level of success. It’s always been my favorite Lennon solo single. The idea that karma, ‘you reap what you sow’, could happen instantaneously rather play out over the remaining course of your life is a very appealing idea. The power in Lennon’s vocal always felt like a big middle finger to every self centered person who screwed other people over. Karma, of course, works in both directions. I also find the idea that people who do good will receive good in return appealing. Personally I wouldn’t mind seeing instant karma doled out for much of what happened in 2020 (and continues to happen in 2021).
We kept with our usual Messin’ recording protocol using single mic straight through tracking. We did put in a pretty full roster of tracks for this song. The original was Phil Spector produced and used multiple piano takes for it’s basic feel. Spector was famous for his ‘wall of sound’ methodology and it shows in this recording. The original was also swimming in reverb to make it sound even bigger. For our base tracks we used finger picked acoustic guitars and recorded two separate tracks, panned hard left and right. There are two separate mandolin tracks, one using mostly chords and the other generally picking single notes. A third mandolin part plays a little riff in the instrumental break. We added a bass guitar track and a sparse single note oriented banjo track. Percussion tracks include tambourine, shaker, washboard and wood block. There’s a main vocal track with a harmony vocal floating underneath in the verses. We wanted a bigger sound in the chorus in keeping with the feel of the original so we have a main vocal and four other vocal tracks that are panned in hard stereo to give that bigger feel.
I really enjoyed finally being able to do a cover of this song. We hope you enjoy it too.
Electrostatic Rhythm Pigs play John Lennon’s ‘Instant Karma!’:
ChurchHouse Productions Blog 