Music Blog

I’m Losing You

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Written for the June 1, 2025 edition
of Jim Adams’ Song Lyric Sunday.
Here’s what I have to say.

© The Beatles Bible

This week for Jim Adams’ Song Lyric Sunday theme, “Everything Comes To An End”, the challenge is to write about a song from a final album. This is a great challenge and I was excited to get started! I came across a site listing quite a few really good final albums … some I had forgotten about and others I wasn’t even aware of. One of the listings was tucked away in my subconscious and it was great to be reminded of it. I knew I had found my feature song for today.

Double Fantasy was John Lennon’s comeback album after five years out of the public eye. Having recently celebrated the birth of his second son, Sean, he gratefully took the opportunity to devote time to bringing him up, to re-evaluate his lifestyle and contemplate the future. The business-minded Yoko Ono became the main breadwinner in the household, while Lennon became the bread-maker.

Although Lennon continued writing music throughout his house husband period, the absence of a record deal left him with a series of half-completed sketches. Unable to read or write music, he recorded many demo tapes of these compositions, but often lacked the discipline necessary to finish them. Nonetheless, these fragmentary works formed the basis for many of his songs on Double Fantasy. In 1980 interviews, Lennon claimed that the songs came to him in a sudden burst of creativity, but the truth is somewhat more prosaic: the songwriting muse never left him and he continued making music right through his temporary retirement.

Double Fantasy is a John Lennon/Yoko Ono collaboration, structured almost entirely as a dialogue – one artist’s song followed by the other’s, commenting on the tranquility of their domestic life and rekindled romance. “We were writing as if it was a play and we were the only two characters in it,” Lennon said of the record.

John Lennon started writing the song that would become “I’m Losing You” in 1978. Lennon said: “It literally started when I tried to call Yoko from Bermuda and I couldn’t get through. I was mad as hell and feeling lost in space and it’s … just as much a description of the separation period in the early ’70s as that occasion when I physically couldn’t get through on the phone.”

With “I’m Losing You”, Lennon was able to access all the tortured emotions he felt when he was separated from Ono during his so-called lost weekend phase, which lasted 18 months during 1973-1975. Its addition to Double Fantasy was crucial, because it helps to balance out all the benign musings on love all around it. It’s the song that shows you the darkness so you can appreciate the light.

“I’m Losing You” finds the narrator disoriented by his present situation and looking to get back to his true love. The opening lines suggest that he’s perhaps with another woman, one who is only serving to remind him of what he’s missing. After venting frustration about a missed phone call, he describes the limbo in which he’s currently trapped. He suggests a temporary fix but he knows none of that can happen unless he’s forgiven.

John Lennon’s singing is raw and visceral, indeed somewhat reminiscent of some of the more primal songs found on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. It’s a song that nods at an unhappy past as a way of appreciating the happy home life that John and Yoko eventually found.

This is “I’m Losing You” by John Lennon from Double Fantasy


LYRICS

Here in some stranger’s room
Late in the afternoon
What am I doing here at all?
Ain’t no doubt about it
I’m losing you
I’m losing you

Somehow the wires got crossed
Communication’s lost
Can’t even get you on the telephone
Just got to shout about it
I’m losing you
I’m losing you

Well, here in the valley of indecision
I don’t know what to do
I feel you slipping away
I feel you slipping away
I’m losing you
I’m losing you

Well now, you say you’re not getting enough
But I remind you of all that bad, bad, bad stuff
So what the hell am I supposed to do?
Just put a bandaid on it?
And stop the bleeding now
Stop the bleeding now

I’m losing you
I’m losing you
Well, well, well

I know I hurt you then
But hell, that was way back when
Well, do you still have to carry that cross? (drop it)
Don’t want to hear about it

I’m losing you
I’m losing you
Don’t want to lose you now
Welllllllll!
So long ago

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: John Winston Lennon
I’m Losing You lyrics © Lenono Musi

Everything Comes to an End

Thanks to Jim Adams for hosting another great Song Lyric Sunday this week and every week. Be sure to follow the link to check out Jim’s site.

Thanks for stopping by and listening to some tunes.

That’s all she wrote, kids. See you on the flip side. 😎

NAR©2025

All text, graphics, and videos are copyright for Nancy’s Notes 🖊️🎶, The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk, The Rhythm Section, et al., and are not for use by anyone without permission. NAR©2017-present.

45 thoughts on “I’m Losing You”

  5. Double Fantasy reminds me of the winter of 1981….I bought the album then. I lived with that album…being a 13 year old Beatles fan…it was a sad sad winter but he did have some great songs on this album…. I also like the version John recorded with Cheap Trick…much edgier but this one fit the album better.

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    1. That recording with Cheap Trick was later scrapped, much to the displeasure of the band; they came out with their own version in 2001.

      The events of the winter of 80-81 were brutally surreal for all of us; our lives were so horribly and forever impacted by John’s killing.

      Thank you, Max.

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      1. I can’t imagine what New York was like during that winter Nancy.

        They do have an outtake of it with Lennon. It’s really good. It was released on the John Lennon Anthology.

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          1. Nancy…I wasn’t trying to be an unsufferable know it all….I promise. I just found out about that song not long ago.

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    1. Thank you, Glyn. That is exactly what happened and I no longer have the words to describe that beast or his heinous act.

      The SLS challenge next week will deal with ‘final songs’; knowing that, I opted not mention John’s murder in my piece today. I have a feeling there will be lots of dead artists floating around next Sunday.

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  8. I remember when he was murdered, the newspaper where I was working did a big feature on him and his last album, which was proudly displayed in our local music shop (remember those?) since it had only just been released. I liked at least half the tracks on the album, and this was one of them.

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    1. Half the tracks were John’s; the other half were Yoko’s and some of hers were beyond interesting!

      Thanks for sharing your personal story, D; that was such a surreal and incredibly sad time for us. A few years ago I submitted a story to a BBC radio station located in Lincolnshire UK. My story was about John’s murder and I attached a recording of myself reading it. To my amazement, I heard back from the radio station manager asking if I would be willing to do a short live interview about John’s death. I nearly fell off my chair! Of course I agreed to do it. That was my 15 minutes of fame!

      I sure do remember music shops; we spent hours flipping through albums and listening to tracks. There’s one old record store on the way out to Montauk called The Inner Sleeve – a very clever and appropriate name and a fabulous store.

      Thanks for a great comment, mon amie.

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      1. What great memories!!! It really was a surreal time.
        You can guess which half of the songs I could live without!
        The music shops were such and important part if our lives when I was in high school. First of all, we had to go to the shop, The Melody Shop, in Keene,NH, and pick up our copy of the Top 40, which they handed out for free. They had little soundproof booths to listen to a record before you bought it. They also carried lots of instruments sine every other kid at the time was in a band!

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        1. Most of Yoko’s songs are head-scratchers. 😂

          Absolutely! That was a fantastic description! I was picturing the whole scene as I read along. How lucky were we to have spent our youth in the greatest era of American music? A friend of mine owns a music/record store in Dobbs Ferry, NY; in addition to albums for sale, there are all sorts of musical instruments and accessories available …. even the listening booths! The store has a real retro feel about it. You don’t find too many stores like that around these days.

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            1. You’re right, D. I don’t know of any dance places but maybe that’s just because I’m not aware; it isn’t exactly my scene these days! My kids were in band in school and now my grands are. Music education is an important part of the school curriculum and should be acknowledged the same way as math and foreign languages.

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    1. John had a lot of anger and frustration; fortunately he was able to turn it into something wonderful and beautiful. This is my favorite track from Double Fantasy; I enjoyed being able to share it today. Thanks for a great comment and an excellent challenge, Jim.

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  12. I think Johns always been my favourite, Nancy, …his down to earth slant on life found a connection with mine,… I loved it when he and Paul used to bounce off each other lyric wise, and he found that as well with Yoko, but on a deeper level. I’m just going to play the music again. It stopped when I used the microphone, I’m just trying it out, see how much of my accent it can understand, & before I lose my temper with its mis-typing, …😂

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    1. It’s incredible when you know that neither John nor Paul could read or write music. It’s almost as though their compositions were divinely inspired! John was a bit too moody and could be quite mean at times, likely a cover for his insecurities and shyness. My fellow Pisces, George, will always have a place in my heart.

      I’ve yet to try the mic on my Mac and I definitely can’t figure out how to make a recording to accompany my stories. It’s aggravating, isn’t it? 🤷🏼‍♀️😂🤦🏼‍♀️

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  15. A fabulous article about “John” and his lovely song, Thank you, Nancy … meanwhile down here in Aussieland, Russell Morris is retiring and here’s a song from his final album, “Jack Chrome and The Darkness Walz” …
    “This is my favourite song I wrote for the album. It’s about the waltz of life and death and how they’re intertwined. It talks about a doorway, though we can’t see it. But maybe we can see it from the other side.” Russell

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