Season of Glass (album)

The album was released less than six months after Lennon's death and deals with it directly in songs such as "Goodbye Sadness" and "I Don't Know Why". A young Sean Lennon features on the track "Even When You're Far Away", recounting a story his father used to tell him.

The front cover features Lennon's bloodstained glasses positioned next to a half-filled glass of water, with a view of Central Park in the background. The choice of album cover was considered controversial by the record company:

I used a photo I took of John’s blood-stained glasses on the record cover. The record company called me and said the record shops would not stock the record unless I changed the cover. I didn't understand it. Why? They said it was in bad taste. I felt like a person soaked in blood coming into a living room full of people and reporting that my husband was dead, his body was taken away, and the pair of glasses were the only thing I had managed to salvage – and people looking at me saying it was in bad taste to show the glasses to them. "I'm not changing the cover. This is what John is now," I said.

— Yoko Ono, "ONOBOX by Yoko Ono".

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[2]
Rolling Stone	[3]
Pitchfork	(7.7/10)[4]
Robert Christgau	A−[5]

Season of Glass charted at number 49 on the Billboard 200, making it Ono's highest-charting solo album to date.[6]

Pitchfork listed Season of Glass as one of the best 200 albums of the 1980s.[7]

The 1997 Rykodisc reissue added bonus tracks of the single "Walking on Thin Ice" and an a cappella demo of "I Don't Know Why", recorded the day after Lennon's death. Demos of Season of Glass songs recorded with Lennon in the 1970s were also released as bonus tracks with other Ono reissues, including acoustic versions of and "Dogtown" and "She Gets Down on Her Knees" on Approximately Infinite Universe, "Will You Touch Me" on Fly and "Extension 33" on A Story. The unreleased 1974 album A Story also contained several songs that were later re-recorded for Season of Glass, namely "Dogtown", "She Gets Down On Her Knees" and "Will You Touch Me". It was also released by Rykodisc in 1997.

Three songs from this recording were reworked by other artists on the remix tribute album Yes, I'm a Witch in 2007. Anohni reworked "Toyboat", The Apples in Stereo reworked "Nobody Sees Me Like You Do" and Jason Pierce from Spiritualized reworked "Walking on Thin Ice".

Holly Miranda covered "Nobody Sees Me Like You Do" as a B-side to her single "Forest Green, Oh Forest Green" and on her EP Choose to See, which was included with the purchase of her 2010 album The Magician's Private Library.[8]

All tracks are written by Yoko Ono.

• Yoko Ono – vocals, cover photography, design
• John Lennon – guitar, keyboards
• Hugh McCracken, Earl Slick, Tony Davilio – guitar
• George Small, Tony Davilio – keyboards
• Tony Levin, John Siegler – bass guitar
• Andy Newmark – drums
• Arthur Jenkins – percussion
• David Friedman – percussion, vibraphone
• George "Young" Opalisky – soprano and alto saxophone
• Michael Brecker – tenor saxophone
• Ronnie Cuber – baritone saxophone
• Howard Johnson – tuba
• Tony Davilio - conductor

Technical

• Ed Sprigg – engineer
• Christopher Whorf - artwork