2: Life with the Lions is the second of three collaborative experimental albums of avant-garde music by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, released in May 1969 on Zapple, a sub label of Apple.
The album, whose title is a play on words of the BBC Radio show Life with The Lyons, was recorded at Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London and live at Cambridge University, in November 1968 and March 1969, respectively.
"[7] A few of the tracks that ended up on the album were released as a mono 8" square flexi record that was given away with copies of the American magazine Aspen.
[7] The piece takes up all of side one and consists of Ono's vocalisations and screaming accompanied by loud, brash and distorted electric guitar feedback from Lennon.
[15] In a 2010 interview with Cambridge News, Tchicai said that the concert was split in two: the first set was Lennon and Ono, and the other consisted of jazz improvisation players.
[8] "No Bed for Beatle John" consists of Lennon and Ono singing the text of press clippings about themselves,[20][21] including reports of the hospital not giving Lennon a bed to stay in during Ono's miscarriage, and EMI refusing to carry Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins because of its controversial sleeve,[7][22] in a cappella chant style.
[nb 5][20] "Baby's Heartbeat" is a looped infant mortality recording, made with a Nagra microphone, of John Ono Lennon II's ill-fated actual palpitations.
Ono commented, "A record company had suggest I do an album of my sort of freak-type freestyle things, one of which was Song For John.
[28] The title is both a parody on the name of the BBC radio comedy Life with the Lyons,[29] and a reference to the press, who would follow Lennon and Ono everywhere.
[31] Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions was reissued through Rykodisc under the observation of Ono,[15] with two bonus tracks, "Song for John" and "Mulberry",[7] on 3 June 1997.
[nb 10][10] The album was reissued on LP, CD, and digitally by Secretly Canadian on November 11, 2016 with bonus tracks and rare photos.
[29] The Boston Sunday Globe writer Gregory McDonald advised readers not to buy the album, and described "Cambridge 1969" as resembling "a well recorded vocal by a mosquito".
[38] Alan Jones of Lincolnshire Echo warned that the album ranged "from Yoko singing their press cuttings in a high cat-like voice to John twiddling the dial on the radio", and did not advise the record for those "on small record-buying budgets.
"[32] Seth Colter Walls of Pitchfork deemed the album "less idyllic" than Two Virgins, and wrote that while "Cambridge 1969" does not "create most interest over its 26 minutes", it reveals that Ono's more successful performances work because they typically find her "switching up [her] extreme textures with greater frequency.
"[36] Uncut reviewer Neil Spencer similarly described the album as the product of "a troubled phase in the couple's lives", but found "Cambridge 1969" was more arresting than the other tracks, noting: "It was Lennon’s first public performance outside The Beatles, and you can sense the relish he took in it.
[2] Martin C. Strong of The Great Rock Discography said the album continued Lennon and Ono's "anti-commercial, free-form direction, the songs mainly recorded on a small cassette player.