It's Alright (I See Rainbows)

It's Alright (I See Rainbows)
It's Alright (I See Rainbows)
Studio album by Yoko Ono
Released	2 November 1982
Studio	The Hit Factory, New York City
Genre	Pop; new wave;
Length	36:43
Label	Polygram
Producer	Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono chronology
Singles from It's Alright (I See Rainbows)
	"My Man"; Released: 1 November 1982 (US); 26 November 1982 (UK); "Never Say Goodbye"; Released: 25 January 1983 (US);

It's Alright (I See Rainbows) is the sixth solo album by Yoko Ono, and her second release after the murder of husband John Lennon. As a variation of a theme concerning its predecessor, the back cover features a transparent image of Lennon in a then-contemporary photo of Yoko and Sean, depicted in Central Park. Released in 1982, all songs were written, composed, arranged, produced, and sung by Ono. It charted at #98 in the US.

Background

The album saw Yoko take her music in a more uplifting direction following 1981's Season of Glass, despite the "bulk" of the album's songs "deal[ing] with her unabated feelings of loss over Lennon."^[2]

Yoko reflected on the making of the album when writing liner notes for the 1992 boxset Onobox:

The songs from It’s Alright were an attempt to do new sounds. I used shotguns for the backbeat. I brought Sean’s toy raygun to the studio to use it as a rhythm track. I was expecting the usual sneer I had gotten from the musicians and engineers whenever I had tried to do anything that was out of the ordinary. Surprisingly, no one was upset this time. It was ’82 and it seemed as though I was finally in sync with the world.
[...]
In a way, the It's Alright time was much more difficult for me as a woman, as a person, than when I had made Season Of Glass. Life went on. I had to walk and talk normally, while I knew that somewhere inside me there was a clock that had stopped in ’80.
— Yoko Ono, "ONOBOX by Yoko Ono". 23 April 2009.

In 1997, the album was remastered by Ono and Rob Stevens for release on CD by Rykodisc.^[3] The 1997 release used newly remixed versions of all songs. Some of the original mixes had a CD release in 1992 on the Onobox set but the rest remain unreleased on CD to date.

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	^[4]
Rolling Stone	^[2]

Billboard called it Ono's "most commercially accessible musical effort."^[5] Writing for Rolling Stone, Kurt Loder noted its "committed and convincing avant-gardism", which produced a "synthesizer-based pop that’s more adventurous than much of the music currently being ground out by Europersons half her age."^[2]

Track listing

All songs written by Yoko Ono.

Side one
No.	Title	Length
1.	"My Man"	3:56
2.	"Never Say Goodbye"	4:25
3.	"Spec of Dust"	3:31
4.	"Loneliness"	3:47
5.	"Tomorrow May Never Come"	2:26

Side two
No.	Title	Length
6.	"It's Alright"	4:23
7.	"Wake Up"	3:47
8.	"Let the Tears Dry"	2:24
9.	"Dream Love"	4:53
10.	"I See Rainbows"	3:15

CD Reissue bonus tracks
No.	Title	Length
11.	"Beautiful Boys" (Demo)	2:00
12.	"You're the One" (Alternate take)	4:50

Personnel

Yoko Ono – vocals
Paul Griffin – keyboards, synthesizer, piano
Pete Cannarozzi – synthesizer
Gordon Grody, Kurt Yahjihan, Carlos Alomar – background vocals
Elliott Randall, Steve Love, Hugh McCracken, John Lennon, John Tropea – guitar
Michael Holmes, Paul Shaffer – keyboards
Neil Jason, Tony Levin, Wayne Pedziwiatr – bass guitar
Yogi Horton, Allan Schwartzberg – drums
Rubens Bassini, David A. Freedman, Sammy Figueroa, Roger Squitero – percussion
Badal Roy – tabla
Howard Johnson – baritone saxophone, tuba

Technical

Brian McGee, John Davenport, Jon Smith – engineer
Bob Gruen – photography

Charts

Chart (1982–83)	Peak position	Total weeks
U.S. Billboard 200	98	13

Release history

Country	Date	Format	Label	Catalog
United States	2 November 1982^[1]	LP	Polydor	PD1-6364^[6]
United States	2 November 1982^[1]	Cassette		CT-1-6364^[7]
United Kingdom	16 December 1982^[1]	LP		POLD 5073^[8]
United Kingdom	16 December 1982^[1]	Cassette		POLDC 5073^[8]
Germany	1982	LP		2391559^[9]
Australia^[10]	1982			2391559^[9]
Japan	January 1983			28MM 0241^[11]
United States	1 July 1997^[12]	CD	Rykodisc	RCD 10422^[13]
United Kingdom	26 August 1997^[8]			RCD 10422^[13]
Japan	1997