Editing Instant Karma! (section)

==Background==
{{quote box|quote= Everybody was going on about [[karma]] ... but it occurred to me that karma is instant, as well as it influences your past life or your future life. There really is a reaction to what you do now ... Also, I'm fascinated by commercials and promotion as an art form ... So, the idea of instant karma was like the idea of instant coffee: presenting something in a new form.<ref>Spizer, pp. 27–28.</ref>|source= – John Lennon to ''[[Playboy]]'' magazine, 1980|width=25%|align=left|style=padding:8px;}}
Together with his wife, [[Yoko Ono]], [[John Lennon]] spent New Year 1970 in [[Aalborg]], Denmark,<ref>Miles, p. 363.</ref> establishing a relationship with Ono's former husband, artist [[Anthony Cox (producer)|Tony Cox]], and visiting Cox's and Ono's daughter Kyoko.<ref name="Madinger & Easter p 33">Madinger & Easter, p. 33.</ref> The visit coincided with the start of what Lennon termed "Year 1 AP (After Peace)",<ref>Miles, pp. 363–64.</ref> following his and Ono's heavily publicised [[Bed-In]]s and other [[World peace|peace-campaign]] activities throughout 1969.<ref>Doggett, pp. 89–90.</ref><ref name="RS bio">{{cite web |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/john-lennon/biography |title=John Lennon Biography |publisher=[[rollingstone.com]] |access-date=13 November 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180312140222/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/john-lennon/biography |archive-date=12 March 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref> To mark the new era,<ref name="Woffinden p 39">Woffinden, p. 39.</ref> on 20 January 1970, the couple shaved off their shoulder-length hair – an act that Britain's ''[[Daily Mirror]]'' described as "the most sensational scalpings since the [[Red Indian]]s went out of business."<ref name="Miles p 367" /> Having been recognised for his peace efforts in a segment on [[ITV (TV network)|ITV]]'s ''Man of the Decade'' documentary, and then chosen as ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' magazine's "Man of the Year" for 1969, Lennon said he cut his hair to "stop being hyped by revolutionary image and long hair."<ref>Frontani, pp. 168–69.</ref> Lennon and Ono promised to auction the shorn hair for a charitable cause.<ref name="Doggett p 118">Doggett, p. 118.</ref> This pledge followed the couple's announcement, on 5 January,<ref name="Madinger & Easter p 33" /> that they would donate all future royalties from their recordings to the [[peace movement]].<ref>Miles, p. 364.</ref>

[[File:Aalborg 2010 - 125 ubt.JPG|thumb|upright=1.2|right|Lennon was inspired to write the song by conversations he had when visiting the Danish city of [[Aalborg]] in January 1970.]]
While in Denmark, the Lennons, Cox, and Cox's current partner, Melinde Kendall, discussed the concept of "instant [[karma]]",<ref name=Listen50/> whereby the [[causality]] of one's actions is immediate rather than borne out over a lifetime.<ref>Rodriguez 2010, pp. 8, 21.</ref><ref>Urish & Bielen, pp. 15–16.</ref> Author [[Philip Norman (author)|Philip Norman]] writes of the concept's appeal: "The idea was quintessential Lennon – the age-old Buddhist law of cause and effect turned into something as modern and synthetic as instant coffee and, simultaneously, into a bogey under the stairs that can get you if you don't watch out."<ref name="Norman p 635" /> On 27 January, two days after returning to the UK,<ref name="Miles p 367">Miles, p. 367.</ref> Lennon woke up with the beginnings of a song inspired by his conversations with Cox and Kendall.<ref name="Rodriguez 2010 p 21">Rodriguez 2010, p. 21.</ref> Working at home on a piano, he developed the idea and came up with a melody for the composition, which he titled "Instant Karma!"<ref>Browne, p. 76.</ref><ref name=AYNWL97>Blake, p. 97.</ref>

Lennon completed the writing of "Instant Karma!" in an hour.<ref name="Madinger & Easter p 33" /> Eager to record the song immediately, he then telephoned his [[Beatles]] bandmate [[George Harrison]]<ref name="Rodriguez 2010 p 21" /> and American producer [[Phil Spector]],<ref name=AYNWL97/> who was in London at the invitation of [[Allen Klein]], the manager of the Beatles' [[Apple Corps]] organisation.<ref>Brown, p. 240.</ref><ref name="Woffinden p 31" /> According to Lennon's recollection, he told Spector: "Come over to Apple quick, I've just written a monster."<ref name=AYNWL97/>