This album has a long performance art piece on the first side, and on the second side includes the listener in a hospital stay during which Yoko miscarried a baby conceived with John. It is the second album of a trilogy of sorts, all dealing with the early stages of their relationship as lovers and artistic collaborators (the other albums are 'Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins' and 'Wedding Album'). Of the three I like 'Wedding Album' best, but this one has power. Not very interesting musically, 'Life with the Lions' is a fascinating artifact of the end of the Beatles era (and the end of the '60s). The performance on side one was done live in Cambridge in early March 1969; it's more an event than music, in keeping with Yoko's avant-garde roots. The second side starts with a half-sung tune by Yoko from her hospital bed, while John echoes her (the material was captured by a cassette tape recorder). She muses about the hospitalization, the fate of 'Two Virgins', and being John's girlfriend (he was still married to Cynthia). The next track records the baby's heartbeat (with a microphone held to Yoko's abdomen). Two minutes of silence follow, giving the miscarried child a funeral of sorts; this track has the most impact on me, because the silence goes deeper than any words could. The last track on the side sounds like cards being shuffled; it's actually a radio dial being flicked across radio stations, and as an exercise in boredom is on par with Warhol. The album as a whole, including the striking cover (the back shows John and Yoko surrounded by policemen on the street after a trial for possession of drugs), reveals these artists as determined to create their own media, rather than being used by the commercial media that turned the Beatles' fame against them. Although 'Revolution #9' (on the 'White Album') remains the most successful track John and Yoko collaborated on in the '60s (where Yoko is heard saying 'You become naked'), committed fans of John and Yoko should hear this album; the two share themselves completely with their listeners on it, and reinvent what a pop album can do and be. This CD release adds two tracks that do not appear on the original album.