John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Grammy-winning album Double Fantasy was released in November 1980, just weeks before Lennon’s tragic murder. The disc spawned three Top 10 singles, including “Watching the Wheels,” this month’s “Classic Track,” which producer Jack Douglas counts among his favorite songs on the album.

From the beginning, the Double Fantasy sessions were kept secret. “If word got out, the project was over,” Douglas says. Though it’s hard to imagine today,…