The Last Days of John Lennon
Page 31
“We can get along very well without the Beatles”: Doyle, “Burn the Beatles, 1966.”
“Who are these four creeps to put themselves above the High and Mighty?”: Doyle, “Burn the Beatles, 1966.”
“Letters arrived at the house full of threats, hate, and venom”: Cynthia Lennon, A Twist of Lennon (London: Star Books, 1978), quoted in “The Beatles—A Day in the Life, March 4, 1966,” BeatlesRadio.com.
Psychics are sending him their predictions: Cynthia Lennon, John (New York: Crown, 2005), 190.
“What will it cost to cancel the tour?” Jordan Runtagh, “When John Lennon’s ‘More Popular Than Jesus’ Controversy Turned Ugly,” Rolling Stone, July 29, 2016.
“They’d been poor boys who’d worked hard and made money”: Peter Taylor-Whiffen, “The Beatles’ Accountant Fifty Years On: They Were Scruffy Boys Who Didn’t Want to Pay Tax,” The Telegraph, July 23, 2017.
around $4 million: Doyle, “Burn the Beatles, 1966.”
“If anything were to happen to any of you”: Runtagh, “When John Lennon’s ‘More Popular Than Jesus’ Controversy Turned Ugly.”
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“I wasn’t saying the Beatles are better than Jesus or God or Christianity”: John Dodge, “On This Day in Chicago, 1966: John Lennon Apologized for ‘Jesus’ Comment,” CBS Chicago, August 12, 2014.
“just loses its meaning or its context immediately”: “The Beatles—A Day in the Life, March 4, 1966,” BeatlesRadio.com.
“I felt very bad for John during the whole episode”: Paul McCartney, interview with the authors, 2019.
“I didn’t want to talk because I thought they’d kill me”: Jordan Runtagh, “When John Lennon’s ‘More Popular Than Jesus’ Controversy Turned Ugly,” Rolling Stone, July 29, 2016.
“hail Beatles in Chicago”: Jack Doyle, “Burn the Beatles, 1966: Bigger Than Jesus?,” PopHistoryDig.com, October 11, 2017.
“the story of protest kicked up recently by Beatle John Lennon”: Doyle, “Burn the Beatles, 1966.”
“some foundation to the latest observations of John Lennon”: Doyle, “Burn the Beatles, 1966.”
Beatles bonfires: Doyle, “Burn the Beatles, 1966.”
“I created another little piece of hate in the world”: Leroy Aarons, “‘Can’t Express Myself Very Well,’ Beatle Apologizes for Remarks,” Washington Post, August 15, 1966.
“not welcome in the City of Memphis”: John Beifuss, “Memphis Leaders Gave Beatles Icy Reception,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis), August 10, 2006.
“actually threatening to assassinate John Lennon”: Bob Spitz, The Beatles: The Biography (New York, Back Bay, 2006), 632.
“You might as well paint a target on me”: Runtagh, “When John Lennon’s ‘More Popular Than Jesus’ Controversy Turned Ugly.”
“frightened by things”: Carol Clerk, “George Harrison,” Uncut, February 2002.
“There was always an edge in America”: Runtagh, “When John Lennon’s ‘More Popular Than Jesus’ Controversy Turned Ugly.”
ticket price of $5.50: Steve Pike, “The Beatles in Memphis,” WKNOFM.org, August 23, 2013.
“I love Jesus, but I love those Beatles, too”: UPI, “Beatles Win Contest,” Daily News Journal (Murfreesboro, Tennessee), August 20, 1966.
“they thought snipers might shoot us”: Spitz, The Beatles, 635.
“each thought it was the other that had been shot”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000), 227.
“blast off into double-time”: “Bang That Turned the Beatles Off,” Sydney Morning Herald, July 2, 2008.
“The four performers didn’t bat an eye or miss a note”: UPI, “Beatles Win Contest.”
“The only gig we ever missed!”: Jordan Runtagh, “Remembering Beatles’ Final Concert,” Rolling Stone, August 29, 2016.
“I remember us getting in a big, empty steel-lined wagon”: Jeff Giles, “The Day the Beatles Decided to Stop Touring,” UltimateClassicRock.com, August 21, 2017.
“He was struggling mightily to get out from the comments he made”: Ken Mansfield, interview with authors, 2019.
“all in a big movie and we were the ones trapped”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology.
conflicting signage: Doyle, “Burn the Beatles, 1966.”
LENNON SAVES: Runtagh, “Remembering Beatles’ Final Concert.”
“Tape it, will you? Tape the show”: Runtagh, “Remembering Beatles’ Final Concert.”
“We’d like to ask you to join in and, er, clap, sing, talk, do anything”: Runtagh, “Remembering Beatles’ Final Concert.”
“Right—that’s it, I’m not a Beatle anymore!”: Runtagh, “Remembering Beatles’ Final Concert.”
“This isn’t show business. It’s something else”: Michael Braun, “Love Me Do!”: The Beatles’ Progress (Los Angeles and New York: Graymalkin Media, 2019), 64.
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“If you wanted to, John, you could be a very interesting actor”: Sam Kashner, “Making Beatlemania: A Hard Day’s Night at 50,” Vanity Fair, July 2, 2014.
an opportunistic ex of Brian’s: Jordan Runtagh, “Remembering Beatles’ Final Concert,” Rolling Stone, August 29, 2016.
“I have visions of Strawberry Fields”: David Rybaczewski, “Strawberry Fields Forever,” BeatleseBooks.com.
“John was still searching”: Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life (New York: Ecco, 2008), 462.
“I knew it would end this way”: Roger Ebert, “How I Won the War,” RogerEbert.com, January 7, 1968.
“granny glasses”: Ray Connolly, Being John Lennon: A Restless Life (New York: Pegasus Books, 2018), 228.
“sequences of buttock moment”: “Fluxfilm No. 16: Four (1966/1967),” FluxusFoundation.com.
“Never bring anybody until it’s all ready”: Museum of Modern Art, “Yoko Ono. London. 1966–69,” audio transcript from “Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960–1971,” MoMa.org.
“This was the first sexy one I met”: Philip Norman, “Emotionally Tormented and Painfully Insecure—the Unknown Lennon,” Daily Mail, October 7, 2008.
a very small YES: Museum of Modern Art, “Yoko Ono. London. 1966–69.”
“I thought it was fantastic”: Jann S. Wenner, “Lennon Remembers, Part Two,” Rolling Stone, February 4, 1971.
“When I first heard ‘Strawberry Fields Forever,’ I was sidesmacked”: Norman, John Lennon, 481.
“Well, there are two things against it”: Colin Fleming, “Revisiting Beatles’ Rare, Revelatory ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ Early Take,” Rolling Stone, November 22, 2016.
—
dinner at a Japanese restaurant: Jack Jones, Let Me Take You Down: Inside the Mind of Mark David Chapman, the Man Who Killed John Lennon (New York: Villard Books, 1992), 11.
Record levels for murder: Leonard Buder, “1980 Called Worst Year of Crime in City History,” New York Times, February 25, 1981.
I would have definitely gone out with him: Jones, Let Me Take You Down, 11.
“poor man’s cocaine”: “Crack Cocaine: A Short History,” DrugFreeWorld.org.
a Gitane for sure: Harry Cockburn, “France Considers Banning Gitanes and Gauloises Cigarettes for Being ‘Too Cool,’” The Independent, July 21, 2016.
“truly alive for the first time in twenty years”: Jones, Let Me Take You Down, 11.
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annual flexi disc from the band featuring a Christmas message: Jordan Runtagh, “Beatles’ Rare Fan-Club Christmas Records: A Complete Guide,” Rolling Stone, December 15, 2017.
“He’d write ‘Strawberry Fields’”: Joshua Wolf Shenk, “The Power of Two,” The Atlantic, July/August 2014.
“We could put the two together and make a smashing single”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000), 239.
“an old poster advertising a variety show that starred Mr. Kite”: David Rybaczewski, “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!,” Beatlesebooks.com.
“I don’t mind Engelbert Humperdi
nck. They’re the cats”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology, 239.
“the only thing you couldn’t do was kill people. Everything else was acceptable”: Dave Swanson, “50 Years Ago: Jefferson Airplane Release Their Debut Album, ‘Takes Off,’” UltimateClassicRock.com, August 15, 2016.
“I was going through murder”: Bob Spitz, The Beatles: The Biography (New York: Back Bay, 2006), 665.
“an alter-ego band”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology, 241.
“you stick two bits of Pepper in it and it’s a concept”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology, 241.
“Let Sgt. Pepper do the touring”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology, 241.
“It was all there, the trampoline, the somersets, the hoops, the garters, the horse”: Barry Miles, Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), 317.
“I want to be in that circus atmosphere. I want to smell the sawdust”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology, 247.
“John would deal in moods, he would deal in colors”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology, 247.
“Cellophane flowers”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology, 242.
“You’re stuck out in suburbia, living a middle-class life”: Spitz, The Beatles, 666.
“it was becoming impossible to communicate”: Spitz, The Beatles, 666.
“I think the drugs destroyed a lot of his creativity”: Ray Connolly, Being John Lennon: A Restless Life (New York: Pegasus Books, 2018), 237.
“George, I’m not feeling too good”: Spitz, The Beatles, 671.
“They just look like stars to me”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology, 242.
“John always had a way of having an edge to his songs”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology, 242.
“It had to be just right”: “John Lennon Sgt. Pepper Album Cover Sketch,” Juliensive.com, May 20, 2017.
seven hundred hours of studio time to create this thirteenth LP: David Rybaczewski, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” BeatleseBooks.com.
a twenty-five-year-old American photographer, Linda Eastman: Philip Norman, Paul McCartney: The Life (New York: Little, Brown, 2016), 272–73.
the Animals, another leading British music export: Philip Norman, Paul McCartney, 266.
longtime girlfriend Jane Asher: “Paul McCartney and Jane Asher Announce Their Engagement,” BeatlesBible.com.
Brian’s recently purchased country home: “The Beatles Attend a Party at Brian Epstein’s Country House,” BeatlesBible.com.
1964 Rolls-Royce Phantom V: Jordan Runtagh, “John Lennon’s Phantom V: The Story of the Psychedelic Beatle-Mobile,” Rolling Stone, July 27, 2017.
“It was sprayed all yellow first”: John Lennon, The John Lennon Letters, edited by Hunter Davies (New York: Little, Brown, 2012), 234.
ordinary latex house paint: Brett Berk, “John Lennon’s Psychedelic Rolls-Royce Returns to the U.K. to Celebrate Sgt. Pepper’s 50th Anniversary,” Billboard, July 12, 2017.
“The first time I drove it, I was followed by hordes of photographers”: Lennon, The John Lennon Letters, 234.
“John and friends floated in on his gaudy yellow Rolls”: Runtagh, “John Lennon’s Phantom V.”
“Crowds of jeering, waving people pressed up against the tinted windows”: “The Beatles Attend a Party at Brian Epstein’s Country House.”
“How dare you do that to a Rolls-Royce!”: Tom Hawthorn, “The Magical History Tour of Lennon’s Rolls-Royce,” Globe and Mail (Canada), January 18, 2011.
“not a teen-age album, but a terribly intellectual one.” Lillian Ross, “Sgt. Pepper,” The New Yorker, June 24, 1967.
legendary composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein: Olivia B. Waxman, “How the Beatles Made Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Work,” Time, June 1, 2017.
“There is no longer any need, thank goodness, to apologize”: Richard Nelsson, “The New Beatles’ Dazzler: Sgt. Pepper Reviewed—Archive 1967,” The Guardian, June 1, 2017.
“tendency to overdo the curry power”: Nelsson, “The New Beatles’ Dazzler.”
“a touch of the Jefferson Airplane, a dab of Beach Boys vibrations”: Richard Goldstein, “We Still Need the Beatles, but…” New York Times, June 1, 1967.
“The music critic of the New York Times hated Sgt. Pepper”: Geoff Edgers, “Meet the Critic Who Panned ‘Sgt. Pepper’ Then Discovered His Speaker Was Busted. He’s Still Not Sorry,” Washington Post, May 11, 2017.
“The Lennon raunchiness has become mere caprice”: Goldstein, “We Still Need the Beatles, but…”
“If they want to read drugs into our stuff, they will”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology, 247.
“It will be the first worldwide satellite broadcast ever”: Gavin Edwards, “The Beatles Make History with ‘All You Need Is Love’: A Minute-by-Minute Breakdown,” Rolling Stone, August 28, 2014.
“I suppose we’d better write something”: Edwards, “The Beatles Make History with ‘All You Need Is Love.’”
“In contrast, John seemed to live in chaos”: Shenk, “The Power of Two.”
“Keep it simple so viewers across the globe will understand”: Spitz, The Beatles, 700.
“Well, it’s certainly repetitive”: Spitz, The Beatles, 702.
You know I love you…I really mean that: Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life (New York: Ecco, 2008), 504.
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“What one of us wants, the others go along with”: Barry Miles, Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now (Henry Holt, 1997), 403.
“It’s fantastic stuff, Cyn”: Cynthia Lennon, “The Beatles, the Maharishi, and me,” The Sunday Times (UK, February 10, 2008).
“Tell him you’re with us”: Bob Spitz, The Beatles: The Biography (New York: Back Bay, 2006), 711.
“Why are you always last, Cyn?”: Ray Connolly, Being John Lennon: A Restless Life (New York: Pegasus Books, 2018), 246.
“Now we’re our own managers; now we have to make all the decisions”: Miles, Paul McCartney, 406.
“I introduced Brian to pills—which gives me a guilt association with his death”: Connolly, Being John Lennon, 248.
“cooled us out a bit”: Miles, Paul McCartney, 406.
“He just told us not to be overwhelmed with grief”: Connolly, Being John Lennon, 247.
“If we goofed, then we goofed”: Adam Behr, “Magical Mystery Tour: A Rare Beatles Flop—but It Paved the Way for Monty Python,” The Conversation, December 22, 2017.
“I get higher than I ever did with drugs”: David Chiu, “The Beatles in India: 16 Things You Didn’t Know,” Rolling Stone, February 12, 2018.
“The minute you clear it”: Miles, Paul McCartney, 414.
“We’re not fucking here to do the next album, we’re here to meditate”: Miles, Paul McCartney, 414.
“The way George is going he’ll be flying on a magic carpet by the time he’s forty”: Connolly, Being John Lennon, 261.
“the most miserable songs on earth”: Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life (New York: Ecco, 2008), 534.
“I’m a cloud”: Spitz, The Beatles, 755.
“keen to learn the finger-style guitar I played”: Miles, Paul McCartney, 421–22.
“slip me the real secret mantra which would give me happiness”: Sandip Roy, “Fifty Years on, India Is Celebrating the Beatles’ Infamous Trip to the Country,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 6, 2018.
“I thought he might slip me the answer!” Miles, Paul McCartney, 426.
“Something had gone very wrong between John and me”: Spitz, The Beatles, 755.
“always had some kind of affairs going”: David Sheff, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2000), 178.
“We had no problems at home”: Connolly, Being John Lennon, 237.
“he would be lost in a daydream: present, but absent”: Connolly, Being John Lennon, 237.
“We are going in with clear heads and hoping for the best”: Jordan Runtagh, “The Beatles’ Revelatory
White Album Demos: A Complete Guide,” Rolling Stone, May 29, 2018.
“We hope to make a thing that’s free”: Joel Rose, “The Beatles’ Apple Records: Forty Years Later,” NPR.org, May 14, 2008.
“Take a taxi”: Carol Clerk, “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” Uncut, September 2003.
“We can do two things”: Clerk, “The Ballad of John and Yoko.”
“I want to go and live with Yoko”: Spitz, The Beatles, 765.
met once before at a meditation meeting: “In Her Life After John, Cynthia Lennon Didn’t Stop Loving Him,” Fresh Air, NPR.org, April 2, 2015.
“Oh, hi”: Spitz, The Beatles, 772.
Yoko moves into John’s house: Norman, John Lennon, 541.
Chapter 35
“I want to put out what I feel about revolution”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000), 298.
“I demand equal time, equal space, equal rights”: Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life (New York: Ecco, 2008), 548.
“She just moved in”: Bob Spitz, The Beatles: The Biography (New York: Back Bay, 2006), 777.
“It’s not that bad”: Rob Sheffield, “And in the End,” Rolling Stone, August 17, 2020.
“because Yoko sat on an amp”: Sheffield, “And in the End.”
“No, no, I want that guitar to sound dirtier!”: Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey, Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles (New York: Gotham Books, 2006), 252.
“It was as much Yoko’s as it was John’s”: Emerick and Massey, Here, There and Everywhere, 240.
“a pimple on the face of the [White] album”: Alan Smith, “The Beatles: The Beatles,” New Musical Express, November 9, 1968.
“It wasn’t that she inspired the songs. She inspired me”: David Sheff, “Playboy Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono,” Playboy, January 1981.
“I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends, you know”: John Lennon, interview with Peter Lewis, Release, BBC-2, June 6, 1968.