Original subtitles

I just want sashimi.

Yeah. Kicho, 45th Street.

Look up in the phone book, Kicho.

Say who it's for.

Yoko Ono, not me.

Say it's for Yoko. I don't know, otherwise I don't get it. I want just

tuna, tamago, and sashimi. Just give me that raw fish.

Just give me that.

All ready, everybody?

One, two.

One, two, three, four.

He was back in the studio doing what he loved.

He was probably the happiest person in the world.

He's like a little kid in a candy store. He was having a ball.

And happy as hell to be singing again.

And we would be in the middle of a good take, and all of a sudden, he just felt

like breaking into some lyric that would make everybody laugh and make mistakes.

He'd just do it.

Okay, we'll try one more.

Okay, just really watch yourself after coming out of the Latin, because the

way I know is because I have to sing it fast at the same time.

It's after... And then everybody's coming...

We're stepping out!

You see, so just lay back, you know. He's only stepping out. He's not

We were nervous, not only for ourselves, but nervous about John.

If he would, having not been in the studio for five years, have his act

or not.

As far as all that went, he was totally together.

From the moment he picked his guitar up and said, right, here's a song. Let's

start with this one.

I'm stepping out.

I'm stepping out.

I'm stepping out.

I'm stepping out.

How do you reinvent yourself if you were once a Beatle and defined by that

moment in time?

I suppose that New York offers you the opportunity to reinvent yourself.

If immigrants have come to New York for years and years in search of Lord knows

what, John Lennon isn't your typical immigrant, but John has come to find

something, and it seems that he's found it.

John would often say, I should have been born in New York City.

You know, he loved New York.

One of my biggest kicks is just going out to eat or go in the movies, and

things I couldn't do when I was in the middle of the Beatles stuff.

And I really get off on that. And people, occasionally people ask for

or just want to shake hands with the coolest one. That happens, which is cool

with me. And I'm just known enough to keep my ego floating, but unknown enough

to get around, which is nice.

We were at Hit Factory. He comes in, he's got this silver coat with the fur

collar. He said, look at this. What do you think of this?

I said, it's... He said, it's the greatest ever.

I said, okay, John. I said, no, let me tell you why it's amazing.

He said, you know Charivari? I said, sure. He said, I walked into Charivari.

I walked into the store. People were in there. I walked around.

I picked stuff up.

I tried a few things on. I went into the dressing room.

Yeah. He said, then I saw this jacket. I liked it. I tried it on. It fit me.

Yeah. He said, I took out this.

Uh -huh. My American Express card, yeah.

I went over, I paid for it myself.

And then I left.

No must, no fuss.

The freedom, finally you had freedom.

That was New York, that's why you loved it.

New York City.

Johnny Yoko came to New York in 71, and they actually moved into Bank Street

literally half a block from my house in the village.

And everybody in the neighborhood, we all knew Johnny Yoko moved in, like

everybody heard through the grapevine. But, you know, we're in New York, you

don't go, it's not Beatlemania, you don't go knock on his door or scream

comes outside.

Bank Street was really the kind of place that I really wanted the apartment in.

It's a tiny apartment.

I think there was only two rooms.

And we were not really bothered by people so much as in London.

When we first moved here, we actually lived in Greenwich Village, which is the

sort of artsy -fartsy section of town, for those who don't know, where all the

students and the would -be's live, you know, and a few old poets and that.

You know, people have lived there for years, you know, still live there.

New York, even in 1970, was the art capital.

All the music happened in theatre.

You know, Andy Warhol.

That was part of also Yoko Ono's life.

And John wanted to be connected with both worlds.

The village was great then.

A little risque sometimes, you know, before they cleaned up New York.

People on the street begging for money, and if you don't give them money, they

would shoot you.

Pulled out on 8th Avenue one night, and there was John and Yoko hailing a cab in

the middle of 8th Avenue.

I went, pull over.

Get in the car. What are you doing?

Geez, you're a beetle. You're running around, you know, hailing cabs on 8th

Avenue.

The village sucked you in because there was so much political energy.

It was...

What everybody was consumed with, it seemed.

People would be standing on the corner.

You know, there would be a big Nixon discussion all of a sudden would break

you know, on something that happened in the war, maybe that day in the papers.

And I know John and Yoko, that was so much a part of what their whole New York

thing was about.

New York was a lot easier for them.

Because they were treated so badly in England, they had very, you know, bad

feelings about that, because John admired Yoko, and the press totally

apart and made fun of her.

We really get hurt by abuse. We don't mind criticism of our work at all. But,

mean, the British press actually called Yoko ugly in the papers, and I've never

seen that about any woman or man, even if a person is ugly.

You don't normally sort of say it in the paper, you know, that ugly woman, and

she's not ugly, and if she was...

You wouldn't be so mean. They even say attractive about the most awful -looking

people, just to be kind.

When I first landed in London, I was invited by the Discussion Arts

Anyone who is interested could come up on the stage and try to fly off from

these ladders.

And it was a sort of very artsy crowd of people. They accepted me. It was great.

But once I became connected with John, it was a different story. All the people

who used to like me were just kind of looking away.

John was a Beatle, you know, he was a pop star.

And then suddenly he was with this crazy, outlandish, avant -garde artist,

they were sending acorns to all the world leaders. Like, how is that going

bring peace?

Why the bag?

Because we believe it's total communication.

And they were in bags, and how is that going to help anybody?

All we're saying is give peace a chance.

But if the least we can do is give somebody a laugh, we're willing to be

world's clowns. They were just a messenger.

You know, and the fact that they were sitting in bed and talking about hair,

that just made it funny and interesting.

But the whole idea was to get that word peace in front of everybody's mind.

I don't go along with the message because you're Japanese or whatever. I

it's because you are an unorthodox figure.

People were not very happy with John either. They felt that John went crazy.

And we both suffered together.

And that kept us so close.

Oh, my love, for the first time in my life,

my eyes are wide open.

I want to love this country because this is my husband's country. But I'll be a

masochist if I love this country, when I'm constantly abused, you know,

whatever.

And I've never experienced anything like that. And that was true with John too.

It was sort of inhuman.

Oh, I feel loved.

Everything is clear in our world.

But there's an incredible romanticism about being refugees.

We just felt like we returned to our motherland kind of thing, which is New

York, you know, because we really felt that.

Well, we're on the same page with New Yorkers, and we were New Yorkers in our

heads, you know.

When we came to New York, the first people we got in touch with was Abby

and Jerry Rubin.

When we were in London, every night we were watching TV.

And we saw Abby and Jerry doing their thing in Chicago.

The Chicago 7 doing their thing in front of a judge, you know.

I got a lot of different emotions when I hear this guy, Pearson.

One is I feel like vomiting because it's so nauseating. Because this is the man

that they're trying to use to put all of us... in the federal penitentiary for

10 years.

Wow, it's great. They're like us. And also, we were not only activists, but we

had the kind of little touch of theater.

Well, I have a good seat.

It's unbelievable theater.

Great show.

Abby and Jerry completely incorporated the Marshall McLuhan notion in that all

that was needed was to...

seize control of the platform provided by television and music, and you would

electrify and mobilize millions and millions of young people, and that was

way to subvert the system. So they were trying to actively recruit John Lennon

because they knew that he could turn on millions of people.

So you're suddenly in New York City now, as you were just saying that.

What are, first of all, your immediate plans for the future?

Shortly, we'll be going to a political meeting for John Sinclair, who was a man

that was put in prison for 10 years for smoking two marijuana joints.

In Louisiana.

In Ann Arbor, Michigan.

And we've written a special song called John Sinclair, which we'll sing at that

performance. Hello, hello. Hello, hello. Hello, hello. Okay.

Yes. One, two, three, four.

John has come out in the middle of this explosive era, and he makes the John

Sinclair rally a huge event. 10 ,000, 20 ,000 people show up in Ann Arbor. We

came here not only to help John and to spotlight what's going on,

but also to show and to say to all of you that apathy

isn't it, and that we can do something.

Okay, so flower power didn't work, so what?

We start again.

Lenin has learned that the anti -war movement was exhausted and despairing.

the people that say that the movement, the revolution is over, they ought to

what's going on right here because it doesn't look over to me.

People are feeling weaker and more powerless.

People forget that a war that brings home 100 to 300 dead bodies.

a week is particularly urgent the killing is monotonous and by 67 68

it's it's hundreds a week that are dead so it incites a now or never

mentality that this is it we have to step up we have to end this and

gradualism is inappropriate so we have to block the war machine by

whatever means are available.

We have adopted a plan

which we have worked out in cooperation with the South Vietnamese for the

complete withdrawal of all U .S. combat ground forces and their replacement by

South Vietnamese forces on an orderly scheduled time table.

In 1971, the sense was that if the American war machine escalates its war,

we have to escalate our tactics. And the solution was more militants.

We must move from protest to resistance.

That was Logan, and that was the world into which Lenin adapted when he arrived

in the United States in 1971.

I read somewhere that the war movement was over.

They thought that it had all come undone with the killings at Kent State in

1970.

Remember, the largest student strike in the history of the United States stopped

everything on campuses. Many schools did not complete the semester in the spring

of 1970.

So they already thought they were looking at an imminent revolution led by

students and blacks.

And then here comes John Lennon to add his luster and lyrics to the uprising.

It's an exciting and optimistic moment, and the most amazing thing of all is 48

hours later, John Sinclair gets out of jail, something no one thought would

happen. So John and Yoko, Jerry and Abby, they're just feeling triumphant.

only do they have a great concert, They got John Sinclair out of jail.

It seems like at this moment, anything is possible.

This is like a magical mystery tour has begun.

Somehow, if John Lennon shows up, he so changes the equation that a man

in prison is released.

So you can imagine, you know, with the addition of chemical substances, what

this did.

To the yippy mind, you know, the possibilities were infinite.

We need John to help us rise up like a hurricane, to sweep this man Nixon and

his war makers into the sea. We need John.

Jerry and Abby and Rennie Davis have an idea.

Actually, it's quite a good idea.

Lenin should lead a national concert tour that will bring not just rock and

roll, but an anti -war message and voter registration.

across the United States.

Now, this voter registration thing is actually the key because 72 was going to

be the first election in which 18 -year -olds had the right to vote. So the

question was, how can we get 18 -year -olds to register to vote, vote against

Nixon, vote for peace?

And the idea was, well, Lenin will tell them to do this, and we'll have voter

registration right at the concerts.

And this would have been the first tour of the United States by any of the ex

-Beatles.

Since the Beatles' final American tour when they waved farewell in Candlestick

Park in 1966.

Six years no Beatles, this would have been big.

They knew that he could turn on millions of people.

And I remember going to the woods outside of Washington for a meeting that

thought was secret with Rennie Davis, which shows up in the FBI files.

at which he tried to incorporate me into this scheme for the John Lennon

speaking tour.

Turns out that among the 20 ,000 people in Chrysler Arena that night, there's a

FBI undercover agent who's taking complete notes on what everybody says,

down every word Lennon says, the lyrics to Lennon's song. He writes down John

Sinclair in a stare for breathing air.

This report gets sent to J. Edgar Hoover.

The FBI, the sensible reason for being interested in this is they're supposed

protect the president at the Republican National Convention, and these people

are talking about protest demonstrations.

The same people who caused all those problems in Chicago in 68, and now

talking about doing it again, but with John Lennon in the front.

So they've got to be stopped.

Of course, John wouldn't do it in the way that Jerry and Abby wanted to do

things.

But in his way, he was really trying to make it happen about McGovern to be

the next president and also that we are heading towards peace.

So we were trying to, with our effort, we can make it.

The Nixon White House decided they've got to be stopped.

And so the word gets passed.

through the FBI to Senator Strom Thurmond, Republican of South Carolina.

And he writes a memo to Nixon's Attorney General, John Mitchell.

And the Strom Thurmond memo concludes, Lenin is planning to do this, but

deportation would be a strategic countermeasure.

A couple of weeks later, they begin deportation proceedings against John

I know we're going to end up with that clean, clean fucking recorded sound,

which I hate.

Two, three, four.

It was Jerry Rubin that introduced us to John Lennon. He just showed up one

night. He wasn't invited.

He just came in and he said, I'd really like to meet the band.

And my jaw just dropped.

We had a lot of street bands. The Elephant's Memory is known as a...

political kind of street band.

I think we fueled the energy of everyone in the village on it.

We were the movement band.

Whenever there was a rally or a benefit, we were there.

We were playing, and at one point he looks at me and goes like this.

And I realize that I'm playing there, and I'm like... So he looked and gave me

the face, you know. And then I realized I have to start being cool.

Jerry brought the cassette tape of Elephant's Memory and said, listen to

And we listened to it. Great.

It's just, you know, they had a soul.

I can capsulize it in one word, energy.

There was just an unbelievable amount of energy emulating from the band.

Play some travel, Pat.

Play some talk.

Play!

They were crazy musicians.

They just went on and on and on, and John was part of them. He loved them.

They were village -type recorders.

They should have been in the garage recording, you know, with two

but we tried to do it in the studio, and when we did make it clean, nobody liked

it. So we had to go back in to, you know, add the dirtiest sound we could

which is easy to get.

But we had to catch them the first two hours of the recording.

Because they were never, never land after that.

I think you understand.

It wasn't too long, maybe a week and a half of rehearsing at the most, when

Woman is the Nigger of the World started, where I heard the first words

there was a new tune.

John came in with the lyrics, and we went into the room to the piano, and he

said, here's the song, and he started strumming.

Woman is the nigger of the world.

And I said, what?

Woman is the nigger? Wow.

That's amazing. You're going to say that? Yeah.

So he put it out, and I don't think most of the radio stations would play it.

And we got taken off the air for using dope as a lyric.

So, you know, putting a nigger with a, you know, you can't even say that today.

I understood what he was saying, but I guess that was kind of naive, you know,

in terms of how the media might look at all that stuff.

It was 1972.

Nixon was still president.

We're actually on the Dick Cavett show, and then I realized, ooh, I guess this

is not going to go well in terms of figuring out a really good, honest case

about some of this stuff.

Will you welcome, please, John and Yoko Flanagan.

I had John and Yoko on, and Sue said, we're going to write a little insert

before the song for you to say.

I said, you are going to censor my guests after I get them on the show?

ludicrous. John and Yoko got into something which ABC feels may develop

their words, a highly controversial issue.

So they wrote this thing, and I went in and taped it in order to retain the

song. In the next segment, John Lennon gives his reasons for writing the song

and for using the word.

Woman is the nigger of the world.

Yes, she is.

This is a song about the women's problem. It was written by Yoko and I.

song is called Woman is the Nigger of the World.

And obviously there was a few people that reacted strangely to it, but

they were white and male.

because a lot of stations were saying, well, we're not going to play this

because it says nigger and a white man shouldn't say it. And then the chairman

of the Black Caucus, that great guy, Congressman Ron Dellum, Democrat of

California, says here, he came out with this, which is fantastic.

If you define niggers as someone whose lifestyle is defined by others... whose

opportunities are defined by others, whose role in society is defined by

then good news.

You don't have to be black to be a nigger in this society.

Most of the people in America are niggers.

I didn't say that.

Oh, my goodness.

We'll never get enough.

About 600 protests did come in.

None of them about the song. All of them about, quote, that mealy -mouthed

statement you forced Dick to say before the show. Don't you believe we are grown

up? Oh, God. It was wonderful in that sense. It gave me hope for the Republic.

Tell them about the case and everything.

We're really frightened now because there's some people...

feel that we have to maybe leave this country.

The Nixon administration, in its finite wisdom, wanted John booted out of the

country. I didn't realize quite the seriousness of it and what an awful

burden it was for both of them. We went to an immigration lawyer who knew about

immigration, and he has really been surprised, because he worked in

15 years, he's really been surprised by some of the things that have gone on.

John told me that he had a conviction of possessing hash back in

London about four years earlier.

So I asked him, what is hash?

I said, is it marijuana?

He said, no, it's much better than marijuana.

He said, it's related, but it is a completely different substance.

So I knew right away that there was something to hang my hat on.

And the immigration office saying, well, this is only because of the drug case,

you know, and nothing else.

But the strange thing is people like Donovan, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger,

George Harrison, all have exactly the same cases. Exactly the same record

the same time. And they can come and go, you know, any time they can.

It was. He was a headhunter, you know. Where is it they're after you for?

They're after us because we want peace, you know. We've said the same thing for

two years, different one way or another.

And we believe in it.

My recommendation was that they apply immediately for an extension for about

months or so on their visa.

I went to see my old friend, the district director of immigration in New

because I felt that he could grant an extension on the spot.

And he said that he will look into it.

We better go in. We're late. We'll see you when we come out if you want.

We talked to you when you came out? We have a number of matters that we have to

take care of.

The next day, he called me back, and he said, Leon, we want your clients out of

the United States.

I didn't know who he meant by we.

He said, because it's you, if you file an application for an

extension, I'll grant a month's extension.

But then, get them the hell out of the United States.

You said before that you love New York and you want to stay here. A lot of

people are turned off in New York. What do you like about it?

met a lot of new yorkers who complain about it but nobody moves out it's the

greatest place on earth and if this was rome i want to live in rome not in wales

it is rome you know i've heard a lot of legal proceedings but i don't think i

ever heard so many confusing terms did you understand anything that was said up

there i just know we're still here and nobody dragged us away

We had an expression in the 60s that just because you're paranoid doesn't

you're not being followed.

Yes, we were all paranoid, but yes, we were being followed.

I had a peripheral role being a photographer, and yet there were several

instances where I was followed and didn't realize it so much at the time

it would be the furthest thing from my mind to think that I was doing something

that the federal government would be interested in, that I came out of my

one time and I looked at the street and I saw somebody take my picture and kind

of turned away, and I looked back when I realized somebody had taken my picture,

and it was a guy in a fedora hat. They looked like G -men, and he kind of

down, and they drove down the street really fast, and I knew I had seen it.

And I said, like, what the hell was that?

I saw the guy on my phone. Those FBI guys were in the basement of my building

for the whole time we were recording.

I would see them. They knew I knew they were there. I would come in. I would

ring my buzzer. And they were around the stairs in the back, and they had their

little tape machine set up. And I could hear the click on my phone every time I

picked it up. So it wasn't hard to figure out.

Pretty unnerving, actually, at the time.

More so for my wife. I think she, at the time, she was very paranoid about that.

Who wouldn't be?

When it first started, I was followed in the car, and my phone was tapped.

And I think they wanted me to know to scare me, and I was scared, paranoid.

So you can imagine John Lennon says his phone's tapped and there's men following

him in the car.

People thought I was crazy then. I mean, they do anyway, but I mean, more so,

you know, Lenin. Oh, you big -headed maniac, right?

Who's going to follow you around? Well, what do they want? You know, that's what

I'm saying. What do they want? They wanted to make it obvious so that we

get scared.

They wanted to shut us up.

They were trying to intimidate them.

They were trying to scare them into leaving the United States.

I did feel bad.

I did try to advise them to lay low, but this was John and Yoko.

When we did Sometime in New York City, we were doing a newspaper, but

there were mistakes.

A little harmony wasn't perfect. We didn't go back and perfect every note.

printed it out, you know, to make a statement on the society right now,

away, and no BS.

Just say it. You know, I think this is wrong, that's right, this is my opinion.

This has ended up as the worst ever confrontation between the army and the

Catholic people of the Craigham and Bogside.

We lost our green land We lost our green air

Sometime in New York City, that was outrageous.

We just went totally against what was acceptable in the music world or the

and roll world. We were just getting to be a virtual wreck.

John was getting very anxious about getting this album out there.

It's going to be political. It's going to be different for him.

This was really just in -your -face politics.

Politics was in the air those days. You know, you couldn't avoid it, right?

She had Chairman Mao and Richard Nixon dancing naked on the cover. It wasn't

really their bodies, we just stuck their heads on. We got into a lot of trouble,

that's all I know.

That was the record that really gave us hell.

A lot of problems with that. And I don't think we sold so much, you know. So I

don't think that people had the same opinion with us.

I didn't really have time to think about, you know, that it was such a

I realized that the political issue was something that probably would hold the

album back.

He wasn't disappointed in us, but I think he was disappointed in the

Are we on?

Yeah, anytime you're ready. Okay. Hi, this is John Lennon. This is Yoko. The

-to -one benefit concert for the children of Willowbrook is sold out, and

surprised me too. So we're announcing a special matinee performance.

It's on the same day. It happens at 2 o 'clock. That's also Wednesday, the 30th

of August. John? Yeah?

Let's do it again.

Two, three, four!

The idea for the one -to -one concert came from Yoko

Ono. I was a local newsman, and in January 1972, I get this call from Yoko.

She tells me that she and John had been watching my coverage of the awful

conditions at the Willowbrook State School for the Mentally Retarded and

they wanted to get involved and maybe they could do something.

They

started

rehearsing for this concert at Massachusetts Garden and I remember

rehearsal. And he would play a couple of Elvis Presley, Bo Diddley songs to warm

up. And then he started singing Cold Turkey or Imagine.

And it was suddenly, not this new friend of ours, John. It was like, oh my God,

he's that guy. He's the Beagle. Listen to that voice. That's the Beagle voice.

Imagine there is no heaven.

It's easier to fly.

No hell.

I think he thought of the one -to -one concert as a rehearsal for the world

tour. And the only way to get around all the green card thing was to do benefit

concerts.

Nothing to kill or die for.

No religion too.

This is what we had been building to.

Here we were, we were playing with John Lennon. I wanted to tour the universe.

You gotta live!

This was supposed to be our first show of basically a national tour. We're

starting to assemble the gear. We're ordering custom -made road cases. It's

to go out and tour.

We have to put it off because I want to tend to this deportation thing and get

everything straight before we go out.

You've got to run.

You've got to hide.

You've got to keep your woman satisfied.

And we kept hanging on that, hanging on it, one week to the next.

It's hard to get hard.

Like at one time I had this group together, Elephant's Memory and a few

people, and I was ready to go on the road just for fun. I didn't care whether

was going to get paid even. I just felt like going out.

I had to send them away, and that put me off performing for a bit. And then I

still sort of did my work, because I can't stop it even if I'm in a bad state

mind. But it was affecting me. It affected my whole life, actually.

At the time, I didn't think anything of it. We were just doing a good concert to

let people know that peace is important.

Let's end this war.

Now I realize this was when they were trying to deport us. They were doing

The reviews were great for

us as a band.

Unfortunately,

The critics were very tough on John and Yoko.

After the concert, we didn't see him for a week after the reviews came out. He

was very upset.

John and I got off the stage. We hugged each other. We thought it was a great

thing we did.

The next morning, it was a bad, bad review.

John never experienced that kind of a bad situation before that.

I think it weighed on him more than me.

You know, just one thing was going wrong after another.

John didn't take it very well at all. The critics panned the album. The

panned the concert, basically hated it.

The Nixon administration issued a deportation order to try to throw John

the country. He started getting legal problems.

And John was really going into a dark place.

President Nixon and his vice president, Spiro Agnew, again headed the GOP ticket

in 72.

Florida, solid Nixon country. West Virginia, a surprise, going to the

Republicans. New Hampshire, not a surprise.

Maryland, Agnew's revenge back in the Republican column.

We were in the studio and somebody came and said, Nixon won.

Gone tonight to the Republicans.

Kansas, Connecticut.

Texas, Michigan, Delaware. We found out, I think at the studio, if I remember

correctly, that Nixon had won, and I think that was the end of the session.

It just totally deflated everybody. We all got very depressed.

John particularly was, you know, he took it very personally.

We projected President Nixon will come out of this the winner with about 60 %

the popular vote and somewhere between 450 and 500 or more.

Electoral vote.

Congratulations on your victory.

That night particularly was pretty ugly.

We were invited down to Jerry Rubin's house to watch the election return, but

didn't finish until pretty late at night. And by the time we finished,

already won.

But we went down to Jerry's house, and there were still some people there. And

we were pretty drunk when we got there, but then there was more drinking.

We were very rowdy. Way too rowdy.

My wife had too much to drink. I just wanted to leave.

So it was time to bail for me.

So by the time that we were in a car to go to Jerry Rubin's party, Joe was

swaying.

And I think, you know, what happened there, I totally

understand.

You know, that he just...

Just pulled one girl and went into the next room and started to

make love, I suppose.

And this big noise and everything.

And one of the Elephant's Memory guys, Stan, Stan

was very sweet. He just put Bob Dylan's record on and sort of boosted up.

But it just didn't do any good.

But it was that kind of night.

And I felt very sad for myself.

I didn't like it, but at the same time, I understood what he was going through.

And when I hurt you And cause you pain

Darling, I promise I

won't do it again

The next day we were in the studio, and John was still hungover. He looked very

sheepish, very remorseful. He knew he had screwed up. He knew as many times as

you try to apologize, it didn't erase the fact that he had embarrassed Yoko so

badly in front of everybody.

And we walked out on the dock by Bank Street and just sort of sat there. And

coming back, we were taking some pictures. There's one where John's on

knees, kind of asking for forgiveness.

He was still dealing with him, but it wasn't okay.

It's hard enough I know to feel, to

feel your pain.

I really thought that there was an incredible amount of anger in him, but

because he did not want to be separate from me

at all.

So that we were together 24 hours a day, literally.

So I thought that was really getting to us, maybe.

So I thought, well, we need some, you know, separation.

For me, actually, you know, I was not what I envisioned myself to be.

And in a situation like that, why should I want to stay there?

And I just wanted to find myself.

So I thought it was good if he goes to L .A. and just find himself or just have

a rest from this situation.

One thing I've understood.

Good morning, Southern California. It's 619 and 62 degrees in Hollywood.

This is John Lennon. And if you have any requests, call me at 520 -1974.

I've been working with them for three years. And one day, they said to me, you

know that John and I are not getting along.

And I'm looking at her and I said, Oh, I'm really sorry to hear that.

And I'm thinking, why is she telling this to me now?

I knew it would be very difficult for him to just go to L .A. by himself. He

never did anything like that. So I felt very responsible.

And so I wanted to make the trip as comfortable as possible for him.

Holden. Holden? Yeah.

Oh, hold on, Dana. Okay.

What's your request and why are we here?

I'd like to hear mind games.

You'd like to hear mind games? So would I. Isn't that wonderful?

I'd like to play some, actually.

Well, it's time to wheel you away.

Before we left New York, I remember John coming in to me and saying, I'm ready.

I said, I looked at him, I said, what do you mean? He goes, book the studio.

I'm going to do it now or I'm never going to do it.

And he didn't have the songs ready yet. But in two weeks he wrote Mind Games.

You know, you talk about somebody's brilliance, I mean, it's just amazing.

He was a very, very powerful songwriter.

He hears the chord structure, and then...

The words go around and around the block for a while.

But

by the

time he gets to the studio, he has the words written, and he's got maybe two

versions, and they go through changes until the word and the sound of the word

match the sound of the chord and the rhythm.

And you know that for sure.

A lot of the writing happened in the studio. While the musicians were

he would be changing lyrics.

I guess he got inspired by the band and the studio atmosphere.

You gotta let it, you gotta let it grow.

And John was just a very strong force of a personality.

So when he spoke, you listened, you know. You could be in the other room and

hear, he's just such a...

John was honest.

His lyrics were also very bluntly honest.

Everything was right up front with him. There was no mixing his words or being

diplomatic or beating around the bush. And his songs were like that too. He

out and just said it.

The words he

chooses are for everybody.

John talks of his problems, of the fight he has with himself.

And that's what makes it so strong, and that's what people can relate to.

You might not love me anymore.

He projected himself. He projected his guts.

And the way he played his guitar, same thing.

Temperature's rising.

Fever is high.

Can't see no future.

Can't see no sky.

My feet are so heavy.

With the honesty in playing, it's not the cleanest playing, but God is the

honest playing.

I wish I was a baby.

I wish I was dead.

Hold on.

And the funny thing was, he used to deliberately put his D string out of

He'd tune up, and then he'd turn the D flat.

And I said to him, why do you do that? Why do you flat the D string?

And he said, well, because when we used to make those Beatles records, they were

just mono mixes, and they would go on the radio.

And my Aunt Mimi would say, John, is one of these guitars you?

And he would say, yeah, that one. See the one?

lightly out of tune, that's me. And he never stopped doing that. He always...

Slightly, the D is slightly flat. That's my guitar.

That's how I know it's me.

In the beginning, he was exhilarated because L .A. was a total different

experience that he had never had before.

He loved the idea that he was handling his own stuff.

Going to the supermarket was great.

I remember going past this deli section, and John went, oh, got to have it. I

said, got to have what?

He goes, got to have caviar.

And I thought to myself, oh, my God, that's so expensive. He goes, no, you're

going to love it.

We had a lot of visitors.

We had Harry Nielsen, Keith Moon.

Every morning he'd come down dressed with a long leather coat, no trousers,

beetle boots, the scarf, the briefcase. And John said, ah, the Baron's up.

Morning, Baron.

And he'd click his heels and he'd go, morning, everyone. And then he'd just go

back up and we don't see him for a while.

We had Ringo there.

Paul. And they talked like they just only saw each other the other day.

And there was no animosity. It was just like two brothers coming back and just

picking up where they last left off.

And everybody was just relaxed. Everybody was just talking.

In that period, the bright side of it was quite bright, and John had a lot of

fun in there.

But there was a lot of turmoil at that time.

As much fun as he was having with Harry and with Keith Moon and with Ringo, I

didn't think he was happy. You know, you don't get drunk every night if you're

happy.

You know, you don't take drugs if you're happy.

I spoke with him every single day when he was in Los Angeles.

And there was only one subject on the table between John and I.

And that was how we can get back to Yoko.

Yoko kicked me out. I didn't go off on a, I'm going to be a rock and roll

bachelor. She literally said, get out.

And I said, okay, okay, I'm going. I've got a bachelor free. I've been married

all my life.

I'd been married before Yoko, and I immediately married Yoko, so I'd never

a bachelor since I was 20 or something. So I thought, whoo -hoo -ha -ha!

It was... God, awful.

No, no, E, E, E.

That's a clue.

You haven't been in tune all evening. Why change?

But after all... All right.

One of the greatest sessions of all time. History's in the making. And here

go. One, two, three.

One, two, three, four.

Oh, you yelled four.

Wait a minute. Phil, Phil.

You can't yell four over his playing.

Please accept my four. It's the only way I can come in. Well, the rock and roll

album, folks, started in 73 after I'd finished Mind Games. And I was really in

the middle of that, oh, you know, what's going on? Mother, life, help.

And I'd just done Mind Games. I thought, you know, how can I have some fun

instead of all this writing my feelings in these songs, you know?

You know, being the writer and the artist, you know, I thought, what can I

break that regime of, you know, writing the song John Lennon writes, new song,

is it about him or is it about Paul or, you know, whatever.

So I thought, I know.

I'm always in between takes, remember the Beatles to it.

Always would break into Bebopaloola or we'd always jam those songs.

So I thought, I know, who shall I use, you know.

It's a great perspective.

I took three weeks to talk him into being the producer. I said, look, I'm

on this one, all right? I just want to sing. I don't want to know nothing about

nothing. So we started the sessions, and they went well, and then they gradually

collapsed into mania.

It's one way of putting it.

It definitely got crazy. There was 28 guys playing a night, and 15 of them

out of their minds, including me.

Here we go.

What, what?

We're doing one. How's it going? Same way.

Yeah, yeah. I can't read this writing, you know. What is that tweeting bird out

there? Oh, God.

Birds, birds.

There's birds, God damn it, out there.

Hey, hey, hey. Some birds over there.

Yeah. They were great sessions.

Studios were huge.

Phil was known as the producer of what they called The Wall of Sound.

Be My Baby.

You lost that loving feeling.

That's Phil, and that's the old rock and roll that John loved.

But Phil had more or less a Napoleon complex, and I think that's when a lot

the arguments came out.

Phil would come in sober every night.

He would come in sober and ready to work.

And the beginning of the evening on every one of those sessions was

It was brilliant, really.

But John was a little bit over the top.

you know pretty early on he's drinking a lot and then phil would get would go

over the top and then pretty soon and we were all you know messing up bad it was

like a contagious thing you know we got the man here what man

14. any man let's go i'm gonna get an old girl banned

you need one let's go no hey barry give me a clue will you

Well, I tell you, let Barry... Shut up, you fucking... John would have this jug

of vodka.

I've never seen one since then that big. I guess they still make them. I thought

it was just a joke.

You know, it had to be like a five -gallon bottle of vodka.

And John would have that thing sitting right next to him, right next to his

guitar. And Phil would come in. Phil came in with different costumes at

different times.

One night he came in with a white butcher's.

coat on with like fake blood or something. Maybe it was real blood. Is

there? Yes, he's there.

Come on.

Okay, that's fine. All right.

Yes,

it did. Yeah.

When he was out there in California, that was rough because he was drinking

heavily and alcohol and John were like not a good idea ever.

Really not.

And he would get drunk and there was going to be trouble.

One of the nights of that

crazy period for John, we were at this restaurant, Lost on Larrabee, drinking.

And John decided to go into the women's room.

And so we thought it was funny.

And so he went in the ladies' room, and he came out with a Kotex on him, taped

on his forehead. He just stuck it to his head.

He just thought it was funny. He came out, and I went, oh, my God.

And so we're laughing hysterically, and we're egging him on, like, you know, oh,

that's great, you ought to keep it on.

And then we go into the troubadour, and because it's John, they didn't question

it, you know.

And it was like a normal night, evening, until he...

He stood up and he said a couple of things that, you know, are unsayable

I'm sitting there drinking my Diet Coke and there's a commotion about three rows

over. It was one of these long tables you're sitting at.

And all of a sudden people get up and say, that's John Lennon.

They're seeing this guy that would have been fun to see probably if he had been

really John Lennon. But no, he's really out of it and he's, you know, being

obscene. He was falling fast.

You know, he was like this.

This deep will, and he was falling fast, and he was going deeper and deeper into

it.

Every

day

was a bottle each of scotch or some good whiskey, you know. And I don't know how

he didn't die, you know.

He had no family.

and Yoko was his family.

So I called her, and it was like a lot of, on the

phone like that, like, Yoko, you have to come out here.

He called me one day and said, Yoko, you have to come and pick him up.

I said, what are you talking about?

All this time, you guys were thinking that I'm holding him up, and you can get

near him.

So now it's your turn. Do it.

You take care of him.

I remember one very, very scary night. We were at the Roxy and the

car came out.

through the Rainbow parking lot, you know where you park there, next to the

Roxy. And John walked out of the Roxy, and I got into the driver's seat, and

got in next to me. And I thought John was getting in the car, but instead he

turned around and walked back into the parking lot because there was a crowd of

people who had seen him that were calling, John, John, John.

And it was so frightening.

And so John walked back, and he was a little drunk, and he said, Hey, what do

you want? What do you want? And he starts staying there in this crowd.

And pretty soon they were, like, over him, and he was going, and he's

Take me! You know, and it was, like, insane. It was really Day of the Locust.

And Jim and I ran out and threw him in the back seat. We, like, tear him away

from the people. We're just, it was insane.

And we threw him in the back seat, and he's screaming, he's screaming, and they

just, you know, there's something about, they want me.

Jesse, the guitar player, and myself were put back there with him to hold him

down because he was trying to kick out the windows of the car. So we were

to hold him down, and he was just too strong. I mean, he, with one hand,

actually, he pushed me to the bottom of the well in the back.

and he was fighting Jesse off with his right hand and just screaming Yoko at

top of his lungs.

When he really got drunk, he would scream Yoko's name.

I drank too much and I was out of control and nobody was looking after me

needed somebody to love me and there was nobody there to support me and I fell

apart.

We

got up to

Lou Adler's and he ripped up a palm tree in the front.

He ripped out all of his phones. He broke all the gold records.

You know, it was just a crazy rage, alcoholic rage.

He missed Yoko, and he probably was frustrated that he couldn't go back

wanted to be.

You don't know what you got Until you lose it You don't know what

you got Until you lose it You don't know what you got

The worst was being separated from Yoko and realizing that I really, really

needed to be with her, wanted to be with her, and could not literally survive

without her. I just went to pieces, and I didn't realize that I needed her so

much.

I just needed more space.

We were so dependent on each other's body kind of thing.

And to be alone in bed was really very difficult.

I was shaking.

But I wasn't telling that to John, you know. I thought, well, this is bad that

person cannot be alone.

And if you're alone, you're shaking. Well, that's very bad.

But I could not say, okay, so let's get back together.

That was not the way I was feeling.

John wasn't with Yoko, and yet he still was with Yoko.

They still had a relationship. They still talked all the time. He was

in touch with Yoko every day, several times a day. He was on the phone with

I would tell Yoko, well, he believes he's okay now, and he's ready to come

to see you.

And she would say to me, no, he isn't. Now, Yoko was pretty sober during that

time, and Sean was very drunk and very depressed.

wasn't really moving forward, and Yoko was. She was starting her next album,

was getting new musicians together, she wasn't working with the Elephants

anymore, she got a really good studio band together.

She wanted to move forward.

It was a very productive time.

I was doing a lot of artwork, and I had some support from Andy Warhol, Allen

Ginsberg, Charlotte Moorman, George McHughness.

It was good.

So physically I was sort of suffering a bit.

But mentally, wow, it was just opening up in so many ways, you know. It was

pretty great.

John had come back to New York with a basic crew of good musicians who could

sober and work seriously.

You know, when he went to L .A.

with Phil Spector, there were times when there was 40 people in the room all

playing different instruments and everybody drunk.

And to salvage that, he came back to New York with a Walton Bridges album.

I woke up one day and thought, what is this?

I want to go home.

So finally I sort of stopped drinking.

I come back to New York because I want to get home to Yoko, and I also want to

get myself out of L .A. and out of the bottle.

And then I found myself producing Walls and Bridges.

We started recording Walls and Bridges. I was straight.

John was straight. The musicians were straight.

And the quality was better because we were all sober.

You've got to focus, and we were really focused.

Friend of mine says, John is recording at the record plant. He's doing some

finishing up on walls and bridges.

If you come down, I think it was Tuesday, I can probably get you into the

control room.

I'm there. No problem. You know, where do I sign up?

So I get to the record plant studio, and my first view of John is through the

glass.

Okay, hold it, hold it. Don't go da -da -dum.

We're having enough trouble, you know, just keeping the rhythm without any... I

don't want anything other than strict four in the bar unless it's written.

play what you were playing, and no... We have enough of that going on.

Alright. I'm just sort of watching him do whatever they were doing, because

literally were in the final stages of putting some odds and ends together for

the album.

This is it.

One, two, three, four.

Got to get down.

My brain is exploding. I am looking this close at a live beetle. Oh, my God.

I can't believe it. You know, I am. I am every teenager, you know, whatever.

I'm inside my head. I'm screaming.

It's John Lennon. It's the Beatles.

And in the moments before I have to leave, I say, gee, you know, if John

like to come up and visit the radio station to promote the new album, we'd

to have him.

The cover of the new album, for those of you who haven't had a chance to see it

yet in your favorite record store, there's a drawing on the front. It says

Lennon, June 52, age 11. Yeah, that's true of all the childhood sort of

and paintings I did. This was the only one that ever got saved.

And walls and bridges. What is that?

It's a prophetic title?

I don't really know, you know. I mean, I get these things that sound nice, you

know. I had the song number nine, Dream, was called Walls and Bridges, and, you

know, I just had the title Walls and Bridges, and I tried to fit it in

like a jigsaw.

So it didn't seem to fit any of the songs, and I hadn't written anything, so

just shoved it on as the album title. It seemed to be sort of wide enough to

cover everything. It's like communication, you know, walls.

Four walls, bridges you go over. I think I heard it on a public service

announcement on TV. One of those late night things that make you feel awful in

between the movies.

I am sitting behind a microphone.

John is across from me behind the turntables. And he gets very quickly

overwhelmed by the moment.

And he's a guy.

He's just a guy. This is John Lennon with Dennis on WNEW -FM.

And we're mucking about on a Saturday rainy afternoon because we've got you

trapped in your rooms, you see, because it's too wet to go anywhere.

We even have the four o 'clock temperature reading. We do? Oh, let's

it is. Temperature is 68. No wonder I'm sweating.

Humidity 93.

PCT, whatever that is.

Percent. Oh.

Why don't they do those little round things?

Barometer 30 .03 and falling. Oh, disgusting.

Somebody said it was, the air was unacceptable today, but I accept it.

Mostly cloudy with periods.

I'll rain this afternoon.

High times.

Oh, no.

Wish it was.

High this afternoon and tomorrow in the 70s. Low tonight in the mid -60s. Watch

out for it. Monday's outlook.

Fair and cool, man.

He is just off the cuff about everything.

And he's not just there to promote the record. He's hanging out.

And so then we get a little more serious.

We get to the point where we talk about immigration.

And we talk about New York. And we talk about how he feels.

Is it easier to be a John Lennon celebrity in New York? Are people less

hassle you? And can you go about your life? Can you have dinner in a

Oh, yeah, yeah. I think people are a bit cooler in New York than people sort of

will wave or something, or a taxi driver if they are, you know. Are you still

here? Or whatever, good luck and all that jazz about immigration.

Can we... Yes, we can. Yeah. What about all that?

Well, I've been here three years and...

I love it, you know, and that's why I'm fighting so much to stay here so as I

can be in New York, you know. Maybe they could just ban me from Ohio or

something. You know, nothing against Ohio.

What's the status? I mean, we saw photographs of you walking in and out of

buildings. With my suit on. Yes, you look very nice. Oh, thank you.

Every now and then I suddenly hear that I've got 30 days to get out of the

country. But I seem to be still here and I don't have any intentions of going.

It was sad when Charlie Chaplin...

I know. Finally came back to America. That's what I don't want to happen to

Gosh. I'd hate that. You know, they wheel me on at 60 and give me a plaque

yesterday. And Paul wrote it, you know.

I mean, I can just see it. You know, I don't want that. I'd like to live here.

You know, I don't harm anybody. I've got a bit of a loud mouth. That's about

all, you know. I think there's certainly room for an odd Lennon or two here. I

agree. I know everyone out there does, too.

We're sitting with the new album.

And this is a track called... Oh, this is a track called Scared, which means

that the moment I was writing it, that's how I felt. But now I'm quite happy,

thank you.

Scared.

Scared.

Scared.

Nixon is kicked out of office after Watergate, but unfortunately the...

Immigration service is a good bureaucracy when they are given a job

Port Lennon. They keep doing it, and they kept doing it to Lennon even after

Watergate, even after the whole rationale, logic of this campaign.

And Lennon remained on a 60 -day order to leave the country for the whole year

after Watergate into 1974.

He's never sure whether he's going to be kicked out in 60 days or not. He was

hanging by his nails to stay in this country, and there was always

interruptions, lawyers, stuff he had to run off to do.

Every now and then, I suddenly hear that I've got 30 days to

get out of the country.

Last time I was on the way to record plant, I was in a taxi and the radio was

on. I just heard it announced over the radio.

So being jocular, I said, drive me to the airport, Sam.

And we were laughing about that. And apparently the lawyers hadn't told me

because they didn't want to depress me in the middle of the album.

I just managed to survive.

I just want to stay alive.

How miserable or unhappy he was, I don't know.

To me, the John Lennon that I met is this wonderful guy who shows up on my

show in September of 1974, and he's charming, and he's witting, and he's not

high, and he's relaxed, and he's enjoying his life, and he's very proud

new record that he's there to promote.

That was Scared.

Scared. Scared, yeah.

From Walls and Bridges. Out soon or out now at all those record stores

mentioned. Come on, put it in the window now.

Whatever gets you through the night.

Well,

I was coming and going, you know, stopping in every few days, and I came

night, and Elton John was recording with him.

And so they did this song together, and everybody was having a good time with

it.

and they really liked the song.

I remember at the end, Elton said, like, you know, when I'm going to be playing

Madison Square Garden soon, can you come to the garden and sing it with me when,

you know, I'm here?

And John said, well, if it gets to be a number one hit, I'll sing at the garden

with you. You know, kind of tossing it off, not expecting it to happen, and

it became a number one hit, and then he was stuck.

So he came up to Boston to see the show, and I was at that time wearing...

Things that would make Lady Gaga blush, I think.

I mean, a little swimsuit made out of a chocolate box, a heart and stuff.

John's going, oh, my God, is this what it is now?

But John had really lost touch with sound systems and light shows and

He never went to shows, and so he said yes. And it was, thank God he did,

because I have that memory, New York has that memory for people who were there.

And it got him back with Yoko.

I'm sure he would be most friends to anybody who...

But I'd say it's our great privilege and your great privilege to see and hear

John Lennon.

He came on stage at Madison Square Garden after being physically sick in

toilet beforehand and came on to the greatest ovation I've ever heard of for

anybody in my whole life.

It makes me very emotional when I think about it, even though I get goosebumps

every time I talk about this, but for ten minutes.

The New Yorker stood up. It was like everybody had been hit by lightning.

I mean, they went, and I was like, oh, my God, John Lennon's here with Elton

John. And it was super, super exciting. Everybody jumped up, and I remember the

blast of energy everybody felt.

It was an incredible moment.

The whole place is like an earthquake.

Whatever gets you through the night, it's all right, it's all right.

Spend your money on your life.

It's all right.

It's all right.

Don't need to start a couple of flowers.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

Whatever gets you through your life.

It's all right.

It's all right.

But I felt that Joan was not like the Joan I used to know, working class hero,

you know. No, she was being...

Totally insecure as a person. I know that.

I wasn't being very well received on any level then, you know, with the Kotex

and the hamburgers or whatever.

And so I went on there and did the number and I was quite astonished that

crowd was so nice to me because I was only judging by what papers said about

I thought I may as well not be around, you know.

Afterwards, I went into this small room where Joe was.

John couldn't believe it.

I was nearly in tears, but I didn't, you know, I held my tears.

Because I never saw John be so, I don't know, there's something

about it that touched me.

I thought, it's too bad I still love him.

Whether he invited her, I don't know.

There she was, and that was it.

John was back with Yoko.

I was setting myself up for a new life in a sense that one day I went to this

shop for vintage clothes.

This beautiful silk pajama, a men's pajama from 1920s or 30s or

something. So European looking.

I better buy this.

I thought the kind of guy that I would meet would fit into this romantic idea.

And when John came back,

Do you want to try?

And she fit in totally.

And I said, oh, my God.

Finally, after four and a half long years of struggle, John Lennon got his

card saying that he's now a permanent resident of the United States.

I don't think he'd bear any grudge against the Strom Thurmans and the John

Mitchells for putting him through this all. No, I believe time wounds all

It's been very hard.

It's getting easier now.

I got a call from a clerk in the Court of Appeals, and he said, Mr.

Wilds, I'm a Lennon fan.

He said, I've got a decision here.

I called John.

I said, John, it's Leon. I have good news for you. We won the case.

He said, what do you mean we won the case?

You told me it was such a long shot and so on. I said, it was a long shot, but

we won the case.

The chief judge of the U .S. Court of Appeals in this district, this is right

next to the U .S. Supreme Court, says the following.

If in our 200 years of independence we have in some measure realized our

ideals, it is in large part because we have always found a place for those

committed to the spirit of liberty and willing to help implement it.

Lenin's four -year battle to remain in our country is testimony to his faith in

this American dream.

John said, Yoko's in the hospital now. She's due to give birth in the middle of

the night. Could you and your wife come over and we'll read the decision

together.

John's birthday is the next day.

The baby was born the next day in the middle of the night after midnight.

And he had won his case all on one day.

And I won't even try to express what he looked like and how he acted.

He was so exuberant. He was like a different person.

John really sort of cut off from the whole social thing.

He told me that he canceled his subscription to Billboard. He didn't

know about the music business. He turned his radio station into the easy

listening station.

And he lived a much quieter life.

He took a break to learn how to be a person and to raise his child, spending

time with Sean, learning what it was like to deal with the day -to -day real

human problems.

Somebody had to take care of business, whether it was beetle apples or

inflation or whatever you call it.

And between Yoko and I, I cannot do figures and numbers. I'm not good at

business. There's no way I can do it. I don't have that talent.

So she had to do it. She has the talent to do it.

So I had to contribute something, not just sit around either talking about the

former greatness of the Beatles or the fact that, well, I'm not writing songs,

so what am I supposed to do?

So I had the early relationship with Sean because she would go to the office,

even though the office was only downstairs in the same building, she was

not there.

And so Sean and I would spend this time together.

And it was fantastic.

With Julian, my first child, I was just toward the world. I would come home from

Australia and he'd be a different size. I wouldn't even recognise the way he

looked half the time. It was a strange child in the house who I had no

relationship whatsoever.

I'm getting a relationship now because I can talk about music and whatever he's

into and girlfriends and that kind of stuff, you know. But I didn't want that

be like that with Sean.

And the timing was just right for me to do all that as well.

I think he needed that time.

He had enough of what he did.

Are you kidding? I mean, the whole world, he had to travel the whole world

you know, all that bit.

So he did it.

He felt that, you know, he can retire and be a nice daddy.

And he thought that that was a very important job, which is true.

John was so happy. I mean, it was so great.

He said, come to visit us. So I came with my son, Otto.

And most of the time we spent in the kitchen, he was baking bread.

He was cooking and doing stuff all the time.

And it was just beautiful to see how John was reacting towards his child. It

so important to him.

I looked after the baby, and I made the bread, and I was a house husband, and

I'm proud of it.

I used to say the yoga after I made these loaves, and I watched the bread

eaten, and I thought, geez, I don't get a gold record a night of the nothing,

you know.

He loved taking care of Sean, and he was proud of it. And he taught Sean how to

swim. And he said, well, Sean is going to remember this all his life, that his

dad taught him this.

Hello, we're having lunch on Sunday.

Hello!

But each time we did something, you know, like he was the house husband and

people saying, oh, no, no, they're just doing this for the press, you know.

And John was not very happy about that because he was working very hard every

day.

That looks like a scary thing.

Does it have a name?

Yeah.

It's called Lisa.

Lisa. Lisa.

That sounds terrible.

Sounds kind of sneaky, doesn't it?

Yeah. That's a name for a monster.

You're telling me.

What's that?

That's smoke coming out of the egg.

Oh, my goodness. A smoking egg.

to love?

Do you need anybody?

I need somebody to love.

That's my favorite song.

Very good.

Who was saying I need somebody to love?

You? Paul and I are singing with him.

What could you sing?

What would you take if I sang in the sun?

I got a tunic.

Oh, a little help from my friends, that's what it's called.

I ran into John at a health food store on the east side, and he was coming from

a swimming lesson, and he had Sean with him, and everything about him was

different than the John I hadn't seen for three years or four years.

It was totally different.

He looked different.

His tone was different.

His step was different. His son was there.

And we had lunch, and he asked me if I would come up and just talk to him about

what was going on in the business. He knew I was producing, and he gave me his

personal private number to call him.

And I never called him.

I never called him because I thought, when I looked at him and looked at Sean,

thought, I'm not going to bother this man with this trivial stuff about what's

going on in this business. He seems to have got something that he never

had before.

And I didn't call him.

And I was so surprised when I...

got the call to do the record a year later oh that's lovely bae

i love it they didn't have that those

days that's the only thing they didn't have was a good bae when he saw me i

think he knew the time was coming i think he thought i'm starting to miss

really do and i think i can do both be dad and husband

and An artist.

Okay, let's just try, okay? We're rolling.

Okay. This one's for Gene and Eddie and Elvis.

I'm Buddy.

Our life together is so precious.

Together we have grown.

We have grown.

The starting over was the best way to start over.

And to me, it was like going back to 15.

He's doing his Elvis impersonation majorly, and I didn't know if he was

having fun and was going to redo the vocal without any of the Elvis

or not.

But it seemed like a perfect marriage with the track and the groove and the

of the song and him. Somehow it brought back an image, a feeling of early rock

and roll.

It's so precious.

Together, we have grown.

It's kind of tongue -in -cheek. You know, it's sort of a la Elvis and that.

I went right back to my roots, you know. And it's not going back to being Beatle

John in the 60s. It's being John Lennon, whose life was changed

completely by hearing American rock and roll on the radio as a child.

That's the part of me that's coming out again. That's why I'm enjoying it.

I'm not trying to compete with my old self or compete with the young new wave

kids or anything like that that are coming on. I'm not competing with

I'm trying to go back and enjoy it as I enjoyed it originally.

Ooh, over and over again.

Okay, quit.

Not bad at all. I don't know.

I felt better on the one before, but do you think we've got it? Yes, we do.

Okay. If we've got it, we've got it.

Any secrets?

That slick guy's looking at me with that face again.

We were in this crowded room full of amps and baffles and shit everywhere.

You know, they had John in a booth with an amp and a guitar with a little window

in it so you could see him.

And then me and Huey were like a little guitar orchestra here. It was three

guitars then when he was playing, you know.

And right up until during the final cut, you know, he would make changes.

And we would just work it out.

And John, he would just start playing maybe something.

And then Clicky adds something to that. Yui adds something to that. And the

three of us would play it, and then all of a sudden, bang, it would jell -o. And

then that would be the rhythm guitar part.

It would be a part of it. It was just great.

I thought it was great. Because you feed off each other. You look at the guy.

Who gives a smirk? Who gives a look?

Who's telling a joke in the middle of the take?

Or you're not copping the groove and you're watching one of the other guys

all of a sudden you get it. You know, all those things happen.

Being human.

John liked to be in a band.

He didn't want to be, here's John Lennon, here's the band.

That wasn't the idea, because that was no fun for him.

If he heard stuff he liked, he'd be like, yeah, man, I love that part.

I love that. Do that every time. That's great.

And I thought, you know, this is a trip. This is a trip.

John Lennon is talking to me in the headphones.

I remember sitting behind the control console with Yoko and John, listening to

playbacks and stuff. But every once in a while, I would see John leave by

himself, and he would go into the lounge.

I was wondering what was going on. I knew about the drinking in Los Angeles,

I happened to be standing by the lounge one time when he went in. He's reaching

for something in the closet, and I step back, but he sees me. Come on!

And I walk over, and I've been in recordings too. There's just bowls of

you know. And so he reaches down. He takes something wrapped in a towel. He

says, do you want some? And I'm just like, and it's chocolate, Hershey bar.

And he says, don't tell Yoko.

Yes, I'm your angel.

I'll give you everything.

In my magic power, don't make a wish.

You know why I created that song? Because it was getting towards John's

birthday, when he'll be 40.

And I said, 40? I can't believe it.

So I said, John, he's just 40.

So I just wanted him to feel good about it.

We always create songs that are about our lives.

It was very natural.

From the time that I signed John, he was very anxious for

this album to do for Yoko what he felt had not been done for her

before. He wanted a lot of focus on her music.

And he insisted that every other track be Yoko's, as opposed to having

him on one side and her on the other side.

He was quite sure that that was the right thing to do, and that's what he

wanted. The only thing that John was worried was maybe another musician

would do that thing first. You know, like, he thought it was such a great

we just have to do it quickly.

But nobody was going to do it, and nobody did it after.

I'm not sure when I was made aware that this recording was going to be half the

songs were his and half the songs her songs.

But it became evident, certainly on the first day, when we finished the first

song, John was great. Now we're going to do one of Yoko's songs.

One of Mother's songs.

Just before we made this album, I heard Rock Locked by the B -52s.

And I said, that's Yoko?

I called her, I said, you won't believe this, I was in a disco and there's

somebody doing your voice.

I said, this time they're ready for us.

You had to treat the songs differently from John to Yoko.

Yoko's songs were definitely not structured the same way.

There were guitar parts that were needed that were going to be definitely on the

outside that you couldn't use on John's stuff.

You know, you couldn't really hear a feedback line flying all over just like

starting over wouldn't work too good.

But on Kiss Kiss Kiss it works great.

They were recording enough music for two albums.

That was premeditated.

They weren't just like, let's make a record and we'll pick the best 10 or 12

songs. It was from day one. We're making two albums, but we're going to get all

the tracks with you guys in a month.

We're going to get one out there as soon as we can.

And then we're going to follow up with the second one just after Christmas.

Okay.

Leave four bars and I'll come in. I'll just play until I come in, whatever.

John, Sean wants to say goodnight, but I'll say... Oh, say goodnight for him.

I'm a little busy. I'll put the phone up to the speakers and play it back to

him.

What time is it?

Should be in bed already.

Goodnight, Sean. See you in the morning. Goodnight, Sean. I love you. Sweet

dreams. See you for breakfast.

He said I love you too. Well, I hope he does. I hope not. I'm the only dad he's

got.

Rolling on one. Okay.

On one, two, three, four.

Sean comes into this room the first time, put Sean's photo on that

TV.

And that's what we were always watching when we made the songs.

He took a big picture of Sean and he put it right between the speakers so that

when we looked up to the speakers, We saw Sean, and that was his inspiration.

Every day, in every way, it's getting better and better.

He was the light of their eyes.

Sean would come in after nursery school every day.

Everything would stop. You know, he'd be holding him.

Hey, listen, let me show you what Daddy recorded today.

Got him up on his lap and, hey, Lee, Jack, play that for Sean. You know, and

he'd be like, what do you think of that?

Darling, darling, darling.

Darling boy.

Good. Okay.

When the Double Fantasy album came out, he was very happy about how the album

was going up the charts.

he was very, very happy that Yoko was finally getting some good reviews.

And he was saying that they're calling Yoko's music interesting and avant

-garde, and they're referring to his music as more MOR, like middle of the

And he said, that's okay, because this album's going up the charts, and we're

going down the middle of the road to the bank.

My mixed emotions and my thoughtlessness.

When the record came out, it seemed tame.

It didn't seem rock and roll.

Where's the rebellion? Where's the anger?

But the greatness of that record was, and I think it was by far the best thing

he made sense imagine, was that he said he was brave enough to say exactly

how he felt. It was totally a statement of where John was.

And the clue to it had always been that we called it the Well album.

I think there's some phenomenal amount of times that he gives you the clue, the

word well, all is well.

I'm turning 40.

I'm a middle -aged man.

I've used drugs.

It's all gone.

I had my fun.

I'm back with my wife, my child, and you know what? I'm going to make music.

I am not aiming at 16 -year -olds. If they can dig it, please dig it.

But when I was singing and writing this and working with it, I was visualizing

all the people of my age group being in their 30s and 40s now, just like me,

and having wives and children.

And having gone through everything together, I'm singing to them.

I hope the young kids like it as well, but I'm really talking to the people

grew up with me.

I'm saying, here I am now.

How are you?

How's your relationship going? Did you get through it all?

I went by on a Friday night and I was taking some pictures for a story that

coming up.

And there were things going on in the studio and it was taking a long time.

John and I sat there for hours talking about the album and stuff.

He was planning a world tour.

It was December.

He was finishing the second half. In January, he was going to finish the

half of the album. It was meant to be a double album, but there were so many

songs they hadn't finished the second half, the Milk and Honey part.

And he was going to do that in January and get a band together in February and

make some videos to promote the albums.

And by the end of March, go on a world tour.

And he was actually looking forward to going back to England. He said he hadn't

visited there in years. He was looking forward to seeing his friends, seeing

Aunt Mimi.

He really was looking to start over and to go back and rock and roll.

We sat there for hours talking.

It was like 7 in the morning by the time we were leaving the studio to take

pictures.

And oddly enough, it was the same place in front of the record plant where I had

taken pictures the first night that we had done a session with The Elephant's

Memory, like eight, nine years earlier.

I was in my apartment watching television when I got a call from

said John had been shot.

I thought it was impossible. I had just seen them.

I immediately got dressed. I ran to the hospital.

I went in, and I put my arm around Yoko, and the doctor came in, and he told her

that John had died.

And she said, it's not true. It's impossible.

He's alive.

When I was in the hospital and I was told that John passed away, and I

think the doctor in charge or whatever said, can we announce that to the radio?

I said, no, please wait.

Give me 15 minutes.

I felt that if I didn't, if he didn't announce it then, for some reason, some

crazy reason, that John would still be alive.

My bedroom was right next to the street, and all night I'm listening to John

Strong.

It was very, very painful for me.

John's bedroom was sort of like at a deeper end, thank God.

It probably was very difficult for him too.

He was an artist.

Why would you want to kill an artist?

Make that two orders of sushi.

Three.

Four. Look, they don't want the deli stuff. You want sushi instead, right?

Cancel the deli. They all want sushi. Just order enough raw fish and egg for

everyone. Yoko and I had our own personal service.

We went to the studio, and we listened to John, a lot of stuff.

We just sat in the control room, and we listened all night.

to, uh, outtakes of music.

Okay, now we've got a good rhythm going.

We can roll a little more relaxed.

Let's not turn it into I'm the Walrus.

It's somewhere in between I'm the Walrus, Mind Games, and Imagine.

People asking questions.

So it has to be a little laid back, because he's watching the wheels. He's

actually driving the damn truck.

It felt good to be there with her and do that. Okay, well, whoever's here, let's

play it then.

And if they're not good, we'll take it without them.

I wanted to be close to him, and a lot of things that I wanted to do then and

did, like listen to all his outtakes and whatever, was part of that.

You got it?

Okay, so then it goes, oh, Yoko, and I'm going to stick, even after all this

time, after that batch of oh, Yoko. It was very difficult because John is not

here, and John's voice is, like, there.

Welcome to Bermuda.

Had somebody go down the vault and bring up everything that they could get their

hands on, and we just sat in the room and listened to music.

And that was our goodbye.

The thing that he gave me when I was a kid never went away.

I still carry everything from the Ed Sullivan show all the way up to the end.

It's there. It's always there. The attitude, you know, the cockiness, the

-suredness, the I don't give a fuck what you think thing.

There was something real special going on there, period.

First time I met him was Happy Christmas. And it was a couple of years

I did the Ram album with Paul McCartney.

And he said, I heard you're on Paul's album.

I really liked your work.

I said, oh, thanks a lot.

And then he leaned in and said,

You know, that was just an audition to get to play with me.

John was so great at putting people at ease because of his

humour.

He still stays with me. He says, you know, how can you...

One of the most incredible people I've ever met and one of the most vibrant,

kindest, funny.

I can only say every minute that I ever spent with John, I treasure.

I just have to let it go.

I just have to.

We'd like to change the tempo now and do a little Foxtrot for Mrs. Higgins of

Durban, Australia.

John, would you like to hear that before we do another one? Yes. I have to

change reels. Okay.

People say I'm crazy.

Feeling what I'm doing.

They give me all kinds of warnings.

Save me from ruin.

When I say that I'm okay, well, they look at me kind of strange.

Surely you're not happy now you no longer play the game.

Ah, people say I'm lazy.

Dreaming my life away Well, they give me all

kinds of advice Designed to enlighten me

Well, tell them that I'm doing fine

Watching shadows on the wall Well, don't you miss the big time Boy, you're no

longer on the ball

I just have to let it go.

People asking questions.

confusion well tell them there's no problem only

solution well they shake their heads

and they looked at me as if I've lost my mind I tell them there's no hurry

I'm just sitting here doing time

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels turn round and round I really

watch them roll

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