The Last Days of John Lennon Read online

  “You’re too young!”: Lewisohn, Tune In, 684.

  “Cyn is having a baby”: Davies, The Beatles, 153.

  Chapter 16

  “what are we going to do with this?”: Mark Lewisohn, Tune In, vol. 1, The Beatles: All These Years (New York: Crown Archetype, 2013), 671.

  “Double the speed”: Debbie Geller, In My Life: The Brian Epstein Story, ed. Anthony Wall (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2000), 54.

  “We want to record our own material”: Geoff Emerick and Howard Massey, Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles (New York: Gotham Books, 2006), 45.

  “write something as good as that song”: Ray Connolly, Being John Lennon: A Restless Life (New York: Pegasus Books, 2018), 139.

  straight to number 1: Connolly, Being John Lennon, 139.

  Chapter 17

  “make your name with that”: Mark Lewisohn, Tune In, vol. 1, The Beatles: All These Years (New York: Crown Archetype, 2013), 715.

  “Remember I said I’d be famous”: Rupert Christiansen, The Complete Book of Aunts (New York: Twelve, 2007), 37.

  “The whole of Liverpool went out”: Lewisohn, Tune In, 720.

  “thought there was a fiddle on”: Lewisohn, Tune In, 721.

  “almost paralyzed with devotion”: Ray Connolly, Being John Lennon: A Restless Life (New York: Pegasus Books, 2018), 141.

  deems both Paul and George “sweet”: Philip Norman, Paul McCartney: The Life (New York: Little, Brown, 2016), 164.

  “They have a real authentic Negro sound”: Barry Miles, The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years (London: Omnibus Press, 2001), 73.

  “most startling of all the American city folk singers”: Lewisohn, Tune In, 640.

  the Ealing Club: Vincent Dowd, “The Club Where the Who First Rocked,” BBC, November 12, 2017.

  “The Stones were playing little clubs in London”: Lewisohn, Tune In, 722.

  “I want a long coat like that”: Barry Miles, Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), 101.

  “Twenty-seven was the height”: Lewisohn, Tune In, 749.

  “We went in young boys”: Lewisohn, Tune In, 803.

  “would it be better to keep it simple?”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000), 96.

  “It’s a good logo, like Rodgers and Hammerstein”: Alex Bilmes, “Paul McCartney Is Esquire’s August Cover Star,” Esquire, February 7, 2015.

  “‘We’re the grooves and you two just watch it’”: George Harrison, interview by Alan Freeman, BBC Radio 1, December 6, 1974, quoted in Lewisohn, Tune In, 831.

  “The thing I like about the Beatles is their great sense of humor”: George Martin, interview by Alan Smith in Mersey Beat, January 3, 1963, quoted in Lewisohn, Tune In, 774.

  “Gentlemen, you’ve just made your first number one record”: George Martin with Jeremy Hornsby, All You Need Is Ears: The Story of the Recording Genius Who Created the Beatles (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1979), 130.

  Chapter 18

  “I was always bitterly ashamed of it”: Jody Rosen, “The Beatles’ ‘Please Please Me’ 50th Anniversary,” Rolling Stone, March 22, 2013.

  won’t tour America until they’ve achieved a number-one hit: Chris Ingham, The Rough Guide to the Beatles (London: Rough Guides, 2003), 25.

  “We knew we would wipe you out if we could just get a grip on you”: Richard Harrington, “The Lennon Legend,” Washington Post, December 14, 1980.

  September 1963 visit to Benton, Illinois: “George Harrison Holidays with His Sister Louise in Benton, IL, USA,” BeatlesBible.com.

  “They don’t know us”: “How the Beatles Took America: Inside the Biggest Explosion in Rock & Roll History,” Rolling Stone, January 1, 2014.

  the size of the crowds gathered to welcome them: “February 7, 1964: Beatlemania Arrives in the US,” On This Day, BBC.co.uk.

  “I’d like to ask your help”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000), 105.

  “rattle their fucking jewelry”: Michael Braun, “Love Me Do!”: The Beatles’ Progress (Los Angeles and New York: Graymalkin Media, 2019), 58.

  “The Beatles are most intriguing”: Andrew Grant Jackson, “The Beatles Play for the Queen,” Slate, November 4, 2013.

  “these rumbustious young Beatles”: Braun, “Love Me Do!,” 11.

  “the Year of the Beatles”: Braun, “Love Me Do!,” 81.

  “We all went potty about Dylan”: Alan Light, “‘The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’: Inside His First Classic,” Rolling Stone, May 27, 2016.

  “Everyone will think I copied it from him”: Mark Lewisohn, Tune In, vol. 1, The Beatles: All These Years (New York: Crown Archetype, 2013), 106.

  “Beat-les! Beat-les! Beat-les!”: Barry Miles, The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years (London: Omnibus Press, 2001), 127.

  ever skeptical that Beatlemania is likely to spread: Miles, Beatles Diary, 126.

  “I Want to Hold Your Hand” is the number-one single in America: “How the Beatles Took America: Inside the Biggest Explosion in Rock & Roll History,” Rolling Stone, January 1, 2014.

  “They always act this way when anything big happens”: Miles, Beatles Diary, 127.

  “I wondered if the bastard had picked up on it”: Harry Benson interview by the authors, 2019.

  “How about a pillow fight?” Harry Benson interview by the authors, 2019.

  —

  the seventh floor, where Lennon lives with Yoko: Christine Haughney, “Sharing the Dakota with John Lennon,” New York Times, December 6, 2010.

  A bomb threat: 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), 206.

  Chapter 19

  “In a way I’m sorry they’ve been so successful”: Michael Braun, “Love Me Do!”: The Beatles’ Progress (Los Angeles and New York: Graymalkin Media, 2019), 77.

  “a shrewd young man who has caught the lightning”: Braun, “Love Me Do!,” 54.

  “I’ve this old-fashioned idea that marriage is a private thing”: Jacqueline Edmondson, John Lennon: A Biography (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2010), 59.

  “talking about things like life and death”: Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life (New York: Ecco, 2008), 326.

  “The Beatles Are Coming”: Hunter Davies, The Beatles: The Authorized Biography (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), 194.

  “the impression of an angry young man”: Andrew Grant Jackson, “The Beatles Play for the Queen,” Slate, November 4, 2013.

  “the first spot of joy to come to a nation that is still very much in mourning”: Braun, “Love Me Do!,” 170.

  American television debut: Randy Lewis, “The Beatles, JFK and Nov. 22, 1963,” Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2013.

  “a big octopus with tentacles that were dragging us down into New York”: Jim Farber, “Beatles’ Historic Arrival in New York City 50 Years Ago Gave Big Apple Unforgettable Lift,” Daily News (New York), January 24, 2014.

  a jet carrying the British pop stars had to be crash-proof: Mick Brown, Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector (London: Bloomsbury, 2007), 53.

  “may be the greatest rock and roll singers that we’ve ever had”: Jann S. Wenner, “Phil Spector: The Rolling Stone Interview,” Rolling Stone, November 1, 1969.

  the Crawdaddy Club: “The Beatles See the Rolling Stones Perform for the First Time,” BeatlesBible.com.

  “went off in the corner of the room and finished the song off”: David Sheff, “Playboy Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono,” Playboy, January 1981.

  “Mick and Keith decided they should write songs together themselves”: Jann S. Wenner, “Lennon Remembers, Part Two,” Rolling Stone, February 4, 1971.

  “Tell the boys there’s a big crowd waiting for them”: Bob Spitz, “The Beatles Invasion, 50 Years Ago: Friday, Feb. 7, 1964,” Time, February 7, 2014.

  Chapter 20

  “
The only thing that’s different is the hair”: James Barron, “Historic Hysterics: Witnesses to a Really Big Show,” New York Times, February 7, 2014.

  “every group with long hair will be sought by American companies”: Barry Miles, The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years (London: Omnibus Press, 2001), 127.

  “almost seem a shade on the feminine side”: Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Hess, and Gloria Jacobs, “Screams Heard ’Round the World,” Chicago Tribune, December 14, 1986; from Re-Making Love: The Feminization of Sex (New York: Anchor Books, 1986).

  “Look at them comb their hair!”: Jim Farber, “Beatles’ Historic Arrival in New York City 50 Years Ago Gave Big Apple Unforgettable Lift,” Daily News (New York), January 24, 2014.

  “the only ones with real dandruff”: Michael Braun, “Love Me Do!”: The Beatles’ Progress (Los Angeles and New York: Graymalkin Media, 2019), 14.

  Ed Sullivan don a mop-top wig: Braun, “Love Me Do!,” 138.

  airplane pilot also puts on a Beatles wig: Braun, “Love Me Do!,” 171.

  promotional “Beatle Kits”: Braun, “Love Me Do!,” 119.

  “You have to be a real sour square not to love the nutty, noisy, happy, handsome Beatles”: Braun, “Love Me Do!,” 10.

  “The Americans will never understand it”: Randy Lewis, “Ringo Starr, the Beatles and the Spirit of America,” Los Angeles Times, October 24, 2014.

  ALONZO TUSKE HATES THE BEATLES: Thomas Buckley, “Beatles Prepare for Their Debut: Police Patrol Their Hotel and Guard Theater,” New York Times, February 9, 1964.

  JOHN, DIVORCE CYNTHIA: Ehrenreich, Hess, and Jacobs, “Screams Heard ’Round the World.”

  “Us guys had to play it kind of cool”: Brian Wawzenek, “The Beatles’ First ‘Ed Sullivan’ Appearance: 10 Rock Stars Remember,” UltimateClassicRock.com, February 9, 2016.

  “I remember noticing John that first time on the Sullivan Show”: Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life (New York: Ecco, 2008), 350.

  “Couldn’t you sing, ‘She loves you, yes, yes, yes?’”: “Paul McCartney Blows ‘Kisses’ to His Father’s Era,” Fresh Air, NPR.org, March 29, 2012.

  “the most piercing, uncomfortable sound I’ve ever heard”: Bob Spitz, “The Beatles Invasion 50 Years Ago: Wed., Feb. 12, 1964,” Time, February 12, 2014.

  “that terrible screech the BMT Astoria train makes”: Braun, “Love Me Do!,” 135.

  “two .38 caliber bullets from his belt and placed them in his ears”: Braun, “Love Me Do!,” 154.

  “They never did sound checks”: Vincent Dowd, “Larry Kane: The Reluctant Beatles Fan,” BBC, September 16, 2016.

  “No theater ever got it how we liked it”: Hunter Davies, The Beatles: The Authorized Biography (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), 174–75.

  “John blew me a kiss and the window slid shut”: Miami Herald archives, “What Happened When the Beatles Came to Miami? We Went Nuts and They Fell in Love,” Miami Herald, February 3, 2019.

  “four of the nicest youngsters we’ve ever had on our stage”: John C. Winn, Way Beyond Compare: The Beatles’ Recorded Legacy, vol. 1, 1957–1965 (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2008), 145.

  “It was all part of being a Beatle, really”: George Varga, “Muhammad Ali Knocked Out the Beatles in 1964,” Morning Call (Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania), June 4, 2016.

  “lugged around and thrust into rooms full of press men”: Varga, “Muhammad Ali.”

  “quite cute”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000), 123.

  “When Liston reads about the Beatles visiting me”: Varga, “Muhammad Ali.”

  “My dog plays drums better than that kid with the big nose”: George Kimball, “1964 World Heavyweight Title Fight ‘I Shook Up the World!,’” Irish Times, February 21, 2004.

  Chapter 21

  The movie shoot is scheduled to take seven weeks: Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life (New York: Ecco, 2008), 355.

  written over the course of a few hours: Michael Braun, “Love Me Do!”: The Beatles’ Progress (Los Angeles and New York: Graymalkin Media, 2019), 171.

  the first British single to hit number 1 simultaneously: Kenneth Womack, “50 Years of Beatles: ‘I Had a Hard Day Last Night,’” Penn State News, February 24, 2014.

  “the extension of that rebellion”: Sam Kashner, “Making Beatlemania: A Hard Day’s Night at 50,” Vanity Fair, July 2, 2014.

  “a famous street in Liverpool where the whores used to be”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000), 128.

  “The trouble is, it’s only us who can write for us”: Braun, “Love Me Do!,” 62.

  “fucking stupid, isn’t it?”: Kashner, “Making Beatlemania.”

  “They had this great thing of gangs”: Vanessa Thorpe, “Why on Earth Should We Moan? A Hard Day’s Night Is Back…,” The Guardian, July 6, 2014.

  “Ringoism”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology, 129.

  “while I was saying one thing, have another thing come into my brain”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology, 130.

  It takes them twenty-four hours: Norman, John Lennon, 357.

  “When I get home to you / I find my tiredness is through”: Maureen Cleave, “Nowhere Boy: Maureen Cleave Remembers John Lennon,” The Telegraph, December 14, 2009.

  “I did practically every single with my voice”: David Sheff, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2000), 175.

  “because I couldn’t reach the notes”: Sheff, All We Are Saying, 175.

  “Sometimes we write together. Sometimes not”: Braun, “Love Me Do!,” 28.

  “John needed Paul’s attention to detail and persistence”: Joshua Wolf Shenk, “The Power of Two,” The Atlantic, July/August 2014.

  “I’m obsessed with them”: Jon Savage, “The Fifth Beatle, Derek Taylor,” GQ, May 20, 2018.

  “it was as if de Gaulle had landed, or better yet, the Messiah”: Savage, “The Fifth Beatle.”

  “I owe her a lot”: Keith Altham, “John Lennon: Happy Birthday to the Head Beatle,” Fabulous, October 10, 1964.

  “lots of girls who were very keen to party with anybody from the tour”: Philip O’Brien, “The Beatles Let It Be in Australia: 1964,” Sydney Morning Herald, June 3, 2014.

  makes $5.8 million in six weeks: Kashner, “Making Beatlemania.”

  “misleading air of off-the-cuff spontaneity”: Variety staff, “A Hard Day’s Night,” Variety, December 31, 1963.

  The Cavern, where they haven’t performed since August of 1963: Hunter Davies, The Beatles: The Authorized Biography (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), 177.

  “That’s Liddypool for you”: Braun, “Love Me Do!,” 69.

  “only like people when they’re on the way up”: Jonathan Cott, “John Lennon: The Last Interview,” Rolling Stone, December 23, 2010.

  “‘You’re finished in Liverpool’”: Bob Spitz, The Beatles: The Biography (New York: Back Bay, 2006), 512.

  “not as good as James Bond”: Spitz, The Beatles, 511.

  Chapter 22

  “He seemed so intelligent and witty”: Hunter Davies, The Beatles: The Authorized Biography (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), 189.

  “George is the handsomest and he’s loving it all”: Maureen Cleave, “How the Frenzied, Furry Beatles Took Over England,” San Francisco Examiner, February 2, 1964.

  “sexy eyelashes”: The Beatles: Eight Days a Week—The Touring Years, directed by Ron Howard (2016).

  “We reckoned we could make it because there were four of us”: Richard Williams, “John & Yoko: Part One,” Melody Maker, December 6, 1969.

  “We don’t like Jelly Babies”: “Why George Harrison Begged One Young Fan to Stop Throwing Jelly Babies at the Beatles,” Daily Mail, May 15, 2009.

  “They just felt like hailstones”: Al Aronowitz, “Beatlemania in 1964: ‘This Has Gotten Entirely Out of Control,’” Saturday Evening Post, March 1964; reprinted in The Guardian, January 29, 2014.


  “Mustn’t spoil the image”: Michael Braun, “Love Me Do!”: The Beatles’ Progress (Los Angeles and New York: Graymalkin Media, 2019), 52.

  contact lenses painfully knocked out: Cynthia Lennon, John (New York: Crown, 2005), 191.

  “You feel a clonk on the back of the head”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000), 153.

  “entirely out of control”: Aronowitz, “Beatlemania in 1964.”

  “I had been in one of the back dressing rooms”: Alyssa Bray, “Photographer David Magnus shares rare photos of the Beatles in 1967,” The JC, February 17, 2017.

  “What happened to us in the States was just like Britain”: Davies, The Beatles, 196.

  “madness from morning to night with not one moment’s peace”: Philip Norman, Paul McCartney: The Life (New York: Little, Brown, 2016), 243.

  “really weird characters”: Bob Spitz, The Beatles: The Biography (New York: Back Bay, 2006), 514.

  “I feel safe as long as I’m plugged in”: Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life (New York: Ecco, 2008), 370.

  “John always got really involved and excited”: Norman, John Lennon, 371.

  “standing outside every situation”: Norman, John Lennon, 353.

  “what a helluva lot John already knew about this country”: Norman, John Lennon, 372.

  “I could see the soul of an activist building up in him”: Norman, John Lennon, 372.

  “I always hated all the social things”: Davies, The Beatles, 208.

  “These people have no bloody manners”: Aronowitz, “Beatlemania in 1964.”

  tickets had sold out in less than four hours: Randy Lewis, “Bob Eubanks on Bringing the Beatles to Hollywood Bowl in 1964,” Los Angeles Times, August 21, 2014.

  “We could be heard in a place like the Hollywood Bowl”: The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2000), 150.