The Last Days of John Lennon Read online

  “Where is all that yooooooo-deeeee-dooooo-dahh stuff?” Badman, The Beatles Diary, 121.

  escape his own marital troubles: Chris O’Dell with Katherine Ketcham, Miss O’Dell: My Hard Days and Long Nights with the Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and the Women They Loved (New York: Touchstone, 2009), 263.

  “‘So, this is where they did it’”: May Pang, Instamatic Karma: Photographs of John Lennon (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008), 12.

  “We were all sort of spooked by the legend of Marilyn, especially John”: O’Dell and Ketcham, Miss O’Dell, 274.

  “an official portrait of President Kennedy on the wall”: Pang, Instamatic Karma,12.

  “This is my brilliant idea, to have us all live together and work together”: Francis Schoenberger, “He Said, She Said: An Interview with John Lennon,” Spin, October 9, 2019 (reprint of 1975 interview).

  “I’m the producer, man! I’d better straighten out. So I straightened out”: Schoenberger, “He Said, She Said.”

  Paul’s own arrests for cannabis possession: Norman, John Lennon, 730.

  Paul’s in town for the forty-sixth Academy Awards: Badman, The Beatles Diary, 120.

  sits behind the drum kit: Nick DeRiso, “Why John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s Final Session Was a Bust,” UltimateClassicRock.com, March 28, 2016.

  “Midnight Special”: Badman, The Beatles Diary, 121.

  “Don’t get too serious, we’re not getting paid”: Badman, The Beatles Diary, 122.

  “they made joyous music together that night”: DeRiso, “Why John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s Final Session Was a Bust.”

  “just watching me and Paul”: Badman, The Beatles Diary, 122.

  Chapter 49

  “The affair was something that was not hurtful to me”: Chrissy Iley, “Yoko Ono: ‘John’s Affair Wasn’t Hurtful to Me. I Needed a Rest. I Needed Space,’” The Telegraph, March 27, 2012.

  “I was prepared to lose him, but it was better he came back”: Iley, “Yoko Ono.”

  “First they were directives to keep our relationship quiet”: Minnie Wright, “John Lennon: May Pang Sets Record Straight on Her AFFAIR with the Beatles Star,” Express, January 18, 2020.

  “She’d call every day to remind us what to say”: Wright, “John Lennon.”

  “Some days he would call me three or four times”: Iley, “Yoko Ono.”

  “‘What do I have to do to get out of here and back to her?’”: Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life (New York: Ecco, 2008), 716.

  her tarot card reader, John Green: Albert Goldman, “John and Yoko’s Troubled Road Part II,” People, August 22, 1988.

  multiple readings a day on any subject of her choice: Susan Reed and Fred Bernstein, “‘Friends’ Cash In on John Lennon’s Memory, and Yoko May Pay a Price,” People, July 4, 1983.

  “Yoko came to our house in England and asked if I would do her a favor”: Paul McCartney, interview by the authors, 2019.

  the Pierre hotel, on Fifth Avenue, in a suite right above Elton John’s: Elton John, Me (New York: Henry Holt, 2019), 118.

  “I’m out of favor at the moment”: “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night,” BeatlesBible.com.

  Reverend Ike: Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, “Reverend Ike, Who Preached Riches, Dies at 74,” New York Times, July 29, 2009.

  “Let me tell you guys, it doesn’t matter”: Richard Buskin, “John Lennon ‘Whatever Gets You Thru the Night,’” Sound on Sound, June 2009.

  “fiddling about”: Frances Katz, “When Elton John Met John Lennon,” CultureSonar.com, June 27, 2019.

  “he got bored easily, which was right up my street”: John, Me, 119.

  “Say, can I put a bit of piano on that?”: Katz, “When Elton John Met John Lennon.”

  “He zapped in. I was amazed at his ability”: Katz, “When Elton John Met John Lennon.”

  adds piano and harmony to “Surprise, Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradox)”: Nick DeRiso, “Revisiting John Lennon’s Last Concert Appearance,” UltimateClassicRock.com, November 28, 2015.

  a steep wager as to just how high it will chart: John, Me, 119.

  “So, I sort of halfheartedly promised”: DeRiso, “Revisiting John Lennon’s Last Concert Appearance.”

  “Elton John—Elton John????—on keyboards and back-up vocals”: Charles Shaar Murray, “John Lennon: Walls and Bridges,” New Musical Express, October 5, 1974.

  “the ice cream that follows a tonsillectomy”: Ben Gerson, “Walls and Bridges,” Rolling Stone, November 21, 1974.

  Walls and Bridges is certified gold on October 22: Keith Badman, The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After the Break-Up, 1970–2001 (London: Omnibus Press, 2001), 136.

  “Remember when you promised…” DeRiso, “Revisiting John Lennon’s Last Concert Appearance.”

  John will be working on Thanksgiving: John, Me, 119.

  gardenias, her favorite flower: Tim Riley, Lennon: The Man, the Myth, the Music—The Definitive Life (New York: Hyperion, 2011), 660.

  “the emotional thing was me and Elton together”: DeRiso, “Revisiting John Lennon’s Last Concert Appearance.”

  Dr. Winston O’Boogie: Richard Havers, “Elton John and John Lennon’s Surprise Collaboration,” UDiscoverMusic.com, November 16, 2015.

  “an old estranged fiancé of mine called Paul”: Jen Carlson, “38 Years Ago Today, John Lennon Performed at His Last Concert,” Gothamist.com, November 28, 2012.

  “it’s an old Beatle number, and we just about know it”: Carlson, “38 Years Ago Today.”

  “It was either that or [let] Klein have the whole thing”: Barry Miles, Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now (New York: Henry Holt, 1997), 576.

  “I didn’t sign it because my astrologer told me it wasn’t the right day”: Ray Connolly, Being John Lennon: A Restless Life (New York: Pegasus Books, 2018), 371.

  “the first anyone had ever heard of him having an astrologer”: Connolly, Being John Lennon, 371.

  he’s no longer wanted onstage tonight: Allan Kozinn, “A Fond Look at Lennon’s ‘Lost Weekend,’” New York Times, March 12, 2008.

  Paul, the peacemaker, comes over to John and May’s apartment: Kozinn, “A Fond Look at Lennon’s ‘Lost Weekend.’”

  “The friendship was still there. They were brothers. There was no animosity”: Kozinn, “A Fond Look at Lennon’s ‘Lost Weekend.’”

  “give Julian a good time for his Christmas holiday, somewhere warm”: Joe Capozzi, “John Lennon’s Last Years in Palm Beach,” Palm Beach Post, November 1, 2018.

  “A few days in Palm Beach, a day or two at Disney World”: Capozzi, “John Lennon’s Last Years in Palm Beach.”

  “I don’t like being famous”: Capozzi, “John Lennon’s Last Years in Palm Beach.”

  the Polynesian Village Resort at Disney World: May Pang, Instamatic Karma: Photographs of John Lennon (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008), 101.

  “Take out your camera”: Pang, Instamatic Karma, 98.

  “replaying the entire Beatles experience in his mind”: Kozinn, “A Fond Look at Lennon’s ‘Lost Weekend.’”

  “As he had started the group, he was the one to end it”: Kozinn, “A Fond Look at Lennon’s ‘Lost Weekend.’”

  Chapter 50

  the twenty-first birthday party Dean Martin threw for his son Ricci: Ricci Martin with Christopher Smith, That’s Amore: A Son Remembers Dean Martin (Lanham, MD: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2002), 141.

  Other guests included Ringo, Elton John, Elizabeth Taylor: Martin and Smith, That’s Amore, 141.

  “He loved the old-time Hollywood stars”: Roger Friedman, “David Bowie Was Introduced to John Lennon by the Greatest Hollywood Icon,” Showbiz411.com, January 11, 2016.

  “Miss Taylor had been trying to get me to make a movie with her”: “David Bowie Tells a Story About John Lennon,” BeatlesArchive.net.

  “I mean she was a nice woman and all”: Cameron Crowe, “David Bowie: Ground Control to Davy Jones,” Rolling Stone, February 12, 1976.


  “‘Don’t mention the Beatles, you’ll look really stupid’”: “David Bowie Tells a Story About John Lennon.”

  “most uncool to actually say you liked the Beatles in any way, shape, or form”: Jenny Desborough, “David Bowie John Lennon: Bowie Reveals Lennon’s ‘SPITEFUL Sense of Humour,’” Express, April 11, 2020.

  “he defined for me, at any rate, how one could twist and turn the fabric of pop”: “David Bowie Tells a Story About John Lennon.”

  “one of the brightest, quickest witted, earnestly socialist men I’ve ever met”: Desborough, “David Bowie John Lennon.”

  “a really spiteful sense of humour which of course, being English, I adored”: Desborough, “David Bowie John Lennon.”

  the elaborate sets for his Diamond Dogs Tour: Mick Brown, “David Bowie: ‘I Have Done Just About Everything That It’s Possible to Do,’” Daily Telegraph, December 14, 1996.

  “today looked on with as much awe as a release by the Beatles in the sixties”: Chris Charlesworth, “David Bowie: Diamond Dogs,” Melody Maker, May 11, 1974.

  The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars: Susan E. Booth, “‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’—David Bowie (1972),” National Registry, Library of Congress, 2016.

  “It’s just fooking rock and roll with lipstick”: Brown, “David Bowie.”

  Electric Lady Studios: Liesl Schillinger, “Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios Turns 45,” Wall Street Journal Magazine, August 12, 2015.

  add a cover of “Across the Universe”: Jeff Giles, “Revisiting David Bowie’s R&B Move, ‘Young Americans,’” UltimateClassicRock.com, March 7, 2016.

  “It’s not a matter of craftsmanship; it wrote itself”: David Sheff, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2000), quoted in “Across the Universe,” BeatlesBible.com.

  eliminating the Sanskrit mantra “Jai guru deva om”: Nicholas Pegg, The Complete David Bowie, 6th ed. (London: Titan Books, 2016), 5.

  “It’s one of my favorite songs, but I didn’t like my version of it”: Pegg, The Complete David Bowie, 4.

  “‘I don’t want to do these interviews! I don’t want to have these photographs taken!’”: Giles, “Revisiting David Bowie’s R&B Move.”

  “What was that riff you had?”: Jack Whatley, “The Story Behind the Song: David Bowie and John Lennon’s Middle Finger to ‘Fame,’” Far Out, December 5, 2019.

  “I play any guitar that pays”: Kory Grow, “David Bowie Guitarist Carlos Alomar: ‘He Was So Damn Curious,’” Rolling Stone, January 11, 2016.

  “He goes in with about four words and a few guys”: John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Interview by Andy Peebles, BBC Radio 1, December 6, 1980.

  “God, that session was fast”: Giles, “Revisiting David Bowie’s R&B Move.”

  “John and I wrote a song together and we recorded and mixed it”: Giles, “Revisiting David Bowie’s R&B Move.”

  “I wouldn’t know how to pick a single if it hit me in the face”: “Today in Music History: David Bowie’s ‘Fame’ Went No. 1,” The Current Morning Show, Minnesota Public Radio, September 20, 2019.

  “And we made a record out of it”: John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Interview by Andy Peebles, BBC Radio 1, December 6, 1980.

  Paul suggests that John come down to record with him in New Orleans: Ray Connolly, Being John Lennon: A Restless Life (New York: Pegasus Books, 2018), 372.

  Chapter 51

  “I had to concentrate on being pregnant for a whole nine months”: Chrissy Iley, “Yoko Ono: ‘John’s Affair Wasn’t Hurtful to Me. I Needed a Rest. I Needed Space,’” The Telegraph, March 27, 2012.

  “having a baby was important to us and that anything else was subsidiary to that”: David Sheff, “Playboy Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono,” Playboy, January 1981.

  John books a country house: Anthony Fawcett, John Lennon: One Day at a Time (New York: Grove Press, 1976), 119.

  “Stay alive in ’75. That’s my motto”: Francis Schoenberger, “He Said, She Said: An Interview with John Lennon,” Spin, October 9, 2019 (reprint of 1975 interview).

  chronicling all the highs and lows of his separation from her: Philip Norman, John Lennon: The Life (New York: Ecco, 2008), 743.

  Simon and Garfunkel, who split in 1970: Will Levith, “Paul Simon Opens Up About Simon & Garfunkel Breakup,” InsideHook, August 25, 2016.

  “Hello, I’m John. I used to play with my partner, Paul”: “17th GRAMMYs: Paul Simon and John Lennon Co-Presenting the GRAMMY for Record of the Year,” Genius.com.

  “Are you guys getting back together again?”: “Paul Simon and John Lennon at the Grammy Awards Were Total Hilarity,” SocietyOfRock.com.

  “Thank you, Mother”: Jörg Pieper with Ian MacCarthy, The Solo Beatles Film and TV Chronicle 1971–1980 (self-pub., 2019), Lulu.com, 154.

  “I was glad it was big, and it was quick, so we got maximum effect”: Fawcett, John Lennon, 143.

  That man is John Mitchell: “John N. Mitchell Dies at 75; Major Figure in Watergate,” New York Times, November 10, 1988.

  “the subject of illegal surveillance activities on the part of the government”: Fawcett, John Lennon, 145.

  grant a stay on the humanitarian grounds: Geoffrey Giuliano, Lennon in America: 1971–1980, Based in Part on the Lost Lennon Diaries (New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000), 238.

  “It would have been unconscionable to deport him now”: “A Truce Is Called in Lennon’s Deportation Fight So He Can Comfort the Pregnant Yoko,” People, October 13, 1975.

  “governmental action was based principally on a desire to silence political opposition”: Arnold H. Lubasch, “Deportation of Lennon Barred by Court of Appeals,” New York Times, October 8, 1975.

  Chief Judge Irving Kaufman: Marilyn Berger, “Judge Irving Kaufman, of Rosenberg Spy Trial and Free-Press Rulings, Dies at 81,” New York Times, February 3, 1992.

  “will not condone selective deportation based on secret political grounds”: Lubasch, “Deportation of Lennon Barred by Court of Appeals.”

  “It’s a great birthday gift from America for me, Yoko, and the baby”: Lubasch, “Deportation of Lennon Barred by Court of Appeals.”

  “I feel higher than the Empire State Building!”: Fawcett, John Lennon, 146.

  “John and Yoko and Sean (three virgins)”: Andy Greene, “50th Anniversary Flashback: Inside John Lennon’s Long History with Rolling Stone,” Rolling Stone, July 14, 2017.

  —

  “You wouldn’t happen to know whether John Lennon might be planning on coming out today, would you?”: 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), 25.

  T-shirt promoting Todd Rundgren’s 1978 solo album: James McMahon, “The Shooting of John Lennon: Will Mark David Chapman Ever Be Released?,” The Independent, March 2, 2020.

  brand-new Bic pen: Jones, Let Me Take You Down, 36.

  This is my statement: “A Look Back at Mark David Chapman in His Own Words,” Larry King Live, CNN.com, September 30, 2000.

  History and time: Jones, Let Me Take You Down, 22.

  personal items: Jones, Let Me Take You Down, 19.

  “Did you see him?” Jones, Let Me Take You Down, 18.

  “I came all the way across the ocean from Hawaii, and I’m honored to meet you”: Jones, Let Me Take You Down, 31.

  “You’d better take care of that runny nose”: Jones, Let Me Take You Down, 31.

  “beautiful boy”: CNN Special Report: Killing John Lennon, CNN.com, December 8, 2015.

  Chapter 52

  “You’re all pizza and fairy tales”: Kurt Loder, “Paul McCartney: The Rolling Stone Interview,” Rolling Stone, September 11, 1986.

  “the best insult I could think of was to say, ‘Oh, fuck off, Kojak’”: Loder, “Paul McCartney.”

  “obvious to me that the two of them had run out of things to say”: Tim Riley, Lennon
: The Man, the Myth, the Music—The Definitive Life (New York: Hyperion, 2011), 641–42.

  “John was wearing a long black tuxedo with tails”: “John Lennon & Yoko Ono,” People, February 12, 1996.

  “Paul McCartney had made $25 million”: Philip Norman, “Lennon Has Been Painted a Crazed Recluse. But the Truth Is Very Different—and Deeply Touching…,” Daily Mail, October 6, 2008.

  “it’s going to take me at least two years”: Norman, “Lennon Has Been Painted a Crazed Recluse.”

  “I wanted to be with Sean the first five years”: Norman, “Lennon Has Been Painted a Crazed Recluse.”

  “I took a Polaroid of my first loaf. It was like an album coming out of the oven”: “Picks and Pans Review: The Playboy Interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono,” People, February 15, 1982.

  “She’s the world’s most famous unknown artist”: Charlotte Higgins, “The Guardian Profile: Yoko Ono,” The Guardian, June 8, 2012.

  amass five apartments: Robert Lasson, “A Luxury Building,” New York Times, September 16, 1979.

  the words helter skelter written in large letters across a wall of the studio: Stephen Birmingham, Life at the Dakota: New York’s Most Unusual Address (New York: Random House, 1979), Kindle.

  “John and Yoko were as bad as me when it came to shopping”: Elton John, Me (New York: Henry Holt, 2019), 138.

  “Imagine six apartments, it isn’t hard to do, one is full of fur coats, another’s full of shoes”: John, Me, 138.

  “My insecurity is having too many clothes”: David Sheff, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2000), 99.

  “Most artists like myself tend to keep to themselves”: Christine Haughney, “Sharing the Dakota with John Lennon,” New York Times, December 6, 2010.

  Paul and John tune in to Saturday Night Live: “John Lennon & Yoko Ono.”

  turned down $230 million from Sid Bernstein: Philip Recchia, “Paul: We Can Work It Out; ’79 Deal OK’d Beatles Reunion Any Time at All,” New York Post, December 5, 2005.