40 Year Itch: Spirit in the Tables

I think I was more in a morass mentally than Yoko was. If you listen to Walls And Bridges you hear somebody that is depressed. You can say, ‘Well, it was because of years of fighting deportation and this problem and that problem,’ but whatever it was, it sounds depressing. The guy knows how to make tables, but there’s no spirit in the tables. I’m not knocking the record. But I’m saying it showed where I was. It’s a reflection of the time.
-John Lennon

    On July 13-14, 1974, at the tail end of his self-described "Lost Weekend" and after producing Nilsson's Pussy Cats,   John Lennon and his band entered New York City's Record Plant to go over new tunes--most of which would appear on Walls And Bridges. Lennon was not only rehearsing the songs but he banned alcohol and drugs from the studio. This Beatle was all business. Guitarist Jesse Ed Davis, bass player Klaus Voorman and drummer Jim Keltner would eventually be augmented by other musicians ( among them Nicky Hopkins on piano and vocals from both Harry Nilsson and Elton John) as well as heavy production that --to the ears--weighed down the final product. Lennon had a great voice. He was one of the few who never appreciated that fact. The only song recorded that day to not appear on Walls And Bridges is "Move Over Ms. L" which was pulled from the album at the last minute. In 1975, another version became a B side to "Stand By Me".

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40 Year Itch : Feeling Like a Bohunk

Ringo ( on far right in shadows) and John in 1974

     On June 17, 1974 Ringo Starr called John Lennon to ask his Beatle buddy for a new song for the follow-up to the platinum best-seller Ringo. The result is the title track "Goodnight Vienna", English slang for "It's All Over". 

    At the time Lennon was wrapping up production on Harry Nilsson's Pussy Cats. Lennon recorded a demo and vocal guide of the tune with Ringo on drums and tambourine. Jesse Ed Davis plays guitar on the demo which can be found on the John Lennon Anthology. Ringo's version,  "It's All Down to Goodnight Vienna", begins with Lennon's countdown and features Billy Preston on clavinet. It  reached number 29 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1975. Lennon was the only Beatle to contribute to the Goodnight Vienna album.

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40 Year Itch : A Toot and a Snore

On March 28, 1974 John Lennon and Paul McCartney were reunited in an LA studio where they jammed with Stevie Wonder and Harry Nilsson as tapes rolled. It would be their only post Beatles recording session. Ever.  Wow! With that set-up , you're probably expecting something amazing. You'd be wrong.

It happened during Lennon's infamous "Lost Weekend", a year of drugs, drinking and debauchery the ex-Beatle spent with Harry Nilsson and others. Lennon and Nilsson has just finished a productive day in the studio working on "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and nobody  but drummers Keith Moon and Ringo Starr left.

    McCartney entered the studio with Linda and, after a brief hello ( from John: ‘Valiant Paul McCartney, I presume?’ McCartney responding  ‘Sir Jasper Lennon, I presume"), McCartney sat down at the drums. Linda went for the keyboards. Stevie Wonder entered next and sat down at the electric piano. They decided to record their jam, now bootlegged as "A Toot and a Snore in'74" after Lennon's offer to Wonder:

“You wanna snort, Steve? A toot? It’s goin’ round.”

Most of the bootleg is dominated by Lennon complaining about the what he's hearing in his headphones. Halfway through, McCartney's drums vanish from the mix.

  This would be the last time Lennon and McCartney were recorded in a studio together. Yes, the music is wretched but it's nice to hear the two Beatles getting along so well with each other. For more information on the recording visit Bootleg Zone.

The photos occur a week later when the McCartney visit Nilsson and Lennon's beach house to catch up and jam again. 

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40 Year Itch: Gonna Rip It Up

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OK. So I was drunk. When it's Errol Flynn, all those showbiz writers say "Those were the days when we had Sinatra and Errol Flynn, socking it to the people." I do it...I'm a bum

-John Lennon

This week in 1974 John Lennon's lost weekend hit its low points. First, at a dinner in a Santa Monica restaurant with May Pang and Jesse Ed Davis, Lennon emerged from the bathroom with a kotex on his forehead. The three went to the Troubador where, even more drunk, Lennon asked a waitress "Don't you know who I am?" The waitress snapped back "Yeah, you're some asshole with a Kotex on his forehead."

On March 12, Lennon and Nilsson returned to the Troubador where they drunkenly heckled Tommy and Dickie Smothers in front of such luminaries as Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward and Peter Lawford. They were ejected from the club and Lennon got into a tussle with a parking attendant as flashbulbs popped.

The next day Lennon and Nilsson sent the Smothers Brothers flowers and a note of apology. Actress Pan Grier also received a note:

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40 Year Itch : Yes is the Answer

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Retreating from the political messages of Some Time In New York City. for Mind Games John Lennon focused on his very best subject for songwriting subjects : himself. Sure, there are the Lennon-esque cries for peace and love and understanding but the more personal songs written for Yoko have far more resonance. The Anthology versions of most Mind Games songs are cleaner and more enjoyable. Though fans will argue this is one of Lennon's most overlooked gems, Lennon himself referred to all albums between Imagine and Double Fantasy as dog shit.

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A few weeks after the release of Mind Games, Yoko Ono released her most commercial album, the feminist-themed Feeling the Space, which earned this critical acclaim from Billboard Magazine: "Singing is excellent". 

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40 Year Itch: The Lost Weekend Takes to the Air

John Lennon( who would have turned 73 yesterday) could not have been a very happy person in the 1970's. In the years following "Imagine", her comes across as an angry man at war with the world, himself and Yoko. Eventually Yoko said enough and sent him packing to the West Coast with assistant May Pang. Perhaps everybody was hoping an affair with a young woman and the California sunshine would have a renewing effect. Instead Lennon spent a good deal of the time partying too hard and even getting into fights with fans. Lennon had no respect for his fans. So you can imagine what it must have been for him to be trapped in the middle of an airplane full of them. According to Pang, in an article for the UK Mail, that's what happened:

In early October 1973, John and I went to Las Vegas for a few days. We flew there from Los Angeles on a shuttle booked by our friend Elliot Mintz, who came with us. 

Our seats were in the middle of the aircraft. Everybody was going nuts over John, who looked at Elliot and said: "Why are we back here in the middle of all this?" 

When Elliot explained there was no first-class section, John snapped: "Please think before putting me in this situation again!"

    At least "The Lost Weekend" was a productive time for Lennon who recorded both his Wall and Bridges (featuring his only US #1 solo hit "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" and "#9 Dream") and Rock 'n'Roll albums. He also produced Harry Nilsson's Pussy Cats. Should we continue this blog into 2014, we'll be getting into a few more "Lost Weekend" moments including a visit from Paul McCartney that resulted in a recorded jam session.

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40 Year Itch: Ringo Buys John's House

On September 18, 1973 Ringo Starr bought the 16 room Georgian mansion, Tittenhurst Park, from his former Beatle band mate John Lennon and Yoko Ono. 

This has been John and Yoko's home for more than four years. It was also the location of the last Beatles photo session together on August 22, 1969. These shots were used for the Hey Jude album cover

Both John and Yoko had recorded albums at Tittenhurst ( Imagine and Fly respectively) 

But by 1973 John and Yoko were planning to stay in the US. Ringo bought the estate and eventually moved there with his new bride Barbara Bach.

Ringo added a 70 foot tall T-Rex to the grounds. Keith Moon gave Ringo a giant plastic rhino.

Ringo shot a scene for his T Rex documentary "Born To Boogie" on the estate.

Ringo also built a Startling Studios there. 

Among the artists who recorded on the estate: Def Lepperd, Brand X, Judas Priest and Split Enz.

 Ringo would live at Tittenhurst on and off for the next 15 years before selling the estate to HRH Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Abu Dhab in 1988. The sheikh remodeled the entire property and gutted the studio.

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40 Year Itch: "She Got The Same Jazz Only More So"

Bob Gruen

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On June 30, 1973 John Lennon and Yoko Ono appear on the US program Flipside to discuss her double  album Approximately Infinite Universe. John says engineers like to pretend there's some mystique to recording and they like to treat artists as children. He says Yoko got "the same jazz only more so."

Yoko says when she sang, engineers headed off the bathroom leaving only John behind the board.
Yoko then performs "Winter Song".



One of the great tracks from the album is "Catman (The Rosies Are Coming")

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