I Met the Walrus_ How One Day With John Lennon Changed My Life Forever - Jerry Levitan [12]
APPLE IS ALIVE AND
HEALTHY
BEATLES SPLIT RUMORS
UNTRUE
The music scene at the beginning of the new year was flourishing. January started with the release of Neil Young’s and Led Zeppelin’s debut albums. Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, Sly & the Family Stone’s Stand! with the classic hit “I Want to Take You Higher.” The Who were performing live concerts of their upcoming Tommy. Santana, Moody Blues, Frank Zappa, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Johnny Cash, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and the Doors were overwhelming the radio waves with their classic recordings. There was talk that the Beatles were filming and rehearsing their next album and that it would culminate with a performance that would be recorded live somewhere exotic. But the talk of infighting continued unabated.
On March 12, 1969, headlines around the world announced that Paul McCartney had married Linda Eastman at a simple civil ceremony at Marylebone Register Office in London. None of his Beatle brothers was there. Eight days later, John Lennon married Yoko Ono at a ceremony in Gibraltar. None of his Beatle brothers were there. These two events, in the context of the rumors of financial turmoil, an imminent breakup, the Two Virgins album, John’s drug bust in October 1968, and George’s in March 1969, made it clear to all the world that the loveable mop-tops were no more. Both John and later George, though no strangers to drugs at the time, were victims nevertheless of a zealous Scotland Yard drug squad detective, Sgt. Norman Pilcher, who was responsible for busting famous English performers like Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, and Donovan. Bagging a Beatle would be on the top of his list. (Ultimately, Sgt. Pilcher would be imprisoned for his conduct on the drug squad.) For detractors of the Beatles, and specifically John, this was proof of their degenerate influence on young people. The Beatles were constantly in a fishbowl and the controversies surrounding their personal lives were intolerably intrusive. Whether they were breaking up or not, John, Paul, George, and Ringo had tired of being Beatles. They were all desperate for changes artistically and personally.
Fuelled by their bizarre image and branded as sexual deviants, John and Yoko decided to make their honeymoon a media event. They had already been hounded by the press, which was always looking for a scandal. Nudity and perversion were particularly effective at selling papers. And so, Mr. and Mrs. Lennon invited the media to join them in bed at the Amsterdam Hilton between March 25 and 31, 1969, every day starting at 9:00 A.M. and ending at 9:00 P.M.
Undoubtedly the press was expecting to see John and Yoko in full naked embrace. Instead, they were greeted by the two in pajamas with signs that the now fully bearded John had drawn: “Hair Peace,” “Bed Peace.” All they would talk about was world peace. It was a circus. It was bizarre. And it was brilliant. As savvy as any Madison Avenue marketer, John and Yoko manipulated their fame and infamy for the purposes of spreading a simple message. Increasingly unshackling himself from the Beatles machine and image expectations, John, intellectually egged on and inspired by Yoko, was free to talk about the politics of war and peace. Brian Epstein would have shut him down in an instant. Now he was answerable to no one other than his conscience and his tutor, Yoko Ono.
The news reports of this event were mixed into images of body bags of young Americans being carried onto planes in Vietnam, terrorism in the Middle East, and hunger in Africa. For the first time, the power of rock was being used for an ulterior, altruistic