Was there a clear divide between Los Angeles and New York, in terms of the indulgences, and was the move back to NYC an attempt to sober up and complete Pussy Cats, Rock ‘N’ Roll and Walls And Bridges?
Yes, and that was because we always considered ourselves “visitors” to LA. We mostly stayed at other people’s houses; the only time we ever had our own place was when Harry rented the beach house, and even that wasn’t our own place really. We had Ringo, Keith Moon, Harry and Klaus Voormann living there, and they fell into the “boys back in England” behavior.
John always had a problem with too much drink, going way back to Paul’s 21st birthday. Mal Evans was even in LA basically reassuming the role of procuring anything for “the boys”.
Phil Spector was another complication. John had worked with him before, but on his own turf. Now we were in Phil’s world, which was typical of the Hollywood excess of the 70s. John was tired of getting all the publicity, but he really got afraid when Harry’s voice was destroyed because of the drinking. New York was sane. New York was home.
The albums Some Time In New York City, Mind Games and Walls And Bridges seem to show Lennon unsure of his place in music, testing out styles or themes for something that he felt comfortable doing. I’ve read that he felt he’d fallen out of fashion in the mid-70s. Do you remember him talking about that?
Some Time in NYC was a commercial and critical disaster, something John was not used to. It took him a long time to recover from the bashing. Mind Games was a much friendlier album and Walls and Bridges was filled with a variety of songs and styles, mixed emotions, and also marked a return to his personal songwriting. The White Album was full of different styles; I don’t think he saw variety as a bad thing.
The famous UFO incident, as mentioned in the liner notes of Walls And Bridges: do you believe it was an extra-terrestrial object, or might there be a rational explanation for it?
I know what I saw. And the rational explanation is… it was a UFO. There’s UFOs over New York, as the song goes. And I saw another one in the early 80s, and I know other did people did too.
Did nobody else in NYC see it? It seems astonishing to think an unidentified flying object going down East 52nd Street could remain unseen by anyone else.
Yes, that event had about 400 reported sightings, I believe.
Did John really call out to the UFO in the hope that it might take him away?
He didn’t call out to it; he later said he wished it had taken us with it. However, I doubt we’d have been that enthusiastic to go along had the opportunity actually presented itself.
Is it true your relationship with John continued as late as 1977?
Our relationship lasted 10 years, from 1970-80. I believe you’re referring to the more intimate aspects. The last time we were together, we were listening to the Little River Band’s ‘Reminiscing’ which was released in 1978.
I heard you were disappointed with the PBS LennonNYC documentary. We didn’t get to see it here in the UK. What did you disagree with?
I just get tired of the same rehashing of lies and myths. Even after the story is set somewhat straight, as it was when Larry Kane had interviewed Yoko for his book, certain people continue to spout the party line. People, I might add, who weren’t around us or, if they were, were not around as much as they’d lead you to believe.
Your book Loving John has been long out of print. I heard you’re working on a revised edition. Can you say any more about that?
I had a lot of issues with that book. My intention was to write a balanced and accurate account of our time together. The publisher edited the book almost in half, keeping the more controversial stories while disregarding the good, productive side. They didn’t think it would sell. Obviously, I wasn’t going to white- wash the story and I didn’t. But I’d like to restore some of the context. There was plenty of good.
What are the main myths from the Lennon legend you’d like to see dispelled?
Most important, he wasn’t miserable for 18 months. It was a productive time for him. He reached artistic heights and healed a lot of his personal relationships, though they were mysteriously fractured again in later years. Yoko didn’t send us to Los Angeles; they didn’t reunite at Elton John’s concert. If John was so intent on returning home, why was Paul sent out to Los Angeles to talk him into it. And he wasn’t the only one asked to get John to return back to the Dakota.
‘Surprise Surprise (Sweet Bird Of Paradox)’ was a love song written for you, but it didn’t appear on the Love Songs disc of the recent Gimme Some Truth compilation. Do you think that might be some Yoko-style revisionism?
You mean like putting her face on the label of Walls and Bridges, or lip syncing to my voice in the video for ‘#9 Dream’. I think you can answer this one.
What are your memories of John writing that song for you?
He actually wrote it while recording the Mind Games album. I was floored; it was beautiful.
How do you feel about the various non-musical commercial activities that have taken place in John’s name, such as last year’s Citroën advert, a Mont Blanc pen, $15,000 acoustic guitars or white Steinway pianos bearing his signature? And do you think John would have approved of them?
I appreciate trying to keep John contemporaneous. I’m not sure he would’ve liked such cost-prohibitive items, being the working class hero. This was a decision made by the Estate of John Lennon.
How did you spend 9 October 2010, what would have been John’s 70th birthday?
I always keep John in my thoughts. Of course, he was all around on that day, but I try not to watch the all the shows, because they all end the same way. I was at gallery showing that had 2 of my photographic prints and paintings done by Shannon. Her paintings of The Beatles look like photographs, you should check that out.
What do you think John might be like, had he lived?
I think about this a lot. The world has changed so much and so quickly since 1980. John missed CDs and digital media. I know he would’ve loved flat screen television and wreaking havoc on the internet. He would have loved that he could record his music right at home. Instant gratification. He loved New York, so 9/11 would have inspired him to say something. We all miss his voice.
Congratulations on celebrating your 60th birthday in October 2010. How did you mark it?
Like I always do, a party with friends. That has been a tradition since the 70s. It was held at The Gibson Guitar Studios in NY and we had many friends come celebrate with me and a lot of them jammed in the studio together including two members of Elephant’s Memory. But starting next year, I’m 59 and working my way downwards.
What are your plans for the future? Is it true you’re planning an exhibition of your photos of John? Will these be from Instamatic Karma, or are there more?
I have been exhibiting some limited editions of my photos from my book Instamatic Karma from time to time at various galleries around the country. And I am also working on that new book. But as I said, I learned from John to live spur-of-the-moment.
Thank you for this Joe. As per usual, you did a great job. My favorite lines of hers were…
“I also saw Yoko in, of all places, Reykjavik, Iceland on John’s birthday a few years ago. One of John’s cosmic jokes, no doubt.”
and…
(Had John lived) “I know he would’ve loved flat screen television and wreaking havoc on the internet.”
I love that line! I can definitely imagine John as an old man, trolling people on random sites. Heck, maybe he would have stumbled upon this lovely site. I bet he’d get a kick out of the forum…. 🙂
Probably get kicked OUT the forum 🙂
thats the hardest i’ve laughed in a long time!!
Awesome interview. I loved that bit of “He loved New York, so 9/11 would have inspired him to say something. We all miss his voice” because it’s so true.
Thanks!
I’m curious as to what May meant by that. This certainly isn’t the place to get into a 9/11 debate, but I just don’t understand what she meant by that.
I think, and this is not the place to get into a heavy 9/11 debate, that she meant he would have spoken his mind about the needless killings of thousands of people, possibly by song, or by other communication.
Well obviously, but there are many controversial viewpoints and John was not opposed to being outspoken about having a controversial viewpoint.
Thank you May for keeping the dream alive! Its all we have, really. I too cannot stand to watch the shows because they all end the same way. He is still here…
Another Masterpiece courtesy of Joe. Thanks!!
Thanks Joe…..I love this interview and I found it very insightful!
What a wonderful interview. May Pang has alway been one of my favorite people in Beatle history. Thank you for being there may God bless you always.
It seems (and the pictures are good evidence and Cynthia and Julia are good witnesses) that she was a sane influence on him. It is a pity that he could not shake off the parasite. What a fortuitous and well timed pregnancy, wasn’t it? Then again, it IS the oldest trick in the book… I guess the Beatles had their moment… Still, one wonders…
What a mean-spirited comment. A well-timed pregnancy? What about the miscarriages Yoko had previously had? Or how about the fact that she wanted to abort the 1975 pregnancy, but Lennon insisted they keep it? It’s so easy to cast judgement on “parasites” that you’ve never met, isn’t it?
Wow! I’ve visited this site a lot of times, but never seen this article/interview! Thank you so much=)
Great interview – it certainly shone a different light on Ms. Pang than I had seen before. I was particularly interested to hear how well John and Paul seemed to be getting on in 1974 – shame nothing came of it.
I am a tad confused about Paul’s role in this if, as we are led to believe, Paul acted as Yoko’s emissary here. Why would he do that ? John being apart from Yoko increased the chances of him and Paul getting back together and it was only the fact that he returned to Yoko which scuppered those plans. There is something about these version of events which do not ring true.
I’d never heard that story before and find it hard to believe and somewhat contradictory – Paul did visit John more than once in LA and had good times….I’m sure Paul was secretly delighted that John had separated from Yoko, was actively recording, socializing and collaborate with his old palls.
Paul has actually concurred that he did want to help John get back with Yoko- are you calling him a liar? Whilst Lennon did seem really happy with May Pang, we don’t know what was going on inside his head do we? The book that came out last year stated that he loved both women and couldn’t commit fully to either of them. He did change his mind a lot it seems- but then so do a lot of us! Also, had he stayed in LA with May Pang is that necessarily a guarantee the scumbag still wouldn’t have come after him there?
From this article appears that Yoko made Lennons mind enslaved and Lennon lived with two women in fact till his death. Did I missed something?
All the things I’ve read about John and Yoko, Yoko just never seems to come off well. I wish he had stayed in LA and married May Pang.
I concur with others who said what a nice interview to read. And Joe you really do have a wonderful site here.
Maybe I read too much Beatles related content, but I am getting tired of this period being referred to as the ‘Lost Weekend’. I would prefer to describe the period as Lost Yoko.
Just read this for the first time. Great work Joe! I always think about John and George and how they’d inspire now.
Seeing this featured, I had to read it. Probably the best part was hearing about John Lennon trolling people on the internet. I can sort of imagine it, really. He’d probably troll some church websites saying he’s still more popular than Jesus. 😛
Great Joe, carry on !!!! Let me say just a thing or two. John had such a strong personality, I don´t believe in those Yoko´s mind games. I guess he actually wanted to go back to Yoko just because she was the love of his life. I would have liked to ask May if she had the chance to meet all those guys (Ringo, Elton, Keith, Harry, Klaus) over all these years. Thanks, brilliant interview.
Carlos; Remember John’s painful childhood with domineering Mother figures. Yoko has LONG had a reputation as being a control freak. Everyone at recording sessions spoke of her attempts to control not just John, but his music. Even the Cirque DE Soleil guys said she was a real fly in the otherwise peaceful ointment because of her controlling nature. So sadly true how she pushed for reconciliation ONLY because of how it looked publicly.
Great interview, very insightful.It is especially so regarding John’s relationship with Paul.John Lennon was a complex man, but he and Paul McCartney,George Harrison and Ringo Starr were like brothers. Family members generally have complex relationships and The Beatles were no different. John’s comments regarding Paul McCartney to British broadcaster Andy Peebles, just hours before he was shot confirm this. John off the record, referred to he and Paul as being like brothers. For this refer to Time Life DVD ” The Day John Lennon Died. ” John Lennon’s time with May Pang is an interesting period in which he recorded some great music i.e. the” Walls and Bridges” album.May Pang like Yoko Ono and Cynthia, ( who sadly recently died ), all have shown a lot of dignity in preserving the memory of this brilliant mans life.
John would be, “wreaking havoc on the Internet”, haha so true.
While May Pang has rightly pointed out some dodgy revisionism by Yoko, it must be said that there’s a little from herself.
Paul had just regained his US Visa when he visited Yoko in New York and he was busy around the USA making the most of being back, notably collecting a stack of grammies for the previous year’s ‘Band on the Run’ and catching up with friends and family so the idea he was ‘sent by Yoko’ is a memory of her reaction to learning that he had come with, in his words, a ‘message from Yoko’ (who denied that for years while she and Paul were bickering but eventually conceded it was not only true but DID result ultimately in their reunion).
I’m so tired of Beatles and John Lennon fans saying unjust bad things about Yoko, when she definitely changed John a zillion % for the better!
John Lennon is a great example of people can change and are not fixed to be a certain way as a man or a woman.Yoko changed John into a much better person as a pro-feminist man and the feminist changes *are* for the better, and many pro-feminist men have recognized this too! They say it has freed them and allowed them to develop and express more of all of the shared common *human* traits, emotions, behaviors, abilities and reduce and prevent male violence against women and children etc. Definitions of “masculine” and “feminine” differ across time periods, and in different societies.
John Lennon is a great example of how feminism changing limited artificial gender definitions and roles, changed him for the much better. John as a child and teenager had a lot of traumas that permanently psychologically damaged him, but because of his and Yoko’s beautiful loving relationship, and as he said she was a feminist before he met her,(and he said that because she was a feminist before he met her, they were going to have to have a 50/50 equal relationship which he never had before) he went in to primal scream therapy and Yoko went with him and he dealt with all of his pain and anger for the very first time at age 29.
When John was a young guy, he was often drunk getting into fist fights with men, hitting women, and womanizing including cheating on his girlfriends and then his first wife Cynthia.Of course Paul,George and Ringo did the same with all of the groupies all 4 of them had while touring from 1963-1966. I hadn’t watched these Mike Douglas shows in years until December 2010 when it was the 30th anniversary of John’s tragic crazy murder.
Out of the 5 Mike Douglas shows that John and Yoko co-hosted for a week that was taped in January 1972 and aired in February, a young criminal lawyer Rena Uviller (she went on to become a Supreme Court Judge) who worked with juveniles was on, and she,Mike Douglas,John and Yoko were discussing the then very recent women’s liberation movement. George Carlin was on too.
Rena said she agrees with Yoko, that the idea of Women’s lib is to liberate all of us, and she said, I mean we could talk hours on the way men really suffer under the sex role definitions.Yoko agreed with what she said too. Rena said that men don’t really realize they have only to gain from Women’s Lib, and that she thinks that maybe with a little more propaganda we can convince them.
John then said, yeah there is a lot to gain from it, just the fact that you can relax and not have to play that male role, he said we can do that, and he said that I can be weak,( but notice how then in a male dominated gender divided, gender stereotyped, sexist society, and even unfortunately still now in a lot of ways, the “female” role was defined as the weak one, and the male role as the strong one) I don’t have to protect her all the time and play you know that super hero, I don’t have to play that, she allows me to be weak sometimes and for me to cry, and for her to be the strong one, and for me to be the weak one. John then said, and it really is a great relief, after 28 years of trying to be tough, you know trying to show them, I don’t give a da*n and I’m this and I’m that, to be able to relax.and just be able to say,OK I’m no tough guy forget it.
Rena then said, I think in some funny way, I think girls even as children, have a greater latitude because a little girl can be sort of frilly and feminine or she can be a tomboy and it’s acceptable, but a little boy if he’s not tossing that football, there’s a lot of pressure on him.John said, there’s a lot of pressure, not to show emotion, and he said that there was a lot of pressure on me not to be an artist, to be a chemist and he said he discussed this on another Mike Douglas episode.
Rena said that unfortunately some of the leaders in the Women’s Liberation movement fall victim to being spokesmen, for Women’s Lib, and yet at least in public personality they seem to really have a certain amount of contempt for the hair curled housewife and there is a kind of sneering contempt, and she said I think it’s a measure of their own lack of liberation.And Yoko said it’s snobbery, and Rena said yeah, they really don’t like other women, but I’m sympathetic, and Mike Douglas then said a sexist woman-hating statement, saying, well women don’t like other women period.Rena said, no see that’s very unliberated and Yoko said, in response to what Mike Douglas said, that’s not true, that’s not true.And John said, you see they are brought up to compete with men.
Yoko said that even though in Japan they say they don’t have much of a woman problem and women already had some liberation, there is still a long way to go that she really agrees with Rena that so many female liberation movement people basically hate women, and we have to first start to understand women and love them whether they are housewives or not, and she said that snobbery is very bad and we have to somehow find out a way to co-existing with men, and she asked Rena don’t you think so and she said most definitely. George Carlin said, that actually many successful women are acting out male roles just like a lot of blacks think they escaped are acting out white roles.John also said that he thinks that women have to try twice as hard as to make it as men, and he said you know they have to be on their toes much more than a man.
On another Mike Douglas episode from the same week, former actress and acclaimed film maker Barbara Loden was on and Yoko had requested her as a guest.John asked her ,Did you have any problems working with the men, you know like giving them instructions and things like that and Barbara said, I did, but I think it was because I was afraid that they would not accept what I said, and I wasn’t quite that authoritative in my own self. John said it’s certainly a brave thing to do, and Yoko said it is.
Mike Douglas asked Yoko if John’s attitude had changed much towards her since The Female Liberation Movement, and at first Yoko says John’s attitude from the beginning was the same, and that they met on that level.John then says, twice, I was a male chauvinist and Yoko says, yes he was a male chauvinist but, and then John says,Can I say how you taught me, and Yoko says yes. John says, How I did it in my head was, would I ask Paul or George, or would I treat them the way I would treat a woman? John then said, it’s a very simple thing maybe it’s fetch that or do that ,and I started thinking if I said that to them, they’d say come on get it yourself, and if you put your wife or your girl friend in the position of your best friend, and say now would I say that to him, then you know when you’re treading on some delicate feelings.
Mike Douglas said years later that after this week of John and Yoko co-hosting his show, many young people who had never watched his show before,(and his main audience was middle America and people older than their 20’s and even mostly their 30’s) told him they loved the show, and that it was great and his ratings went up high for those shows.Even if John didn’t always live up to his feminist ideals and beliefs in his personal life,(although he did with Yoko because of her and this why and how he emotionally evolved into a caring, nurturing, house husband and father to Yoko and Sean),just the fact that he spoke out as a man in support of the feminist movement on a popular TV show back in early 1972 when most of the sexist male dominated woman-hating society looked down at it and considered it crazy which in some ways it’s still unfortunately wrongly misunderstood(and it’s really the male dominated, sexist, woman-hating society that has always been so wrong and crazy!),and the fact that John was (and still is) greatly admired and influential to many young people male and female, he did *a lot* to legitimize it and show it was rational, reasonable, needed and right!
A few months later he was performing Woman Is The N––––r Of The World on The Dick Cavett Show and then months after that live in Madison Square Garden.In his very last radio interview done by Dave Sholin etc from RKO Radio just hours before he was tragically shot and killed, John said I’m more feminist now than I was when I sang Woman Is The N––––r, I was intellectually feminist then but now I feel as though at least I’ve put not my own money, but my body where my mouth is and I’m living up to my own preachings as it were.
He also said what is this BS men are this way, women are that way, we’re all human.He had also said that he comes from the macho school of pretence of course *all* men really are they are just too conditioned all of their lives to realize and admit it.And he said that men are trained to be like they are in the army, and that it’s more like that in England but he knows it’s this way over here too, he said that they are taught as boys and men don’t react, don’t feel, don’t cry, and he said he thinks that’s what screwed us all up and that he thinks it’s time for a change.
Barbara Graystark of Newsweek interviewed John September 1980 and part of what she said to John is,You’ve come a long way from the man who wrote at 23,”Women should be obscene rather than heard.” And she asks John how did this happen? And John said that he was a working-class macho guy who was used to being served and Yoko didn’t buy that. John then said that from the day he met Yoko, she demanded equal time, equal space, equal rights. He said that he said to Yoko then,don’t expect him to change in any way and don’t impinge on his space. John said that Yoko said to him then she can’t be here because there’s no space where you are everything revolves around him and that she can’t breath in that atmosphere. John then says in this interview that he’s thankful to her for the( meaning feminist) education.
So he respected women better- except he had an affair with one with the consent of his wife???? After their reunion, he carried on seeing May Pang until his death, mm. Fancy writing a book in that for us?!
Mike Douglas also said to John and Yoko, You’re both so different, you had such different childhoods. John said, it’s incredible isn’t it? Yoko said, Yes! Mike asked, What do you think has attracted you to each other? Yoko said, We’re very similar. John then said, She came from a Japanese upper-middle class family. Her parents were bankers and all that jazz,very straight. He said they were trying to get her off with an ambassador when she was 18.You know, now is the time you marry the ambassador and we get all settled. I come from a an upper-working class family in Liverpool, the other end of the world. John then said, we met but our minds are so similar,our ideas are so similar. It was incredible that we could be so alike from different environments, and I don’t know what it is, but we’re very similar in our heads. And we look alike too!
Mike also asked John about his painful childhood,and how his father left him when he was 5,and John said how he only came back into his life when he was successful and famous(20 years later!),and John said he knew that I was living all those years in the same house with my auntie,but he never visited him.He said when he came back into his life all those years later,he looked after his father for the same amount of time he looked after him,about 4 years.
He also talked about how his beloved mother Julia,who encouraged his music by teaching him to play the banjo,got hit and killed by a car driven by an off duty drunk cop when John was only 17 and just getting to have a relationship with her after she had given him away to be raised by her older sister Mimi when he was 5.
And John also said,And in spite of all that,I still don’t have a hate-the-pigs attitude or hate-cops attitude.He then said, I think everybody’s human you know,but it was very hard for me at that time,and I really had a chip on my shoulder,and it still comes out now and then,because it’s a strange life to lead .He then said,But in general ah,I’ve got my own family now …I got Yoko and she made up for all that pain.
John’s psychologist Dr. Arthur Janov told Mojo Magazine in 2000( parts of this interview is on a great UK John Lennon fan site,You Are The Plastic Ono Band) that John had as much pain as he had ever seen in his life,and he was a psychologist for at least 18 years when John and Yoko saw him in 1970! He said John was a very dedicated patient. He also said that John left therapy too early though and that they opened him up,but didn’t get a chance to put him back together again and Dr. Janov told John he need to finish the therapy,he said because of the immigration services and he thought Nixon was after him,he said we have to get out of the country.John asked if he could send a therapist to Mexico with him,and Dr. Janov told him we can’t do that because they had too many patients to take care of,and he said they cut the therapy off just as it started really,and we were just getting going.
Also this great article by long time anti-sexist,anti-men’s violence,anti-pornography former all star high school football player and author of the great,important 2006 book,The Macho Paradox:How Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help, Jackson Katz.John Lennon on Fatherhood,Feminism,and Phony Tough Guy Posturing https://www.huffpost.com/entry/john-lennon-on-fatherhood_b_800333
Also Cynthia Lennon is quoted in the great John Lennon biography Lennon,by award winning music journalist and former editor of The Melody Maker Magazine and good friend of John’s for 18 years,Ray Coleman as saying somethings like she knew as soon as she saw John and Yoko together she knew that she lost him,and that it was a meeting of the minds and that she knew that they were right for each other.She also said that she told John before he started his relationship with Yoko that she sees and incredible similarity between him and Yoko and said to him that there is something about her that is just like you.She told him that he may say that she’s this crazy avant garde artist and that he’s not interested in her,but that she can see more into John’s future with Yoko then he can.
In this January 1971 interview with Red Mole John says that Yoko was well into liberation before he met her and that she had to fight her way through a man’s world and he said the art world is completely dominated by men and said so Yoko was full of revolutionary zeal when they met. Then John said there was never any question about it that they had to have a 50-50 relationship or there was no relationship and he said he was quick to learn and he said that Yoko did an article in Nova more than two years back in which she said Woman is the N––––r of the world. A year later he co-wrote with Yoko the song Woman Is The N––––r of The World, and bravely performed it live on The Dick Cavett show and at Madison Square Garden in 1972 and the song was banned off a lot of radio stations.
John also says in this same interview that it’s very subtle how you’re taught male superiority.
Oh and the MSG gig was DIRE- nobody from The Beatles should have a last full gig like that- EVER!!
I am sick of May Pang acting like her word is gospel. I was with John the last four years of his life. I was introduced by John to many people as the future Mrs. Lennon and have an enormous amount of pictures of the two of us and notes he constantly wrote me. I hate to tell you May but John made a record for me that I still have and a very famous guitar player who use to go out with us put it on cd. John told Bob Gruen that he didn’t know how to get rid of you because you were like his phone book. He told me you were always asking for money and causing problems. But of course NOW when you tell stories John is not here to tell his side so you can say what you like. Many people that saw us together and knew about us tell me to write a book. However I would then be no better than you writing a book after the fact. Not only that I am not going to bare my sole to the world about our relationship. I have better morals than that. In addition John in many ways was a private person and I don’t think knowing him as I did he would like personal details being used to make money (that is something he was very much against). Also you and this act you put on about becoming John’s mistress you had sex with John long before you went away with him. Yoko knew what she was doing. I guess the money is more important to you then what John would have wanted the privacy he lone for. I have a PHD and support myself without exploiting the love of someone that I think about every day and I never saw in anyone else’s eyes what I saw in John’s. But I guess you figure the money is for services rendered. Don’t forget when your time comes you will have to answer for your actions and the truth about you will come out eventually.
What a mean-spirited comment. It’s easy to hide behind anonymity, isn’t it?
“But of course NOW when you tell stories John is not here to tell his side so you can say what you like.”
The irony is strong with this one.
Sole is spelled s-o-u-l.
Any clues as to the record, or CD?
Thanks.
I Remember reading her book when I was sixteen I think. I loved it! Love dear May
Interesting interview that basically parrots the stuff from Loving John, a book that alongside The last days of Lennon (sic?) by Fred Seaman very much go against the grain of what may calls ‘the party line’. I find may to be a sympathetic figure and I do not get the impression from reading her and listening to her that she’d be a compulsive liar simply out for a buck. Of special interest to me is that as an Australian the Little River band song she speaks of prompted John (by her account) to say ‘at last there’s a good band from Australia’, something that even to him must have sounded untrue, as he was a huge fan of Friday on My Mind by the Easybeats, an Australian band all the Beatles liked and saw live.
Had John been more of a music consumer he might have heard ACDC (the original line-up with Bon Scott who died even before John in 1980), a band that was directly descendant from the Easybeats -Angus Young being the brother of George Young from the ‘Beats-and a band that played raw and simplistic heavy rock, inspired by Chuck Berry but an extremely loud, heavy and even melodic band with as much attitude as punk bands of the mid 70’s. The Little River Band were not worlds away from the schlocky Air Supply, other Aussie hitmakers in the U.S in 1979/80.
I don’t pay much attention at all to celebrities personal lives – their fashion tastes, their political and social opinions – so I really have no particular thoughts about this. If nothing else, May is much better looking than Mrs. Lennon. But, as Joe Jackson once said: “They say that looks don’t count for much. If so, there goes your proof’.
John’s life in the 1970s will be forever debated by people trying to find the truth, which we will never know
It is noteworthy that many people close to the Beatles did stay in touch with May Pang down the years, such as Cynthia and Julian, and that Paul invited her to the memorial service for Linda in New York, but not Yoko.
That does suggest that her accounts of events have some truth
Cynthia writes about meeting her in her book “John.” You can also read about her in Robert Rosen’s “Nowhere Man.” She looks so young in those pictures!
Paul and yoko was in a court dispute at that time, May already said that she was invited but she was not close to Paul and linda at all , she could have been invited by a close friend like cynthia. May pang, like John and Yoko distort the truth a lot
I own the book “One Day At A Time” by Anthony Fawcett, and one thing I found interesting is that he never mentions May Pang once, even though the book covers the “lost weekend”. Does anyone understand why? The book is written very subjectively (but is an interesting account of John and Yoko’s art), but that isn’t the same as completely ignoring someone very significant in John’s life! It was written while John was still alive, so could it could have been part of the perfect couple image John and Yoko wanted to project? Thanks!
I found that a really interesting article, and nice to hear a different perspective – thanks Joe.
It did however raise one question for me – the photo shows Jon and Paul meeting in 1974 – how close was this meeting to the infamous ‘Toot and a Snore’ session? which also took place in 1974? And are there any pictures from that session out there?