John Lennon discusses Big Seven lawsuit with Maurice Levy

John Lennon discussed his lawsuit with Big Seven Music Corp on 8 October 1974.

The music company had sued Maclen Music Inc, Northern Songs Ltd, and Apple Records Inc, in response to the similarity between The Beatles’ ‘Come Together’ and Chuck Berry’s ‘You Can’t Catch Me’. It had been settled out of court, and finalised in the United States District Court in New York City on 12 October 1973.

As part of the settlement, Lennon agreed to record three songs owned by the publishing company on his next album. However, Walls And Bridges contained just one, ‘Ya Ya’, and it was a throwaway lasting barely a minute, featuring the 11-year-old Julian Lennon playing drums with a single stick.

Morris Levy of Big Seven Music believed this to be a breach of the agreement, and requested a meeting with Lennon. The meeting involved the two men, plus May Pang, Apple Publishing head Bernard Brown, Lennon’s lawyer Bernard Brown, and Big Seven’s vice president Phil Kahl. They met at Club Cavallero on East 58th Street in Manhattan.

All I was interested in saying was what I had to say about the [Phil Spector] tapes. I was very nervous, because I did not know the man. And I heard he was annoyed at me. So I told him as best I could all about the Phil Spector tapes and what had happened… ‘I am sorry, you didn’t get what you are supposed to get, but this is why.’ I explained that for about three quarters of an hour or an hour. And he said something like, ‘Well, that is all very well and good, but I am out of pocket.’ And he started writing some figures down on a bit of paper. I don’t know what they were, maybe $250,000 or something. I could not follow the reasoning, but if he thought he was out of pocket, he was out of pocket as far as I could see.

Levy came away from the meeting believing that Lennon had granted permission for the release of an album of rock ‘n’ roll oldies, which Levy could market via his mail order company Adam VIII. He had previously been told by Allen Klein that permission from EMI and Capitol Records would not be necessary for a mail order release in the US.

I was thinking perhaps I could put it straight on TV and avoid the critics and avoid going through the usual channels. And Morris told me that is what he does. I said that is cool with me as long as it is all right with the record company. My policy all the time is whenever they get into figures or business, I just tune out.