“you could go a bit faster, Ringo!”
“Okay, George!”
That Beatles banter was caught on tape during an
April 14, 1969, recording session. But George Harrison
was on holiday, and Ringo Starr was at Twickenham
Film Studios that day shooting The Magic Christian.
The voices impersonating the two absent members
belonged to John Lennon, at work that day with only
his long-time songwriting partner Paul McCartney.
That they were in good spirits while they were record-
ing “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” Lennon’s rock and
roll reportage on his recent wedding, was something
of an achievement. A year earlier he and McCartney
had almost come to blows over Yoko Ono’s presence
in the studio during the making of The White Album.
According to the record’s sound engineer Geoff Emer-
ick, “Either she goes or I go,” McCartney threatened.
“She’s not going,” Lennon reportedly replied. She was
there again for Let It Be. And she was by his side as
Lennon began performing with her as the Plastic Ono
Band and, soon after, dissolved the Beatles.
McCartney and the other Beatles could walk away,
but fans who wished to enjoy a continuing relation-
ship with Lennon and his music would have to accept
that Ono was here to stay. Even before the official end
of the Beatles, Lennon and Ono put out two edgy art
albums, Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, and Un-
finished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions. The cover of
the first featured the couple photographed nude, giv-
ing his label EMI a reason not to distribute it. (It was
eventually sold in a brown wrapper.) Their follow-up
had a photo of a hospitalized Ono on the front and
Lennon after his arrest for drug possession on the flip
side; EMI did put it out, and critics largely savaged it.
Their single “Give Peace a Chance,” recorded in a
hotel-room bed, however, went to No. 2 in Britain.
His first post-Beatles studio album, in 1970, was
titled simply John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. “I think
it’s the best thing I’ve ever done,” Lennon told Rolling
Stone at the time. “It’s me! And nobody else. That’s
why I like it. It’s real, that’s all.” No Paul. No George.
(Ringo, who had been friendlier to Yoko than the
other Beatles, played drums on several tracks.) And
Lennon’s new wife, an avant garde artist, was credited
with playing “wind.” No, not woodwinds, but the very
oxygen around them.
Nevertheless the album garnered ravishing
reviews, sold well and decades later held its place
Y
JOHN
40 THE BEATLES 1969 PEOPLE
