Category Archives: John Lennon

Abbey Road – Crossing to be Heritage Listed

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The zebra crossing made famous by the Beatles has just been designated a site of national significance by the British government. Fans from around the globe flock to the crossing every day to have their photo taken walking over Abbey Road, just down from the EMI studios of the same name. The Abbey Road studios became almost a home-away-from-home for the Beatles and was where they recorded just about all their greatest songs.

The story of the heritage listing (which means it will be preserved forever from change) has been picked up by media around the world.

Here’s how the BBC World Service covered it this morning:

Paul McCartney says he’s pleased with the news, and that for him it caps off what has been a run of recent success: “It’s been a great year for me and a great year for the Beatles and hearing that the Abbey Road crossing is to be preserved is the icing on the cake.”

The photo-shoot for the album which put the pedestrian crossing on the map took just ten minutes to complete. On a sunny day on August 8th, 1969 photographer Iain Macmillan took what would become one of the best-known, copied, and parodied album covers of all time.

Getting ready to cross

People today can’t get the exact same look as the Beatles got for their cover for two reasons. First is that the crossing is not in exactly the same place it was back in 1969, and second is that Iain Macmillan was about ten feet up on a ladder. He took just six photos and it was the fifth one that was used for “Abbey Road”.

Starting the famous walk. Paul is in bare feet and getting nicely out of step....

There is a webcam (run by Abbey Road Studios) that looks over the crossing now 24 hours a day –  so even if you can’t get to London you can experience it virtually any time you like. The latest release to bear the photo that put a zebra crossing on the map is the remastered CD of “Abbey Road” – which came out last year in the new look with the white strip down the left-hand side. The legend lives on:

Rolling Stone – 100 Greatest Beatle Songs – Australian Edition

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Back in September I posted on the Rolling Stone magazine special edition release called “The Beatles – 100 Greatest Songs“.

Finally, its been released in its Australian and New Zealand version. This 122 page “book” has a different cover!

Clearly its a photo by Bruce McBroom from the same photo-session in London on April 9th, 1969 – but it is different to the one used for the front cover of the US version of this special edition Rolling Stone magazine:

Give Me A Chance – New Book

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When Canadian Gail Renard was sixteen she had a life-changing experience. She lived in Montreal and in 1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono came to town to stage their “Bed-In” protest for peace.

“Give Me A Chance” is a new book out now and in it Gail Renard tells her story of meeting John and Yoko and spending eight amazing days with them as their guest and helper in room 1742 of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal.

She babysits Yoko’s five-year-old daughter Kyoko, and she sits in on John and Yoko holding court as the press and the rich and famous make a beeline to their  bedside to interview them, to argue, to pay homage, and to hear about spreading the word of peace throughout the world. I really liked the book. While not full of revealing facts, its easy to read and has a genuine sense of fun and adventure. Gail writes in an endearing naive style and we get to experience the “Bed-In” for peace up close but very much through the eyes of a sixteen year-old girl. How did she get to spend eight days with the Lennon’s? We learn that when she called her mother to get permission there was a very awkward moment:

“Put John on the phone,” she demanded. I recognized her inquisitor’s voice and was mortified. “Oh Mum, you can’t!” I knew she could and she would, and that I didn’t have a choice….so I reluctantly handed the phone over to John. I tried not to cringe as Mum carefully spelt out her conditions to him. There was to be no funny business – no sex or drugs around her innocent daughter. As if that wasn’t enough, Mum also said that I could help at the Bed-In during the day but I’d have to be back at home by my bedtime every night. To my amazement, John agreed…

With permission from her mother out of the way Gail gets to sit in and sing as part of the rowdy chorus in the now historic recording of “Give Peace A Chance”. Every label for the song has the words “Recorded in Room 1742 Hotel La Reine Elizabeth, Montreal…”:

Afterwards, John gave her his hand-written lyrics for the song . These were written out with a black magic-marker pen on a big white cardboard square. These became the cue sheet for the crowd in the bedroom during the recording of the song in Suite 1742.

In 2008, Gail sold the “Give Peace A Chance” lyrics at a Christies auction for £350,000.  She says “Thank you, John. And thanks for not throwing them out, Mother!” She’s since been back to the room where it all happened over eight days in 1969 and writes about that visit here.

In many ways the book “Give Me A Chance” is very like an earlier book about a similar transformational experience with the Lennon’s – this time for a fourteen year-old boy named Jerry Levitan – who snuck into their Toronto hotel room and attended the Toronto version of the “Bed-In” for peace. He wrote a book about his experiences called “I Met the Walrus“.

Thank you to Beatles collector Bruce Hamlin for sending me a copy of this book. It’s richly illustrated with photographs and memorabilia and is a great little read!

Paul’s Poem For John – Still Poignant After All These Years

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As part of the recent commemoration of John Lennon’s 70th birthdate, the respected NPR radio program “Fresh Air” re-broadcast a wide selection of interviews it had done over the years about Lennon.

One of them was an interview that host Terri Gross did with Paul McCartney. It comes from back in 2001 when he was on the promotion trail for a new book of his collected words called  “Blackbird Singing – Poems and Lyrics 1965-1999“. Its a beautiful little book. If you haven’t seen a copy it looks like this:

In it are the lyrics to “Here Today (Song for John)”, the song Paul wrote specifically for John Lennon after he’d been murdered. It had first appeared on the 1982 album “Tug of War” with a lovely string arrangement by George Martin. More recently though McCartney has been performing it live as a solo acoustic guitar number and speaking more openly about how much he misses his friend and colleague. There’s a very emotional version of the song on the live “Good Evening New York City” (2009), for example.

Anyway, back to the “Blackbird Singing” book interview…..in 2001 radio host Terri Gross asked Paul to read the words to “Here Today” out loud as a poem. In 2010, at this time of remembrance for John, its also very moving:

In his book “FAB – An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney“, author Howard Sounes recounts a story from composer and musician Eric Stewart (ex 10cc) which also sheds some light on how those words might have come about. During the early sessions for “Tug of War” McCartney was working at his friend Stewart’s Strawberry South Studios. He says at the time McCartney was going through a pretty low period:

“He said, ‘I’ve just realised that John has gone. John’s gone. He’s dead and he’s not coming back.’ And he looked completely dismayed, like shocked at something that had suddenly hit him. I said, ‘Well, it’s been a few weeks now.’ He said, ‘I know, Eric, but I’ve just realised.’ It was one of those things maybe he wanted to say something to him [John], but it was too late to say it then….”

Three Copies of “Q” Magazine

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I needed to visit Australia’s national capital Canberra for work the other day and ended up staying overnight. That meant driving back to Sydney on a Saturday morning and so I had time to call into the large-ish New South Wales country town of Goulburn, which is just off the freeway on the way home.

Goulburn, I had discovered on a previous trip, has a very large second-hand book and record shop just off the main street called The Argyle Book Emporium. When I say big I’m talking an extensive old rambling period building with room after room literally filled floor-to-ceiling with books. One room at the rear is devoted to music. There’s a small selection of music-related books and magazines, and boxes and boxes of records and CDs. Its a bit frustrating as these boxes are just randomly grouped together. They’re not split out into Male Vocal, Female Vocal or Groups for example. Not even 50s, 60s ,70s and 80’s. Just everything mixed in together – making finding anything of interest a needle-in-a-haystack affair….

I didn’t have a lot of time and so I gave the LPs just a cursory flip through. I looked at a couple of boxes at the front which were easy to get to and didn’t find anything. What was more interesting was a very large pile of “Q” and “Rolling Stone” magazines. A collector had obviously off-loaded a lot of past editions that were no longer wanted. The “Rolling Stone” magazines had been pretty well picked over. Nothing really of interest to the avid Beatles collector. However, in the “Q” magazine pile I found these three editions: 

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The first dates way back to June 1987 – a time when we were all celebrating the 20th Anniversary of “Sgt Peppers”. Inside there are ten pages of photos and text:

Sadly, there was a “Sgt Pepper Part II” article that was due to be published in the following month’s magazine. It wasn’t on the pile of mags I found in Goulburn….oh well.

The next “Q” magazine I found featured an extensive article about Paul McCartney from July 1989. The headline on the front cover screams: He sings! He plays! He writes his own songs! For  PAUL McCARTNEY OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS! * Now available for live work! *.  Inside there’s a nine-page article about Paul. It begins: “He never expected to be doing this when he was 46 – “We thought 25 was the end of the line” – but Paul McCartney has stoutly refused to give up his day job. Engaged in rustic rehearsals for his first British tour in 10 years, and with a fresh solo album on offer [“Flowers In The Dirt”], he’s preparing once again to be public property. With mixed feelings…”. In the article there’s reference to the number of times McCartney makes reference to his father, Jim McCartney….”a Liverpool cotton broker and part-time musician who brought Paul up after his mother’s death (when McCartney was 14), and who died himself in 1976. One song on McCartney’s new album “Flowers In The Dirt”, is called “Put It There”, after a favourite phrase of his Dad’s”.

Finally, the “Q” magazine with that awesome David Bailey portrait of Paul and John on the cover. It comes from August 1999. Its a pretty simple premise on the part of “Q”. As the century draws to a close why not run a reader poll asking who are the 100 greatest stars of the 20th Century. According to “Q” readers back then the top ten are (were):

10. Michael Stipe; 9. Liam Gallagher; 8. Noel Gallagher; 7.Madonna; 6. David Bowie; 5. Elvis Presley; 4. Bob Dylan; 3. Kurt Cobain; 2. Paul McCartney; and and number one the runaway winner (according to “Q” by a long way)…..John Lennon.

It is kind of fitting to look back and read a magazine like this (from 1999) in this year (2010) when Lennon would have turned 70, don’t you think? Kind of cements the fact that his presence could in fact be enduring. That now, a further eleven years down the track, his music is still around and he’s still held in very high regard by many. There’s an additional article right at the end of the poll headed: “John Would Have Been Proud”. It says: “Yoko Ono, the keeper of the Lennon flame and the Lennon vat of money, telephoned Q as soon as she heard about the readers’ tsunami-sixed endorsement of her late husband’s transcendental magic and generation-straddling stature….”. That article is illustrated with this beautiful photograph:

Enough said.

(see also “Nine Copies of Rolling Stone”)

John Lennon – Gimme Some Truth Box

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This is the next installment of close-up, detailed photos of the current John Lennon re-issue program. We’ve already had a look at the “Signature” box set containing freshly remastered editions of all the original studio albums, plus two CDs of singles, home recordings and outtakes.

Now its the turn of the other box set issued as part of the program called “Gimme Some Truth”. First thing to say is that it is much smaller that the “Signature” box set (although that’s not saying much as the “Signature” set is huge). Its really just a slipcase kind of affair, designed to hold four CDs in cardboard sleeves plus a book. The other thing to say is that there’s nothing new here audio-wise for the avid collector. These are compilations completely made up of previously released tracks – most of which have been re-issued in a variety of forms many, many times…

The front and rear photos on the box are of John and Yoko in New York, only they’ve been superimposed on a drawing of New York Harbour (as imagined by John Lennon). It was taken by Scottish photographer Iain Macmillan, best known for his photo for the cover of “Abbey Road”:

"Gimme Some Truth" - front cover

And the rear:

"Gimme Some Truth" - rear cover

Here’s a shot from the same photo session with Iain Macmillan:

Inside the box are four themed CDs that gather John Lennon’s songs into categories. The first is “Working Class Hero”:

This photo is taken by Bob Gruen, a long-time friend and frequent photographer of Lennon who has taken some of his most iconic shots, including the images for the “Walls and Bridges” album, and he did the photograph used on the recent biography of John by Philip Norman. There are 18 tracks on this CD and they include “Power to the People”, “Steel and Glass” and “Give Peace a Chance”.

The second CD is called “Woman”, and gathers together love songs and songs specifically about the women in Lennon’s life:

This image is by Lilo Raymond, and is a photograph from the same sessions as the one used for the front cover of the 1983 posthumous LP release called “Heart Play – Unfinished Dialogue” which contained conversations with John and Yoko recorded in 1980:

The “Woman” CD also contains 18 songs, such as “Mother”, “Hold On” and “Jealous Guy”.  The third CD is “Borrowed Time”:

Got to be one of the saddest photos of John, don’t you think? So much potential there and a baby boy he won’t get the chance to see grow up….. Songs include “Nobody Told Me”, Watching the Wheels”, and of course “Borrowed Time”. The image was taken by Nishi Saimaru, who’s 1990 book “The John Lennon Family Album” features intimate family photographs taken over a three year period with the Lennon’s in New York, Miami, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. She also took the cover photo for that other four CD box set released in 1990, simply called “Lennon“.

The fourth and final disc collects Lennon covering tracks from his youth – early rock’n’roll standards plus a couple of other more contemporary rockers.

This is one of a series of famous images taken by Jurgen Vollmer of a young John Lennon in a Hamburg doorway. Vollmer, Astrid Kirchherr and Klaus Voormann met the Beatles in Germany in the early 60’s. Later, John was to write: “… Vollmer was the first photographer to capture the beauty and the spirit of The Beatles…We tried very hard to find someone with his touch after we returned from Hamburg, Germany…nobody could…The photographs…speak for themselves.” One of his photos from the same session was used on the cover of the 1975 album “Rock ‘N’ Roll”:

The “Gimme Some Truth” box also contains a 24-page book featuring an article (“Truth In All It’s Forms – The Songs of John Lennon”) by Anthony DeCurtis. DeCurtis also wrote the essay for the “Signature” box. It is illustrated with additional photographs, Lennon drawings and hand-written lyrics.

The front and rear covers of the book feature a Lennon drawing with his face morphing into Yoko Ono’s, and vice versa:

The final inclusion in the box is a business card-sized piece of cardboard with the word “Online” on one side and instructions and a PIN code for you to access the John Lennon Universe on the web on the other.

I’m not sure, but I think this card and PIN get you access to less comprehensive content in the “Universe” to that of the “Signature” box one. If anyone confirm that let me know.

See also the John Lennon “Signature Box” revealed, and the Paul McCartney Deluxe “Band on the Run” CD and vinyl sets.

John Lennon – Signature Box

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Well, our copy of the new John Lennon “Signature Box” has finally arrived safely in the post, thanks to Amazon, all the way from America.

You’ll no doubt see lots and lots of small photos of the exterior and YouTube “un-boxing” videos, so I thought I’d scan in some extreme close ups of what’s inside to give you an idea of the contents from that perspective.

As you know (and any Google Image search will reveal) the exterior of the “Signature Box” and it’s main parts look like this:

You can see above that it is really a box-within-a-box as the entire exterior (which has the word “Lennon” in sky blue lettering on top, and a Lennon signature embossed in white on the front) slides up and off to reveal an inner box. What you first see at the very top of that box are three items: the first is a 60-page, hard-cover book with simply the word “Yes” deeply embossed in blue on the front cover:

There is a deep blue ribbon underneath this book to help you lift it out of the box neatly (those of you with the Beatles Remastered Stereo boxes will have seen something similar used in that box to help you lift out the CDs). This book contains a lengthy essay called “John Lennon – The Life and Afterlife” by Anthony DeCurtis. It is illustrated lavishly with photographs, drawings and hand-written lyrics. Also with the book at the top of the box is a four-page cardboard fold-out sheet with this on the front:

On one side are three separate messages about John Lennon and his legacy from Yoko Ono, Julian Lennon and Sean Lennon, all signed August 9th, 2010. On the other side are four words: Give Peace A Chance. The final item you find at the top of the box is a business card-sized piece of cardboard with the word “Online” on one side and instructions and a PIN code for you to access the John Lennon Universe on the web on the other.

(If you don’t have a PIN code you can still have a snoop around the “Universe” – only with a lot of the functionality disabled).

Once you have lifted these three items out you can see the CD’s tucked away vertically inside underneath the book. They’re held in place by a piece of white soft foam with finger cut-outs so that you can get the CDs out a little more easily:

All the CDs are housed in redesigned cardboard gate-fold covers, utilizing the original artwork but in the now-familiar style of all the newly remastered Beatles CD covers. (Incidentally, the new Paul McCartney archive re-issues [starting with “Band on the Run” next month] will also have this new look). The re-issued and remastered CDs now all have booklets with sleeve notes (by Paul Du Noyer), lyrics and additional photographs.  The only thing here that’s new music content-wise are two CDs housed together in a unique, plain white gate-fold cover. One of them contains six singles which are not on the albums:

The other contains 13 tracks which are previously unreleased studio outtakes or home recordings:

Then, at the bottom of the box is a slide-out drawer (its got a small blue ribbon tab so you can pull it out). It contains a white, hard covered folder with John Lennon’s signature embossed in white on the front. The drawer also has a long blue ribbon under the folder to assist you in lifting it out. Inside is a John Lennon 70th Birthday art print on high quality paper:

This tasteful art theme is continued on two sides of the inner box, with a further Lennon drawing appearing on the left-hand side:

And again on the right-hand side:

I hope this has given you a different perspective on the contents. Clearly a lot of thought has gone into the packaging to try to make it hang together artistically in both design and colours. The strongest motifs are clouds, blue sky, and plain white). Its a MUCH bigger box than you’d expect – in fact the nine CDs inside look quite small by the time you get to them. There is a lot of packaging around them. It is significantly larger than the John Lennon  “Anthology” four-CD set and book that came out in 1998 (and which has some very similar design elements).

The Second Disc has written a comprehensive review of the “Signature Box”.

Next post will be a similar close-up, in-depth look at the new 4 CD “Gimme Some Truth” package.

See also the Paul McCartney Deluxe CD set, and the two disc vinyl.

1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die

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I was sent a new book the other day. Its called “1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die”. Great title.

Its edited by Robert Dimery and is a compendium of entries about the greatest popular songs ever recorded. The book is a companion to his previous work “1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die”.  (Click here if you are wondering about what’s on that album list).

The front cover of "1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die"

Of course the first place I went was to the index to find where the Beatles appeared.

They have no less than six full entries:  “A Day in the Life”; “Eleanor Rigby”; “Hey Jude”; “Strawberry Fields Forever”; “Ticket to Ride”; and “Tomorrow Never Knows”.

The entry for "A Day in the Life" uses an image of John Lennon's hand-written lyrics for the song

Interesting that “A Day In The Life” features so prominently as it was also recently nominated as the number one Beatles song in Rolling Stone’s Beatles special edition “Top 100” list.

The Beatles are matched in the book only by Elvis – who also featured with six entries. Bob Dylan, by way of comparison, has four entries…..

John Lennon as a solo artist gets one (a little predictably its “Imagine”); Paul McCartney gets one (perhaps surprisingly its “Maybe I’m Amazed”); George Harrison gets one (“Awaiting On You All”); and Ringo…well, Ringo doesn’t get any solo mentions.

Lennon Signature Box – Unboxing

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The first of the YouTube videos showing the unboxing of the new John Lennon “Signature Box” (containing all eight re-issued and remastered studio albums, plus a double CD containing non-album singles and 13 previously unreleased studio outtakes and home recordings) have begun to appear. This is one of the best so far:

It is actually a much larger box than I had imagined. I think its a pity that the box does not contain the new “Stripped Down” version of “Double Fantasy” and that we have to go out and buy that again separately…..

John Lennon – Google Celebrates 70th Birthday

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Google have paid tribute to John Lennon’s 70th birth date with one of those fun animated headings on their main search page:Click on the image to see the animation.

YouTube has also paid tribute:

Happy birthday John.