The Beatles Boxed Set (26 page)

            Accounts
of John and Yoko’s life, particularly in this period in their lives, showed
that in the morning, Yoko would descend to the ground floor of Dakota where
they had offices and took care of John’s estate.

John retired from making music for five
years so that he could focus on his family

           
John,
meanwhile, looked after their son, but had so much time to himself because
there were also assistants and nannies to help him with Sean. He would usually
wake up at 6 in the morning to prepare his son’s meals and spend time with him.
If he wasn’t with Sean, John was busy creating several series of drawings. He
also began a book containing autobiographical material and just “mad stuff”,
all of which would be published posthumously.

            John
embraced fatherhood with relish. Bob Gruen, who briefly visited the Lennons
during Christmas holidays, attested that “Lennon never looked happier to me.”
Also that week, they had surprise visitors. Paul and Linda McCartney dropped by
for a warm reunion with the Lennons. They ordered pizza and watched the sunset
from the Lennons’ living room.

            With
the birth of Sean in 1975, John found peace of mind. Taking into consideration
his own eventful childhood – the departure of his father and the death of his
mother – John was determined to give Sean the kind of childhood he deserved.
This period in John’s life was relatively calm, compared to his life as a
Beatle and to his “lost weekend” with May Pang.

            John
heard from his father, for the last time, early in 1976, when Pauline Lennon reported
that Alf was diagnosed with stomach cancer. They lost contact after that
confrontation at Titternhurst in 1970 when John revoked his allowance. John
made a call to the local hospital in March and had one last conversation with
his father.

            Alf’s
autobiography mentioned that when John called, he was full of apologies,
saying, “How you doing, whacker? I’ve been very worried about you.” And then,
based on Pauline Lennon’s account, John said, “I’m sorry I treated you the way
I did, Dad. I should never have gone to the head shrink. It was a big mistake.”

            The
following day, a bouquet of flowers arrived at the hospital with the note that
read: “To Dad – Get well soon – With much love from John, Yoko and Sean.”

            Alfred
Lennon died on April 1, 1976, a month after their final conversation.

            John
also had to deal with rumors of a Beatles reunion that year. Promoter Bill
Sargent from Los Angeles offered the Beatles $50 million to reunite for one
concert. The following month, Sargent doubled the offer and proposed the Fourth
of July as the date. British promoter, Mike Mathews, offered £3 million plus
proceeds from the closed-circuit revenues, which would amount to £30 million.

            None
of the Beatles responded.

            But
more offers followed, including one aired on
Saturday Night Live
by
producer Lorne Michaels, who offered $3,000 for three songs. He even joked, “If
you want to give Ringo less, that’s up to you.”

            John
watched the show live at the Dakota with Paul and Linda. John recalled that
night” “He [Paul] and I were watching it and we went ha-ha, wouldn’t it be
funny if we went down and we almost went down to the studio, just a gag. We
nearly got into the cab, but we were actually too tired.”

            Between
taking care of Sean and his other activities, John traveled widely, going to
places such as Egypt, Middle and Far East, and Africa. Sometimes he was on his
own, at times with Yoko and Sean. The family traveled to Japan in 1978 where
they stayed for five months. During this period, John learned Japanese and drew
cartoons and character sketches in lithograph.

            John’s
retirement ended in October 1980. He had just come from a seven-day sea journey
aboard a 43-foot sailing boat where, for three days, a big storm hit them. That
experience inspired John so much that songs just came out naturally. He began
working with Jack Douglas, an engineer turned producer who had worked on John’s
Imagine
. John contacted him by phone and swore him to a secret project.

            Douglas
rehearsed musicians for two months without telling them about the project. And
then one day, Yoko approached him and gave him a stack of five-inch
reel-to-reel tapes and told him, “This is my stuff. Now don’t tell John, but
I’m gonna have some stuff on this record.”

            Eventually,
John and Yoko would work together on this album. Regarding how the couple
interacted, Jack Douglas had this to say: “I don’t mean to sound anti-Yoko
because I’m not but there was always some kind of minor war going on. In the
end, Lennon would always fold to ‘Mother’ [Yoko], he just didn’t want the
grief. Like when it came time to do the song sequence for
Double Fantasy
,
John said, ‘Okay, boys, let’s make an order. You guys make your order and put
it in this hat, and I’ll make an order and put it in the hat.’ So we drew up
our song lists, and my order and John’s were fairly similar, they all had John
songs on side A and Yoko’s songs on side B. and then Yoko looked at these
layouts and said, ‘No way! If you want to hear John, you’ve got to hear Yoko,
too!’ And so we laced them together, first John and then Yoko, throughout the
record. But with her, it wasn’t really a negotiation, it was like, ‘This is how
it’s going to be.’”

           
Double
Fantasy
album contained works of John and Yoko, the first time they had
done so since
Some Time in New York City
. When the album was finished,
the Lennons booked press for the first time since 1975.

John and Yoko collaborated on
Double
Fantasy
, the last album that John would make

            John
was recharged seeing the album’s sales and media interest. Jack Douglas
recalled, “He was so proud of
Double Fantasy
turning into a hit, he was
going to take the material on a huge world tour. He had already done sketches
of the production, hired the musicians, like drummer Andy Newmark, bassist Tony
Levin, and guitarist Hugh McCracken.”

            The
release of the album also prompted conversations about John’s old band mates,
the possibility of him returning to Britain, and other projects beyond the
tour. Douglas said, “There was a Ringo album coming down the pike, and a
reunion, at least by the three of them (John, George and Ringo), that was all
planned out. That was going to be Lennon’s next move after the world tour. He
talked fondly about McCartney every night, and he always wanted to redo certain
Beatles songs, but he really spoke more like he really loved those guys. The
only person that he was pissed at was George, because George put out this
memoir [
I Me Mine
] and John was really, really pissed about that. I
remember him saying, ‘How do you write about your life and not talk about the
guy whose band you were in?’”

Initially after its release, the album received scathing
reviews from critics. Americans were disappointed by the album and British
critics didn’t think it was good enough. But when John was murdered, many of
the poor reviews were withdrawn from publication.

            In
the UK, the album reached number 14 but slipped to number 46 while in the US,
the album made its slow ascend to number 11. After John’s murder, the album
jumped to number 1 in the US and stayed there for eight weeks. In the UK, it
jumped to number 2 and remained in that position for seven weeks before
spending two weeks at  number one. The album would win John and Yoko the 1981
Album of the Year in 1982 during the 24
^th
Annual Grammy Awards.

Now
with a new album out, John became busier than ever. He had three major
interviews to attend to: one with
Rolling Stone
, another with BBC and
still another one with RKO Radio.

            While
John had that interview with BBC’s Andy Peebles on December 6, a young man in
his mid-twenties began hanging around the Dakota, talking with other fans and
hoping to catch a glimpse of his hero. This man, Mark David Chapman, barely
stood out. He was born in Texas in 1955 and graduated from Columbia High School
in Georgia in 1973. In high school, he joined as a guitar in a rock band,
became a Christian and always brought with him a “Jesus notebook.”

            In
1980, Chapman applied for a pistol permit in Honolulu, claiming that a burglary
at his apartment necessitated self-protection. The following month, he had
enough cash ($169) for a five-shot Charter Arm revolver with a two-inch barrel.
The police record showed that Chapman then flew to New York on December 6,
stayed at the West Side YMCA on 63
^rd
Street and Central Park West.
He then booked a room at the Sheraton Center, at $82 a night, for the week.

            Monday,
December 8, was a beautiful day. It would also be a busy day for John. His
(Just
Like) Starting Over
climbed to number 3 in the US, and there were plans of
recording Yoko’s
Walking on Thin Ice
as its follow-up.

            In
the afternoon, portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz arrived to the Lennons’
apartment for a photo shoot for
Rolling Stone
magazine. After taking a
few shots of both John and Yoko, Leibovitz left at 3:30pm.

            John
then sat down for an interview with the UK’s syndicated RKO Radio. It would be
his last interview. He told DJ Dave Sholin, “When I was writing this [album], I
was visualizing all the people of my own age group… being in their thirties and
forties now, just like me, and having wives and children and having gone
through everything together. I’m singing for them. I’m saying, ‘Here I am now.
How are you? How’s your relationship going? Did you get through it all? Wasn’t
the seventies a drag, you know?... Well, let’s try to make the eighties good,
because it’s still up to us to make what we can of it.’”

            That
evening, John and Yoko decided to go to the Hit Factory on West 44
^th
Street to work on Yoko’s
Walking on Thin Ice
, which John believed would
break Yoko through to the pop charts. On their way to the limo, several people
approached them for autographs, among them Chapman. Surprisingly, Chapman had
been to New York in October before the release of
Double Fantasy
,
intending to murder John but changed his mind and returned home.