John talks '69 Canadian peace mission, performing live
A
reel-to-reel radio relic that preserves a long-lost Canadian interview
with John Lennon, discovered recently in a former New York broadcaster's
attic and set to be auctioned Thursday in the U.S., vividly recalls the
musician's December 1969 peace mission in Canada that culminated with a
private meeting between the pop superstar and then-prime minister
Pierre Trudeau.
The 90-minute recording with Village Voice music columnist and radio host Howard Smith captures the Beatles legend candidly describing the production of the group's last album together, Let it Be, as "hell" and "torture," presaging the biggest band breakup in rock 'n' roll history.
And echoing other public comments made
at the time, Lennon explains how Canada - initially a second-choice
destination for the singer's 1969 antiwar campaign after a previous
marijuana conviction prevented his entry into the U.S. - turned out to
have ideal "vibrations" for his peace initiatives, leading him to
announce plans for a Woodstock-like concert in Toronto in July 1970 and
the establishment of a Canada-based global peace foundation (neither of
which actually came to pass).
"We think Canada's a good place," Lennon said during the taped conversation, which included his wife Yoko Ono and was held at the Mississauga, Ont., mansion of Can-Am rockabilly legend Ronnie Hawkins. "We tried to come in (to the U.S.) to do it," Lennon said of the couple's May-June "Bed-In" that year in Montreal. "We ended up in Montreal, which turned out to be a good thing - you know, that's how the whole Canada thing happened."
Asked about the Beatles' recent recording sessions, Lennon said: "We were going through hell. We often do ... It's torture every time we produce anything. The Beatles haven't got any magic you haven't got.
We suffer like hell any time we make anything."
Lennon also described the inhuman pressure faced by the Beatles when performing on stage and predicted accurately that the group would never tour or record together again.
"I'm not against performing, but performing as a Beatle is like such a myth and an aura about it that they expect Jesus, God and Buddha," Lennon said. "It's an anticlimax to the buildup of the myth, the myth is bigger than ... three guitarists and a drummer. The myth is bigger than the reality (and) I'm inclined to leave them with the myth."
Lennon's weeklong stay in Canada followed not only the spring Bed-In in Montreal but also a "Live Peace" concert in Toronto that September, where a performance of Lennon's new anthem Give Peace a Chance was the highlight. The December trip was closely followed by Canadian media, from the couple's airport arrival - captured in a front-page photo in The Globe and Mail - to Lennon and Ono's first ride on a snowmobile at Hawkins's home, to the scheduled 10-minute meeting with Trudeau in Ottawa that turned into a warm, 50-minute conservation fondly recounted decades later in Trudeau's 1993 memoir.
"I was pleased to receive (Lennon and Ono)," Trudeau wrote, adding that the Beatle "was kind enough to say afterwards, 'If all politicians were like Mr. Trudeau, there would be world peace.' I must say that Give Peace a Chance has always seemed to me to be sensible advice."
Ono even described Trudeau as "more beautiful than we expected." And Trudeau biographer John English recalled the encounter by noting that "with Trudeau's popularity on the wane" in late 1969, "these unexpected endorsements possessed real political weight." The rediscovered radio reels are expected to fetch about $5,000 at Thursday's sale, RR Auction vice-president Bobby Livingston told Postmedia News.
The 90-minute recording with Village Voice music columnist and radio host Howard Smith captures the Beatles legend candidly describing the production of the group's last album together, Let it Be, as "hell" and "torture," presaging the biggest band breakup in rock 'n' roll history.
And echoing other public comments made
at the time, Lennon explains how Canada - initially a second-choice
destination for the singer's 1969 antiwar campaign after a previous
marijuana conviction prevented his entry into the U.S. - turned out to
have ideal "vibrations" for his peace initiatives, leading him to
announce plans for a Woodstock-like concert in Toronto in July 1970 and
the establishment of a Canada-based global peace foundation (neither of
which actually came to pass)."We think Canada's a good place," Lennon said during the taped conversation, which included his wife Yoko Ono and was held at the Mississauga, Ont., mansion of Can-Am rockabilly legend Ronnie Hawkins. "We tried to come in (to the U.S.) to do it," Lennon said of the couple's May-June "Bed-In" that year in Montreal. "We ended up in Montreal, which turned out to be a good thing - you know, that's how the whole Canada thing happened."
Asked about the Beatles' recent recording sessions, Lennon said: "We were going through hell. We often do ... It's torture every time we produce anything. The Beatles haven't got any magic you haven't got.
We suffer like hell any time we make anything."
Lennon also described the inhuman pressure faced by the Beatles when performing on stage and predicted accurately that the group would never tour or record together again.
"I'm not against performing, but performing as a Beatle is like such a myth and an aura about it that they expect Jesus, God and Buddha," Lennon said. "It's an anticlimax to the buildup of the myth, the myth is bigger than ... three guitarists and a drummer. The myth is bigger than the reality (and) I'm inclined to leave them with the myth."
Lennon's weeklong stay in Canada followed not only the spring Bed-In in Montreal but also a "Live Peace" concert in Toronto that September, where a performance of Lennon's new anthem Give Peace a Chance was the highlight. The December trip was closely followed by Canadian media, from the couple's airport arrival - captured in a front-page photo in The Globe and Mail - to Lennon and Ono's first ride on a snowmobile at Hawkins's home, to the scheduled 10-minute meeting with Trudeau in Ottawa that turned into a warm, 50-minute conservation fondly recounted decades later in Trudeau's 1993 memoir.
"I was pleased to receive (Lennon and Ono)," Trudeau wrote, adding that the Beatle "was kind enough to say afterwards, 'If all politicians were like Mr. Trudeau, there would be world peace.' I must say that Give Peace a Chance has always seemed to me to be sensible advice."
Ono even described Trudeau as "more beautiful than we expected." And Trudeau biographer John English recalled the encounter by noting that "with Trudeau's popularity on the wane" in late 1969, "these unexpected endorsements possessed real political weight." The rediscovered radio reels are expected to fetch about $5,000 at Thursday's sale, RR Auction vice-president Bobby Livingston told Postmedia News.
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