The Lost Weekend

“I’m in love for the first time, don’t you know it’s gonna last” so sung Lennon in The Beatles song ‘Don’t let me down’. He was no doubt talking about his new relationship with Japanese artist Yoko Ono, if only it had been true then John’s life in the 70’s would have been much different! By the middle of 1973, Johns marriage to Yoko was well and truly on the rocks. They were no long the loving couple that they portrayed in public. The pressure of living in each other’s pockets, as husband and wife, as artists and a musician duo had taken its toll on their relationship. 

(photo found on google image search)

Surprising to most is the fact they Yoko Ono suggested that Lennon start an affair with their present assistant, the much younger May Pang. It was this decision of Yoko’s that led to John’s “Lost Weekend,” that lasted a whole 18 months. In that time Lennon lived with May in her New York apartment (where he saw the UFO) and a rented home in Los Angeles. Talking of the start of the lost weekend he said “Well, first I thought, Whoopee! Bachelor life! Whoopee, whoopee! And then I woke up one day and thought, What is this? I want to go home. But she wouldn't let me come home. That's why it was eighteen months instead of six.” 

Even though the lost weekend was know mainly for Lennon’s wild antics and drunker stoned behaviouer, it was also a very productive time as well. Lennon completed three albums – ‘Mind Games,’ ‘Walls and Bridges’ and ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’, and he also produced records for both Ringo and Harry Nilsson. ‘Mind games’ was John Lennon's fourth solo album, and was recorded at the beginning of the Lost Weekend. 

(John and May, photo from google image search) 

At the time of recording his confidence as a musician had taken a heavy knock, his last album ‘sometime in New York City’ had not been a success and received bad reviews. The following album ‘Walls and Bridges’ featured his own childhood artwork as the album cover. The ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ was just as sentimental with its album cover, this time it was a photo of lennon before he was a famous Beatle, before Yoko, before Brian Epstein, before beatlemania, when he was a young rock and roller living on pep pills in the red light district of Hamburg! While Lennon enjoyed his lost weekend, and his freedom something happened that no one would have been possible just a few years earlier during the ‘imagine’ album. 

He took part in an jam session, in this jam session was his former band mate and (in recent years) rival, Paul McCartney,  that would be the last time he would record with Paul McCartney. Lennon was producing Harry Nilsson's album, Pussy Cats, when Paul and Linda McCartney dropped in after the first night of the sessions, at Burbank Studios on 28 March 1974. Also in the jam session was Stevie Wonder, Harry Nilsson, Jesse Ed Davis, May Pang, Bobby Keys and producer Ed Freeman. Lennon is said to be on cocaine during the session and is heard offering people a ‘toot’ or a ‘snort’ during the recording. 

(John and Paul, photo from google image search) 

Lennon is on vocals and guitar and Paul as well as singing also played Ringo Starr’s drum kit. If only for a little while, their bitter break up seemed far far behind them, their friendship seemed to be back. If this event would still have had happened had Lennon been with Yoko at the time and not May then we will never know, but it does seem somewhat unlikely. Just two weeks before the jam session, a drunken Lennon was tossed out of the Troubadour. The evening started with the brandy Alexander cocktails that Lennon was newly introduced to by Harry, he got very drunk very quickly. Lennon and Harry were chucked out for relentlessly heckling the Smothers Brothers and (according to the staff) assaulting a waitress. “I got drunk and shouted," Lennon told. "It was my first night on Brandy Alexanders, that’s brandy and milk, folks. I was with Harry Nilsson, who didn’t get as much coverage as me, the bum. He encouraged me. I usually have someone there who says 'Okay, Lennon. Shut up.'" When it came to ejecting the pair from the club a very angry Lennon lashed out, losing his glasses in the fuss. 

(John and May, from google image search) 

He then, according to Tommy Smothers, kicked the valet. Lennon and Nilsson reportedly had flowers delivered to the Smothers Brothers the next day, something John had done in the past when he had been in fights. Lennon said "There was some girl who claimed that I hit her, but I didn’t hit her at all, you know. She just wanted some money and I had to pay her off, because I thought it would harm my immigration. So I was drunk. When it’s Errol Flynn, the showbiz writers say: 'Those were the days, when men were men.' When I do it, I’m a bum. So it was a mistake, but hell, I’m human." This actually wasn't the first time, that Lennon caused trouble at the Troubadour. Around a month earlier, A heavily drunk Lennon was at the club to see soul singer Ann Peebles, when he somehow ended up with a sanitary pad attached to his forehead. When a waitress was at his table he said the immortal words “Do you know who I am?" After the waitress questioned why he wasn't leaving a tip on the way out. "Yes," the waitress replied "You're some asshole with a Kotex on your head." 

How this event wasn’t photographed and didn’t end up in every newspaper is a surprise.  

(photo from google image search) 

Everything that happened and Lennon did in his lost weekend could easily fill a whole blog or book for that matter on its own!  Of course finally the lost weekend came to an end, John broke up his girlfriend May and returned to Yoko and the Dekota building. Soon after Yoko became pregnant with their first son (John’s second) and John went into a type of hibernation within the walls of the Dekota.