Lennon's Lost Weekend

The lack of love and desperation had always been the recurrent elements of songs coming out of John Lennon's pen, during the year and a half he was separated from Yoko Ono, which he baptised as the Lost Weekend, between 1973 to 1974.

A collector had paid €21,000 for an exclusive sound document of Lennon singing whilst dead drunk and heedless, the classic of Lloyd Price's 'Just because', mixing in with the lyrics of his own spontaneous and outrageous expressions like: 'I like to grab hold of the new singers, Carol and the other, by their nipples'. Or: 'I want to catch and tie up all those with whom James Taylor had slept with.' or 'I like to suck your nipples, girl ...'. Was he as obsessed with nipples when not drunk I wonder.

Actually Lennon's long and lost weekend has it's own name: Yoko Ono. The mythical ex-Beatle was so deep into drugs and alcohol during that period of time, that his lady love Yoko decided to terminate their relationship, which was resumed in 1975 and lasted till his death in 1980. "when she chucked me out, I lived in the bottle as if I was 18 or 19, but when you are 30 and some, or whatever age I was then, you can't take that much alcohol any more. Or do crazy stuff, you know, staying out all night.", he so confessed during that period.

The recording of 'Just because', an authentic hymn of yearning of love, has a duration of 6 minutes and 16 seconds, and was given by Lennon himself to the proprietor of the tape. According to Margaret Barret, spokeswoman of the auction house Bonhams and Butterfields.

The band had tried to follow his rhythm, detaining or accelerating the music to be in harmony with the artist's own spontaneous, colourful and expressive renditions. The catalogue described this masterpiece thus: "Although Lennon was drunk, as he was the one singing, it sounds decent."

I bet €20,000 of the price of €21,000 was for the improvised lyric alone; not a doubt.

Tags:Lennon,Yoko,LostWeekend

• Current Mood: Amused