The Walrus and the Elephants

by James Mitchell

  “What is this search for meaning, anyway?” Tosches wondered. “Didn’t that go out in ’68?”

  The release of Approximately Infinite Universe closed the books on the band’s association with Lennon, who remained stuck in immigration limbo and unable to schedule dates or tours. Van Scyoc says he understood that ride wasn’t going to last forever.

  “It came to a standstill,” Van Scyoc says. Equipment valued at six figures would be returned, and regular salaries discontinued. “We were on retainer, but there were weeks when I was rehearsing with Neil Sedaka and collecting John’s salary. It was kind of silly for Apple to keep spending money on us every week. He had to cut us loose.”

  Back in New York, a courier showed up at each of the Elephants’ doors one early spring morning bearing a letter sealed in wax, an unnecessary yet theatrical gesture separate from official paperwork that followed from Apple. A personal message, five copies of the “parting of the ways” letter that Van Scyoc remembers fondly for its good spirit, grace, and humor. With true regrets Lennon said the gig was over, but he knew they’d soldier on and take the world by storm.

  “You can’t keep a good band down,” Lennon cheered, and explained that “because of the green card and Apple up in the air,” he would be in Los Angeles for a while:

  It’s costing too much bread to keep you “on retainer” and I/we have no plans to tour or anything . . . I hope you enjoyed yourselves (we did), your names known enough now to keep you going. See you round, love John and Yoko.

  • • •

  In a March 1973 deportation order, Lennon was once again ordered to depart the country within sixty days.102 The paper chase continued even after its motivations were moot. The FBI had officially closed its file; the bureau’s final report in December indicated that Lennon and the Yippies had parted ways, with Lennon the jilted radical partner: “In view of subject’s inactivity in Revolutionary Activities and his seemingly rejection by NY Radicals, captioned case is being closed in the NY division.”

  The attempt to deport Lennon, however, had worked its way into a system that couldn’t be stopped; untangling the red tape was a process that would outlast the presidential administration that started it. As White House staff scrambled to explain who knew what and when they knew it, the Lennon deportation attempt put INS district director Sol Marks in the uncomfortable position of kicking out a beloved cultural figure. It was the government’s right to do so, Marks said at a March 24 press conference, even if they didn’t really want to. Marks stressed that while the decision was based on the 1968 marijuana conviction, it was one step in a long process, and the order did not necessarily mean that Lennon would leave soon; he “might thus be able to stay in the US for years as he goes through due process.”

  The order included an offer of sorts: if Lennon voluntarily left the country, “he might be able to return” under a similar visa to the one issued in 1971, provided a waiver could be obtained for the marijuana conviction. Lennon was effectively being asked to go away for a while and trust the INS and the Nixon administration to do the right thing.

  “Having just celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary,” Lennon said in a responding statement that was quoted widely, “we are not prepared to sleep in separate beds.”

  Lennon held a press conference of his own at the offices of the New York City Bar Association. Lennon appeared in the Stimson Room before a crowd of New York attorneys, wearing a badge that read: Not Insane. America, Lennon reflected, was “a place to be in, rather than just scoot in and out with the loot.” His wife, he said, taught him to love the US, New York in particular, and its ideas of freedom.

  Seated at a table with Yoko and Leon Wildes, Lennon said the occasion for which they were gathered that day was to announce the birth of a nation: Nutopia, for which John and Yoko were the first ambassadors. Lennon then read the “Declaration of Nutopia,” which he said would duly grant him diplomatic immunity from further deportation hearings:

  We announce the birth of a conceptual country, NUTOPIA.

  Citizenship of the country can be obtained by declaration of your awareness of NUTOPIA.

  NUTOPIA has no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people.

  NUTOPIA has no laws other than cosmic.

  All people of NUTOPIA are ambassadors of the country.

  As two ambassadors of NUTOPIA, we ask for diplomatic immunity and recognition in the United Nations of our country and its people.

  The day of the Nutopia announcement was, of course, April Fool’s Day, with the signed declaration containing a return address from the Nutopian Embassy at One White Street. (The address of the Tribeca townhouse built in the 1800s may have been chosen at random, yet forty years later remained a destination for letters of peace and support addressed to Yoko.) Lennon waved a white handkerchief—the Nutopian flag—to conclude the bit of theater, a surrender that was mostly but not entirely a joke.

  But Lennon wasn’t giving up, or going away quickly. The sixty days came and went and he remained on American soil, although no longer keeping company with the Elephants or downtown radicals. In April 1973, John and Yoko became the newest residents of the storied Dakota apartment building at West Seventy-Second Street and Central Park West. The building itself boasted considerable screen time as a frequent backdrop in movies, most notably Rosemary’s Baby; the Dakota’s long list of celebrity tenants included at the time Roberta Flack, Lauren Bacall, and Leonard Bernstein. A change of scenery was in order, one that hopefully left behind the days of electronic surveillance.

  • • •

  John and Yoko maintained a relatively low profile as they settled into their new home, dramatically scaled back from the previous year’s flurry of activity and appearances. One public outing took place in early May, when they obtained the hottest tickets of the season to watch a day’s worth of Watergate testimony courtesy of Democratic Senator Sam Ervin—a key player in the prosecution of Nixon and his administration—and made a quick in-and-out visit to Washington.103 Lennon extended his appreciation in a follow-up letter in late June: “Thank you very much for your kindness in arranging our visit to the historic Watergate Hearings,” Lennon wrote. “We’ve been following it on TV—but there’s nothing like the ‘real thing.’ We apologize for leaving without saying goodbye—we had to escape rather quickly! We would have loved to have met Senator Ervin, but thought his time was occupied with more serious matters! Perhaps another time . . .”

  In July the Lennons attended the one-year anniversary party for Gloria Steinem’s Ms. magazine. Guests at the party—a boat ride up and down the Hudson and East rivers for an elongated circle around Manhattan—barely noticed the two. But aside from these brief appearances, a more isolated Lennon spent the summer working on his next album, Mind Games, which was recorded in July and August at the Record Plant. He gave only a few scattered interviews after the Nutopia press conference until that fall when it was time to start promoting the album.

  Lennon returned to effectively “solo” status with the record. He took the producer’s chair himself rather than offer a return engagement to Phil Spector, and brought in guitarist David Spinozza and old friend Jim Keltner on drums. No Plastic Ono incarnation or Elephants, no shared credits with his wife—marital tensions born the previous November were nearing critical mass. As recalled in Lennon in America, the album was “an interim record between being a manic political lunatic and back to being a musician again.”104

  The album mostly steered clear of politics, at least in terms of protest anthems or topical bits of musical journalism, but “Bring on the Lucie (Freeda Peeple)” has been called Lennon’s last great protest song, its lyrics clearly bringing an end to Lennon’s active involvement:

  Well we were caught with our hands in the air

  Don’t despair paranoia is everywhere

  We can shake it with love when we’re scared

  So let’s shout it a
loud like a prayer

  Lennon often dismissed claims that his songs held greater depth and meaning—even after years of having reviewers and fans scrutinize his thoughts. In the song “Intuition” Lennon offered one explanation for his role as both artist and activist: “My intentions are good, I use my intuition, it takes me for a ride.”

  Yet Mind Games may have included Lennon’s final thoughts on the Movement, the revolution, the lessons learned. Lennon restated and affirmed his philosophies in the title song, originally called “Make Love, Not War”—the phrase echoing the song’s ending—which Lennon knew was by then an overused cliché. “Mind Games” featured one of Lennon’s finest post-Beatles vocal performances and a positive message free of any bitterness that may have built up by then.

  “Some call it magic,” Lennon said, “to search for the Grail.” Positive energies over angry rebellion: “Yes . . . is the answer.” A string of phrases formed a consistent picture: “Chanting the mantra of peace on earth; faith in the future out of the now; raising the spirit of peace and love.”

  The song was well received when released in November. But overall the album met reviews similar to those for Some Time in New York City; Rolling Stone said the LP included “his worst writing yet.”105 Commercially, however, the record returned Lennon to respectable sales: the album cracked the Top 10, and the title single the Top 20.

  Critical backlash couldn’t target Yoko, who did not perform on the album but was present as a topic: the musical chronicle of John and Yoko continued with “Aisumasen (I’m Sorry)”; Lennon borrowed a Japanese phrase of apology to beg Yoko’s forgiveness for the sad ending to election night at Jerry Rubin’s apartment.

  The apology wasn’t enough to heal a wounded marriage. By the time Mind Games was in stores Lennon was back on the West Coast, unable to tour, too tired to fight. Lennon had gone to Los Angeles in October after he and Yoko agreed to separate for an indefinite period. He wouldn’t see Yoko again for more than a year.

  • • •

  The start of what John Lennon later called his “lost weekend” of California partying weren’t his prettiest days, but there was a lot of that going around. The climate in Lennon’s adopted home country wasn’t promising.

  In November 1973, President Richard Nixon felt compelled to address the growing number of questions and suspicions about his administration; during a rare Nixon press conference with the managing editors of the Associated Press, the president answered Watergate questions. That brief speech included one of the most repeated sentences in political history.

  Nixon had never once profited from his life in public service, he said. He “earned every cent,” and had never mislead the public or obstructed justice: “I welcome this kind of examination, because people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I am not a crook.”

  The humorists had a field day: “Not a crook” became the national punch line in a comedy that would take months to unfold.

  Despite Lennon’s unequivocal feelings about Nixon, he had lost interest in composing political songs, writing words for the Movement. Lennon knew there was no Movement to speak of anymore, but where exactly he would go was one of many unresolved questions. At the top of that list was a matter of far more importance to Lennon than any music, politics, or business: his separation from Yoko, his wife and constant, day-in, day-out companion of several years.

  “As a friend says, I went out for coffee and some papers and I didn’t come back,” Lennon later said of the separation and fleeing New York.106 “It’s not a matter of who broke it up. It broke up.”

  Lennon was accompanied by May Pang, who had been a personal assistant of the Lennons. Pang was sent by Yoko to keep an eye on Lennon and, as has been often chronicled, to serve as sexual surrogate while John ran wild on the West Coast—to keep him honest in his cheating during a nearly yearlong party.

  It was, as Lennon often described, the extended bachelor party that only a top-level rock-and-roll star could have. A Los Angeles duplex hosted a barroom roundtable of some of the hardest-drinking musicians in the business, notably Harry Nilsson and Keith Moon, and the bash mixed some business with lots of pleasure.

  In October Lennon had begun recording Rock ’n’ Roll, an album born in court but that became a celebration of his musical origins. Not long after Lennon shared the stage with Chuck Berry on the Mike Douglas Show, his publisher filed a lawsuit claiming that “Come Together” sounded a little too similar to Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me,” even including the shared lyric, “Here come old flattop.” The case reached New York courts in 1973, and ended when Lennon agreed to record “You Can’t Catch Me” on his next album.

  However unfortunate the motivation, the timing was right for Lennon to take a break from writing songs of cutting-edge importance and simply enjoy playing old-time rock and roll.

  “I had enough of trying to be deep,” Lennon recalled of his ambitions.107 “Why can’t I have some fun? When I wasn’t singing my own deep personal thoughts, it was to sing rock ’n’ roll, which is what I started with.”

  Jukebox nuggets from those sessions included “Peggy Sue,” a take on Little Richard’s “Slippin’ and Slidin’” that confirmed Lennon as one of the great singers of straight-out rock and roll, “Be Bop a Lula,” “Ain’t that a Shame,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” and what became the album’s best-known track, “Stand By Me,” which was stamped with Lennon’s distinctive signature on the Drifters’ classic. (The eventual release of Rock ’n’ Roll was a story in itself: Lennon deferred the producer role to Phil Spector, whose eccentricities by then were more than just quirky. Spector stormed into one recording session dressed as a surgeon and fired a gun at the acoustic tile ceiling, the report originating within inches of Lennon. “If you’re gonna kill me, kill me,” Lennon shouted.108 “But don’t fuck with my ears, I need ’em.” Recordings made in California in late 1973 disappeared with Spector for independent production until he was sidetracked by a March 1974 auto accident. Lennon later attempted to recreate the work in New York, and dueling versions and legal claims stalled the album’s release until 1975.)

  Playing some simple rock and roll numbers, which was a kind of home for John, a place he could always get back to whenever he wanted, now became another long and complicated process. Outside of the studio in Southern California, Lennon’s life took a drink-fueled downward spiral. The duplex-centered party was fun at first: musicians, movie stars, and former Beatles lounged poolside, bar-hopped with abandon, and gave in to their urges. It was an oddly productive time too, during which Lennon produced Nilsson’s Pussy Cats. Ringo was around, living and enjoying a Hollywood life; the brief presence of Paul McCartney prompted the obvious speculations.

  McCartney had been in Los Angeles for a few days, perhaps prompted by the opportunity to have time with Lennon sans Yoko. While McCartney was in town, he and Linda dropped in on a March 1974 session Lennon helmed at the Record Plant in Burbank for Nilsson’s Pussy Cats; work on that album suddenly seemed irrelevant. The room fell silent when the Beatles’ coauthors were present, in the same room yet somehow separate from Nilsson, Stevie Wonder, and several seasoned studio players. As recalled in Christopher Sandford’s McCartney, everything froze until Lennon broke the tension.109

  “Valiant Paul McCartney, I presume?” Lennon greeted his old partner, the name pulled from a Christmas play the boys had performed on British radio so very long ago.

  “Sir Jasper Lennon, I presume?” McCartney responded on cue. They shook hands, a warm but subdued atmosphere enhanced by the attentions on them.

  “There were fifty other people playing,” Lennon exaggerated later when he recalled that night in an interview. “But they were all just watching me and Paul.”110

  They jammed to a few oldies with Paul on drums and Lennon on guitar, as always returning to the familiar ground they shared as teenagers—before the Beatles, screaming fans,
triumphs and tragedies, wives, and endless lawsuits. They hadn’t broken up because of the music. They ripped through “Lucille,” “Cupid,” something called “Bluesy Jam,” and two takes of “Stand by Me.” Tapes of the impromptu performance resurfaced years later as a bootleg product entitled “A Toot and a Snore in ’74,” the title a reference to an overheard offer of cocaine. The product was not something they would have released, scattered bits and pieces of songs pulled from strained memories amid the unspoken expectations. It was fun, but the time and place weren’t fated for anything further.

  Pang captured a few photographs of the former partners seated on patio furniture, hands shielding their eyes from the bright California sun. They appeared relaxed in this casual moment away from the public’s expectations. Paul later admitted he was among the first to realize that Lennon may have needed a true friend.

  • • •

  For Lennon, the party spun out of control. He had approached the perceived freedom of being away from Yoko with gusto, but the over-the-top antics eventually dragged him into an abyss. “It was a madhouse,” he later said. “I realized I was in charge, I wasn’t just one of the boys. A company was expecting me to produce this record out of a gang of drunken lunatics.”111

  The lost weekend faded in time and Lennon returned to New York—although not immediately to Yoko—and in the summer of 1974 recorded Walls and Bridges, what would be his last collection of new material for six years. Back in the Record Plant, Lennon passed on the gun-toting Spector and produced the sessions himself, the songs inspired by his separation from Yoko and downward spiral in California.

  Lennon missed Yoko, perhaps the other Beatles. He would later describe on the BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test a situation not of peer pressure but peer acceptance: that Nilsson, Keith Moon, and company weren’t going to keep Lennon’s behavior in check.

  “I usually have somebody there who says, ‘Okay Lennon. Shut up,’” he remarked, whether referring to Yoko, former wives, or fellow Beatles. “But I didn’t have anybody round me to say ‘Shut up,’ and I just went on and on.”