The Beatles Plus 50 It was fifty years ago today…

Again today, a camera crew followed John and Yoko around to capture footage for the upcoming TV special. The Ono Lennons had agreed to let the BBC film them for five days with the proviso that, once the special aired, they would retain rights to all the material.

The Beatles Bible describes the early part of today’s shooting as follows:

• John and Yoko sit in bed opening mail, with Yoko simultaneously knitting “a late birthday present for her husband.”
• “Lennon reads out a negative letter about his return of his MBE to the Queen, and a news item about a Welsh man who had been falsely booking hotel rooms in Lennon’s name. He also reads an article about someone who claims to have contacted Brian Epstein using a ouija board, who predicted an assassination attempt on Lennon on 6 March.”
• John and Yoko lounge by a large picture window. “In the footage Lennon plays a Mellotron while wearing a fake rubber nose.”

In the afternoon John and Yoko went to “work,” heading to the Apple offices for a meeting with their assistant about the upcoming “War Is Over” Xmas PR campaign. When they left Apple to visit a friend the film crew went its separate way, no doubt having reached its union limit for the day.

Parts of this footage are floating around, but I must admit some ambivalence about how avidly to pursue it. To step into the “World of John & Yoko” is to sign on for a very weird and rather exhausting trip. Plus in the course of writing this blog I have, despite my best intentions, developed a reflexive and powerful aversion to the sound of Yoko’s voice, even when she is saying nice things about peace and love.

Frankly this continues to mystify me. I always bend over backward to give Yoko a break. I know she’s been the victim of sexism and racism, not to mention the world’s blind, unreasoning jealousy over John. I’m a big fan of Sean Lennon and sorry that his mom gets so much crap. And I can’t on a rational level argue with her politics, pollyanna and pie-in-the-sky as they may be; they are the same as John’s, and though John may have been difficult and confused and unrealistic, he wasn’t wrong.

But every time Yoko opens her mouth I wince, maybe because I expect her to launch into one of those blood-curdling howls. So I may or may not pursue this thread in the coming days. We shall see.

Anyway, later in the day, George again took to the stage with Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, this time in Birmingham. Here is some more footage, probably not from this actual show, but close enough.