We All Shine On:

The Stories Behind Every John Lennon Song 1970-1980

Extract

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In 1973 John went haywire. As he later put it to BBC interviewer Andy Peebles, “The feminist side of me died slightly.” May Pang was a New York-Chinese girl who had worked for the Lennons and their manager Allen Klein since 1969. When John and Yoko moved into the Dakota building, May became their in-house assistant and, at Yoko’s instigation (according to May Pang’s account, at least), began an affair with him. So commenced the most bizarre interlude in Lennon’s extraordinary life, the legendary “Lost Weekend”.

Yoko promotes the view that she banished John from the Dakota in order to confront his demons, to return only when she deemed him ready. “She don’t suffer fools gladly,” said John in 1980, “even if she’s married to him.” Tiring of him, and of her role as “Mrs Lennon”, Yoko was ready to assert herself. For his own part, John seemed keen to escape. He quickly fell for May, and the pair soon hit Los Angeles like eloping runaways, staying at a variety of addresses.

Whatever its cause, this lost weekend was an almighty bender, a 15-month rampage. Suddenly off the leash, John was a born again Rock Pig, running free across LA on a binge of drink and general boorishness. In later years, reunited with Yoko, he was careful not to call it a period of liberation. In fact his 1980 view was, “I was like an elephant in a zoo, aware that it’s trapped but not able to get out.” Though in exile, he would still make or receive up to 20 calls a day to and from Yoko at the Dakota.

May Pang was undoubtedly a comfort to him, but he also needed a new sort of stability — something to restore his artistic focus and give him direction. Instead, what he got was Phil Spector and a gang of good ol’ boys that starred Keith Moon, Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr. It was Brandy Alexanders all round.

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