Every few years it seems the diary John Lennon recorded on September 5, 1979 makes a comeback in the news cycle, with all parties concerned seemingly forgetting that they have covered it before. This time it is in relation to Philip Norman's book John Lennon: The Life. Despite his other dubious claim about Paul McCartney, the writing on Lennon's mother holds some weight, as Lennon himself talks about it in the audio diary.Some are writing that this recording stems from the Lost Lennon Tapes, but this is not quite true. It never aired on the Lost Lennon Tapes, but it did end up as a bonus track on one the Lost Lennon Tapes CDs, which were based on the radio show and the bootleg LPs of the same name. When the recording was received by the research team on The U.S. vs. John Lennon, they stopped what they were doing and gathered around to listen to it. In the end, they decided against using it in the film due to the poor audio quality.
One final point of clarification. At least one author has taken the final segment of the tape (which was probably recorded on a separate day), where John somewhat lightheartedly talks about deciding whether or not to jump out of a hotel room window, as a sign of depression. Here John is actually making a lyrical reference that demonstrates the lack of knowledge concerning the works of his "other half of the sky" - namely, Yoko's songs. The reference to jumping out hotel windows is almost taken verbatim from Yoko's song "Looking Over From My Hotel Window" (from the 1973 Approximately Infinite Universe LP, where she sang:
"Age 39, looking over from my hotel window,
Wondering if one should jump off or go to sleep."
This song would have been brought to John's mind as he was close to turning 39 at the time. There you have it. I look forward to reprinting this in three years when the next sensationalist claims surface.
Read a transcription of John Lennon's audio diary
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