A Day In The Life
The day John Lennon met the Duke and Duchess of Windsor at the Broadwick Street Gentlemen’s toilets
27 November 1966
A warm pot with three spoons of tea. Milk and two sugars. Cynthia made tea for her husband just the way his Aunt Mimi used to. John followed Mimi's tea-making ritual religiously. Until the day he died.
It was still dark outside on a cold November Sunday morning. John got dressed while Julian ran around, in the way that three year olds generally do. A knock at the door signalled the arrival of Alf, John's driver. They had agreed that Alf would take the Mini Cooper to Soho, as it would be easier to park than the Rolls. Alf had stopped working for The Beatles in the summer, but he lived in a flat nearby in Weybridge that John had bought and did occasional jobs for the Lennons. John had only passed his driving test the year before, and he was far from confident in his own driving skills - as indeed was everyone else who had ever been driven by him.
It wasn’t yet eight o’clock when Alf pulled out the drive of their house, and headed off past the golf club towards the A3. John lit a cigarette and tuned the radio to Pete Drummond on Wonderful Radio London. Big fans of the pirates, John was scheduled to record the group’s Christmas message for the station’s listeners later that week. He’d promised the favour to Radio London’s Kenny Everett who had accompanied them on their world tour that summer, broadcasting daily reports.
They were on the Kings Road when that week's number one came on. Paul was a particular fan of Brian Wilson, and John had already been playing his latest hit, Good Vibrations, repeatedly. Their decision that summer to give up touring and focus on perfecting music in the studio had been in part inspired by Wilson. As John said, "He just sits at home thinking up fantastic arrangements out of his head. He doesn't even read music. You keep waiting for the fabulous breaks. Great arrangement. It goes on and on with all different things." He loved Wilson's use of cellos. An idea worth borrowing.
A change of direction
It was just after eight thirty when Alf pulled up in the parking area set aside by the BBC on Poland Street, just next to the location truck where he was due for makeup, costume and a cup of tea. He had agreed to do the show as a favour, and because he didn't know what else to do with his time.
The Beatles had finished their world tour three months earlier. The tour had been difficult and disturbing. They had been threatened at gunpoint in the Philippines, and had been subjected to outrage in the Bible Belt of America. Much of the anger was directed at John Lennon, which had strengthened his disillusionment with fame and with The Beatles.
In March, Lennon had been interviewed in the London Evening Standard. He had said that “The Beatles are more popular than Jesus”. This comment had caused a huge uproar in the United States. Cynthia Lennon later described how her husband was “very bewildered and frightened” by the reaction his words created. A radio station in Texas had invited local teenagers to bring in their Beatles records to be burned at a public bonfire. As part of the ritual, the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan set fire to a Beatles record on a huge wooden cross. Perhaps as a divine comment on the matter, the very next day the radio station was struck by lightning.
The Beatles had decided to take a break from the group after the tour. Paul was going to work on a movie soundtrack, George was going to India to study music, and John Lennon was going to act in a movie. Ringo, his wife Maureen and their young son Zak took a holiday in the more conventional sense of the term, and ended up staying with John as he filmed How I Won the War in Spain.
While he was filming, Lennon had a lot of time to think. He had achieved his ambition of being bigger than Elvis, but he was no longer satisfied. He knew that he wanted to do something else with his life, but he didn't know what it was. Overlooked in the Evening Standard interview was his confession that he was looking for something else: “You see, there’s something else I’m going to do, something I must do – only I don’t know what it is. That’s why I go round painting and taping and drawing and writing and that, because it may be one of them. All I know is, this isn’t it for me.”
As he sat in the BBC truck getting his makeup done, Lennon thought about his future. He knew that he didn't want to be a Beatle forever, but he didn't know what he wanted to do instead. But with touring over, he needed to fill his time, and working with Peter Cook appealed to his sense of vanity as ‘the smart Beatle’.
He was the charismatic leader of a four person group that was hugely popular, challenging convention, revolutionary in its approach and had led the ‘British Invasion’ of America. And so was John Lennon.
Not Only… But Also
Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett, and Jonathan Miller launched the satire boom of the 1960s with their comedy revue Beyond the Fringe. The show sold out London’s West End before taking Broadway by storm.
There are some parallels between Beyond the Fringe and The Beatles. On the evening of 20 August 1960, the four Oxbridge graduates premiered their show in Edinburgh, while four working class Liverpudlians performed their first show in Hamburg - the start of a three month residency where they learned their craft. Both groups went on to become hugely successful, both were known for their wit and satire, and all members of both became - in various ways - national treasures.
Peter Cook and John Lennon shared many similarities. Both were naturally funny and quick-witted, and both could be cruel with their wit. “A quick wit and an acid tongue” was how Lennon’s friend Peter Brown described him. Both could also be remarkably sensitive and generous in supporting others. Both were unafraid of offending their audiences. Significantly, they could only work when they were in partnership with a creative equal.
After Beyond the Fringe, Peter Cook partnered with Dudley Moore in becoming one of British TV’s most popular comedy double acts with their show Not Only… But Also. Cook wrote much of the material and was dominant in delivering the dialogue, but their magic and appeal was created through the nature of their collaboration. Dudley Moore’s role was far more than playing the straight man. Their partnership has been likened to a jazz group - Moore was the rhythm section providing structure and framework for their routines, within which Cook had opportunities to improvise.
By 1966, the Lennon/McCartney partnership had changed. They were still writing songs together, but they were now more like editors of each other's work. McCartney encouraged Lennon to be more musically innovative, while Lennon challenged McCartney's tendency to be lazy in his lyric writing. They knew each other's strengths and respected each other's judgments. Within the context of The Beatles, McCartney was increasingly providing structure and framework as Lennon explored new musical and lyrical directions.
This was to be the third and final time that John Lennon appeared on Not Only… But Also. A brief cameo on the pilot episode was followed by a performance of his poem Deaf Ted, Danoota and Me filmed on Wimbledon Common and read by Dudley Moore which coincided with the publication of his two volumes of poetry and drawings. The Deaf Ted poem was also read out in the House of Commons by a Conservative MP, citing it an example of illiteracy and as a symptom of a poor education system. He lost his seat to Labour in the 1966 general election.
Dan by the toilets in glasses
After getting his makeup done and finishing his tea, John Lennon put his glasses back on and headed out. The mop top era was over, and this was the day that Lennon would signal the change to the world. For the first time in public he was wearing the iconic NHS "granny glasses" that would define him for the rest of his life. They were part of the costume for Musketeer Gripweed, the film role he had recently played. They suited John. And he felt they suited Dan too.
Written by Peter Cook, the sketch he was there to film involved him playing the part of Dan, an affable but somewhat bumbling doorman of the Ad Lav gentlemen’s club situated in the underground gents public toilets on Broadwick Street. The club was a spoof of the Ad Lib, an exclusive Soho venue associated with The Beatles, where John and George had their first LSD trip.
In the sketch Dan stops an American journalist, played by Cook, from entering the toilet nightclub. The American then asks if it would help if he told Dan that he was the “Duke and Duchess of Windsor”. Dan replies “sorry, sir, didn’t recognise you, madam” before charging him five pounds. The American says “thank you very much, I love your Oxford accent” and Dan finishes the sketch by replying “follow your nose sir, and madam”. The 51 second sketch was to be included in the Boxing Day special of Not Only… But Also.
Peter Cook’s improvised humour never switched off, and location filming gave him an audience of fellow professionals and bystanders - even at nine on a Sunday morning. He and John knew each other well, and he put John - who was not a confident actor - at ease. After a few takes, by mid-morning they were done.
Peter, his wife Wendy and daughters Lucy and Daisy, lived in Hampstead where they were gregarious entertainers. Their dinner party guests included fellow comedians together with musicians, actors and journalists - the Lennons included. It was a couple of months later when John, Cynthia and their young son Julian were invited to the Cook home for lunch. Julian was busy drawing a portrait and was asked by John who it was of. Julian replied “It's Lucy in the sky, with diamonds”, referring to Peter and Wendy’s eldest daughter.
Music and comedy
John said his goodbyes, returning to the car where Alf was waiting to drive him back to Weybridge. He had just completed a job that would end up as a footnote in the history of 1960s popular culture. The cultural revolution of the sixties in Britain wove together the worlds of music and comedy, attracting those who saw the potential to challenge power, authority and convention through laughter and some good tunes.
Certainly The Beatles were inspired by Elvis, Chuck and Little Richard - but equally it was Peter, Spike and Harry - The Goons - whose influence was there in the surrealism that underlay everything The Beatles did, from the films to their mid-period albums, and in particular their press conferences.
Their Beatlemania-era press conference performances were a revelation to the media. As American journalist Bob Spitz writes: “The Beatles relished fencing with the press, trading the kind of sharp-edged wisecracks and one-liners that seemed polished by comedy writers. They kept up the relentless pace throughout the afternoon conferences, giving as good as they got, never once buckling under the strain. The result was a public-relations sensation.”
The Goons themselves had got into doing comedy through music - as they were all musicians. Peter Sellars was a jazz drummer who played with a string of bands in the late 1940s. Harry Secombe was a singer, while Spike Milligan was a jazz guitarist and trumpeter in The Bill Hall Trio. But even in the band’s performances, surreal humour was creeping in. Towards the end of their set, Milligan would say to the audience “and now we’ll give you a final number.” He would pause, say “six” and the entire band would walk offstage.
Peter Cook’s partner Dudley Moore was a musical prodigy. As a working class boy from Dagenham, it was winning an Oxford music scholarship that got him into the world of undergraduate satirical reviews. Throughout the sixties and beyond he maintained a jazz trio, and shortly before his death he performed Greig’s piano concerto at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
From The Goons through The Bonzo Dog Band, Billy Connolly and Scaffold to The Rutles, there has been an interweaving of subversive comedy and music in British culture. Some musicians became comics, while some comics at least aspired to go in the other direction. "There was a part of Peter that wished to be a rock'n'roller, but he could never quite find the right slot," reflects Keith Richards on Peter Cook. For John Lennon, comedy was just one other thing he was trying out in the quest to find his purpose.
It’s not too bad
Alf pulled into the drive and dropped off his passenger: time for tea and meet the wife. For John the morning had been a welcome opportunity to clear his head. November had been full so far - and far more significant than he yet realised.
He had returned to London at the beginning of the month after six weeks in Spain, exhausted and uncertain about his future. He had agreed to make a film as a way to figure out what to do with his time. There was no road map for a pop group that had conquered the world, but had decided to give up performing to live audiences. So he arrived at Heathrow with a lot of questions, a new pair of glasses and a song: “I was writing it all the time I was making the film. And as anybody knows about film work, there’s a lot of hanging around.”
It would take another couple of weeks before he could work seriously on the song. In the meantime he had things to catch up on. Sorting through his mail on the day he returned, he opened an invitation to an art exhibition at London’s Indica Gallery. It involved “this Japanese girl from New York who was going to be in a bag, doing this event or happening.” Unshaved, and possibly tripping, he went along the following evening. “That’s when we really met. That’s when we locked eyes and she got it and I got it and that was it. It took a long time.” In fact it took nearly two years for them to become a couple.
The next two weeks saw John relaxing with his family, dropping a few tabs of acid, and working on his new song - which had the working title “It’s Not Too Bad” - in his attic studio. He was one of the first people in the country to get hold of a Mellotron, an electronic keyboard that uses tape loops to reproduce the sounds of various instruments. He was still lacking a chorus, and remained unsure about the arrangement, but he was excited to play it to his bandmates.
The Beatles reconvened at EMI’s Abbey Road studios for the first time since the summer, just three days before his filming with Peter Cook. This time, there were no deadlines. They would work on their music until they were fully satisfied with it. They had no intention of recording music that needed to be performed live, so they could explore the creative potential of the studio to its absolute limits. And they recorded when they wanted to. Instead of starting work mid-afternoon, they would from now on generally meet up early in the evening and work through until the small hours.
On Thursday, November 24th, the Beatles gathered in studio two. As John Lennon said later “I was never so glad to see the others. Seeing them made me feel normal again.” He picked up a guitar and began to sing the first line of the song: "Living is easy with eyes closed..." In less than two minutes, he ran through the song. There was silence. Then, in a quiet voice, Paul said simply "that is absolutely brilliant." They worked together on the song until 2:30am.
As John relaxed at home on Sunday afternoon, his doubts about the arrangement they had worked on nagged away at him. After he had read the papers, that were depressingly still full of the Aberfan disaster, he returned to his studio to try out some other ideas. The following day at Abbey Road the group would try out a different arrangement that would open with the new chorus that he'd written. Then, later that week, he would abandon both versions and work started on a new arrangement that included brass and cellos. In all, 45 hours were spent over five weeks perfecting the song.
Cynthia made tea while John turned on the TV. He loved to read and watch television, but Sundays were never the best nights for viewing. That evening, Sunday Night at the London Palladium featured The Bachelors and Roger Moore, the man from The Saint. John wasn't a fan of the Irish singing trio and much preferred Danger Man to The Saint. After tea, he kissed Julian goodnight and returned to the studio to work on his new song. He was trying to perfect a fingerpicking approach, but he would abandon all attempts to play in the folk style the following evening.
November 1966 was a turning point for John Lennon, The Beatles, and popular culture. The song, "Strawberry Fields Forever," was released as a single in February 1967. It was a critical and commercial success, and pointed towards a new direction for music. For its writer, the song finally achieved the authenticity he was seeking in his songwriting. It was a song that remembered a very difficult past while coping with a very challenging present, and expressed it beautifully. It remains one of the greatest songs of all time.
Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out
It doesn't matter much to me
Sources
The main source has been a lifetime reading about him and developing my own view of how a day in his life may have been. Along the way these have been useful:
Badman, Keith. The Beatles Off the Record. London: Omnibus Press, 2005.
Beatles, The. The Beatles Anthology. London: Chronicle Books, 2000.
Coleman, Ray. Lennon: The Definitive Biography. Basingstoke: Pan. 2000.
Davies, Hunter. The Beatles: The Authorized Biography. London: Heinemann, 1968.
Egan, Sean. The Mammoth Book of The Beatles. London: Constable & Robinson. 2009.
Gould, Jonathan. Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and the Sixties. London: Platkus Books, 2007.
Lennon, John. The Penguin John Lennon. London: Penguin. 1965.
Lennon, John. Skywriting by Word of Mouth. Basingstoke: Pan. 1985.
Lewisohn, Mark. The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years. London: Hamlyn, 1988.
Lewisohn, Mark. Tune In: The Beatles: All These Years. London: Simon & Schuster, 2017.
MacDonald, Ian. Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties. London: Bloomsbury, 1984.
Miles, Barry. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now. London: Henry Holt, 1997.
Norman, Philip. Shout! The Beatles in Their Generation. London: Simon & Schuster, 1994.
Ono, Yoko. Memories of John Lennon. New York: Harper Collins. 2005
Ono, Yoko. The Tea Maker. The New York Times. 7 December 2010.
Sheff, David. The Playboy Interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. London: Hamlyn, 1981.
Spitz, Bob. The Beatles: The Biography. London: Little, Brown, 2005.
Thomson, Elizabeth and Gutman, David. The Lennon Companion. Basingstoke: Sedgwick & Jackson. 1987
Wenner, Jann. Lennon Remembers. London: Pan Books, 1971.