On June 4, 1980, at age 40, former Beatle John Lennon — the man who had compared himself to Jesus, staged Vietnam War protests from a bag, and written songs that captivated millions — found himself facing his greatest challenge to date: He was at the wheel of a ship in serious danger of going down.
At his summer home in Long Island, Lennon had decided he wanted to learn to sail. On an early voyage, his 14-foot sailboat was beset by a fierce storm with 40-knot winds.
Luckily, there was an experienced seaman on board — but that man grew tired of manning the wheel in the gale. So he gave it to the singer of “Give Peace a Chance” who, perhaps unexpectedly, rose to the occasion.
“At first I was terrified but Cap’n Hank was at my side, so I felt relatively safe, ‘cause I knew he wouldn’t let me do anything stupid,” Lennon later said. “Once I accepted the reality of the situation, something greater than me took over and all of a sudden I lost my fear. I actually began to enjoy the experience, and I began to sing and shout old sea shanties in the face of the storm, feeling total exhilaration. I had the time of my life.”
Indeed, the storm helped inspire “Double Fantasy,” Lennon and wife Yoko Ono’s Grammy-winning effort released after Lennon’s five year “retirement” from music — and just three weeks before Lennon was murdered.
“I was so centered after the experience at sea that I was tuned in to the cosmos — and all these songs came!” he said.
Now, photographs from one of Lennon’s final interviews — given with Ono to the BBC to promote “Double Fantasy” — are up for auction. Money, they say, can’t buy love — but an opening bid of $14,000 will get Beatlemaniacs in on the ground floor for these pictures.
“John and Yoko Lennon were in exceptionally good form,” DJ Andy Peebles, who conducted the interview for the BBC on Dec. 6, 1980, said of the interview. “… He was warming, charming and very polite, and seemed absolutely delighted to see us.”
Lennon, who settled in for hours of discussion about his decades-long music career, does sound quite happy — perhaps even uncharacteristically happy.
“Oh, the memory — it gets better as you get older,” he said. “It gets more clear.”
The pictures were taken by BBC producer and photographer Paul Williams at a famous New York recording studio, the Hit Factory, where the interview took place. Williams took nine photos of Lennon with Ono and one picture of Ono, according to the auction catalog. About two dozen other photos feature Peebles with unidentified people.
Two days later, Lennon had his fatal run-in with Mark David Chapman, who shot him to death after getting his autograph.
Nick Kirkpatrick and Justin Wm. Moyer, The Washington Post
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