Cleanup Time

As long as we're in the late 71/early 72 era, here are a few snippets from Lost Lennon Tapes episodes which don't seem to be available elsewhere.

The first is a recording from December 13th, 1971, of John Sinclair, newly freed from Michigan prison, talking to John and Yoko on the phone. The latter were in New York at the Record Plant, producing David Peel's LP The Pope Smokes Dope, and Sinclair and his wife Leni were obviously overcome with emotion at the sudden turn of events.

During their stay in Philadelphia to tape their week of Mike Douglas Shows, John and Yoko held a press conference at the Warwick Hotel. This brief recording is probably from that conference, and features John discussing the Ram/"How Do You Sleep" skirmishes with Paul, as well as their recent detente meeting.

On January 30th, 1972, a protest in Derry, Northern Ireland, turned deadly when 26 protesters, mostly unarmed young men, were shot (and 14 killed) by British soldiers. The following weekend, February 5th, John and Yoko participated in a march on the New York headquarters of BOAC airlines, performing an acoustic rendition of "Luck Of The Irish". John also recorded a summary of the day's events, presumably for local radio news.

Interestingly, both John and Paul reacted within days by writing songs about what came to be known as "Bloody Sunday". John's composition, "Sunday Bloody Sunday", would be taped with Elephant's Memory as part of the Phil Spector-produced sessions for the LP Some Time In New York City.

Paul's song was his first recording with the five-piece Wings lineup, "Give Ireland Back To The Irish", taped early in February at Abbey Road and mixed February 6th at Apple's basement studio. It was banned by the BBC when released as a single later that month, but sold well enough to reach the top 25 in both the UK and US.