“The song ran through his veins”: When John Lennon’s cover of ‘To Know Him Is to Love Him’ left a room full of stars speechless
Few artists are mythologised quite like John Lennon. His tragic murder in 1980 saw the world deprived of an iconic and innovative musician who was only 40. Subsequently, the world was left wondering what artistic genius we were, therefore, deprived of. But the impact of his passing was merely down to the footprint of his influence, pushing and pulling at the established boundaries of music’s possibilities. Within that artistic journey were moments that left fans in awe at his achievement when sat next to the speaker, soaking in his work.
But such was the hysteria of The Beatles that real-life experiences of watching him live were fleeting. By 1966, the Liverpudlian four-piece had called it touring a day, focusing all of their creativity into the studio. What followed were countless genius moments that ultimately defined the blueprint for modern recording. Had fans been treated to live renditions of ‘A Day In The Life’ or ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ in an alternate universe where The Beatles carried on recording, then stories of Lennon leaving rooms speechless would have been countless.
In 1970, after the break-up of The Beatles, Lennon began working with producer Phil Spector. While the series of recordings the pair worked on were riddled with tales of drunken and controversial behaviour, they also played host to some of Lennon’s finest recorded moments – the most famous of which is ‘Imagine’.
Elliott Mintz, a friend of Lennon, remembered a time when one such moment of magic played out to a crowded studio of Hollywood A-listers. In Mintz’s book We All Shine On: John, Yoko, and Me, he wrote: “Indeed, it was suddenly the biggest party in Hollywood, a full-on ‘happening.” He continued, “Warren Beatty, Elton John, Cher, Joni Mitchell, David Geffen — everywhere I looked I spotted another superstar who’d come to watch John Lennon perform. And this time, he most certainly did get a chance to sing.”
In the studio, Lennon sang ‘To Know Her Is to Love Her’ a cover of the 1959 song ‘To Know Him Is to Love Him’, which appeared on the 1986 posthumous album, Menlove. Mintz continued, “Stepping up to the microphone, John belted out such a heart-wrenching cover of ‘To Know Him Is to Love Him,’ he left the whole room speechless.” He added, “John’s voice sounded so rich, so intimately familiar with the lyrics, you could tell the song ran through his veins.”
Not only was Lennon a visionary artist, capable of providing genius moments of creative instrumental innovation but he was a stunning vocalist. In a voice that blended the dark with the delicate, the smooth with the gravelly, he had an uncanny way of conveying emotions and delivering something wholly transcendent.
Lennon’s partnership with Spector indeed produced moments of genius, but it wasn’t always easy. In his book, Mintz tells more studio tales from that era that told of the darkness that existed within the booze and drug-addled studio sessions: “A couple of nights later, the switch flipped again, and the energy at Phil’s studio turned from celebratory to poisonous”. He continued, “I arrived to find John and Phil arguing and cursing at each other as sullen crew musicians glowered at them from the sidelines. Both John and Phil were clearly loaded; Phil could barely stand.”
“Some of the studio artists grew so fed up with the rancor, they stormed out of the session,” Mintz wrote. “Nothing got recorded that night.”
Unsurprisingly, Spector and Lennon’s time in the studio was wildly unproductive and frustrated session musicians and industry executives alike. And when Lennon was capable of locking in to produce vocal takes that stunned even the likes of Elton John and Joni Mitchell, the shortage of quality recorded material was nothing more than a musical tragedy.
