The gig that ended John Lennon’s lost weekend, and why music makes us fall in love
On November 28th, 1974, John Lennon took to the stage dressed in a suave, black suit, to perform a handful of songs with another rock legend, Elton John.
Things were a little strange for Lennon up until that point. His famed lost weekend period, spanning just under two years and spent estranged from his wife, Yoko Ono, would be a time Lennon later looked back on as the time that he went “barmy”, for a myriad of reasons. “I feel like I was running around with me head off, and now I’ve got me head back on,” he said in 1975, saying that all he did was realise that he had to “come home”.
When you look back at all the events leading up to Lennon’s self-described losing of his head, you could say it all began long before it seemed. When The Beatles split, Lennon was seemingly hit the hardest, sparking a state of immense disassociation and disillusionment that drew him into a dark place where he felt distanced from everything he felt was secure.
One of the most documented periods of Lennon’s life ended up being his worst, but perhaps what was stronger or harder-hitting than that was how much it made him realise who his person was. In interviews, Lennon would later reflect on how his separation from Ono was vital to their longevity, but that didn’t mean that existing in that time was any less difficult.
In fact, it was the agony of being apart that eventually drew them back together. They still spoke and felt close to each other in different ways, but they “blew apart”, as Lennon called it, enough that they eventually found each other again, unable to actually face the idea of living without one another permanently.
Lennon’s appearance alongside Elton John was one of his last major ones, but that wasn’t the only thing interesting about that one special night on Thanksgiving in 1974. That night, Ono was also in the audience, despite their period of estrangement still very much active. Lennon and John both wore flowers on stage sent by Ono, and then they reunited backstage, before fully resuming their relationship the following year.
There was a sense of enormity in the air that night, like perhaps those involved – mainly Lennon and John – knew exactly what was afoot before taking to the stage. Of course, Lennon wasn’t to know that it would mark the end of his lost weekend period, nor did he know it would spark the beginnings of the rest of his days with Ono. But before they’d even performed, he experienced the type of nerves you can’t really put your finger on.
As John later reflected, both of them felt it pulsating through them like some sort of invisible chemical, and, while John had all the belief in Lennon, he went away feeling like he’d been completely shown up. Not that he was mad – in fact, the way it turned out was, as he put it, “magical”. “It was just one of those magical things,” he said in 2017. “I mean, for me anyway, just to actually be playing on stage and then on walks John Lennon, you know? Just completely blew my head off.”
Suffice it to say that the “magic” – both in the literal sense that saw both musical legends coming together and the broader context that sparked a love that was already there with Ono – was a testament to the true unity of music, and the way that allowing music to do the talking can sometimes be more healing and nurturing than approaching it any other way.
There’s an image of Lennon and Ono talking backstage at the gig. The look of love in her face seems palpable, but there’s also a flicker of something else there – wholeness, or relief, perhaps, undercut by that spark of nerves you feel whenever you’re around someone who means the world to you. Lennon’s face is concealed from view, but you can feel the same gravity of emotions in his posture, almost like, as he put it, he was finally coming home.
Lennon had just sung a handful of hits with John, including ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ and ‘I Saw Her Standing There’. A song inspired by his son and one about the simple act of love at first sight certainly feels fitting for a pivotal moment when things suddenly change for the better, and there probably wasn’t one soul in the room that night that didn’t feel entranced by the charms of a changing tide, Lennon probably most of all.
