John Lennon's Sunroom was decorated with various pictures, caricatures and stickers, such as the one from the Safe as Milk debut album (1967) by Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, and one advertising the Monterey Pop Festival. The shelves of the sunroom were filled with articles such as a large ornate cross, a Mickey Mouse doll and a mortar and pestle, reportedly used by Lennon to mix various combinations of cocaine, amphetamine, barbituates and LSD. There was also a bergere rattan sofa upon which Lennon would spend much of his time...

John Lennon's Sunroom

Guitar Jam: "Cry Baby Cry" Tapes (February 1967)

John Lennon's Sunroom

John Lennon's Sunroom

Sunroom Exterior at Kenwood. 1968

Photograph: Sue Baker

A Day In The Life



John Lennon's handwritten lyrics for "A Day In The Life" are coming up for auction in June from the classic Beatles album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Sotheby's announced this recently. The double-sided sheet of paper features Lennon's edits and corrections in his own hand — in black felt marker and blue ball point pen, with a few annotations in red ink. It is expected to fetch between $500,000 and $700,000 when it is sold in New York on June 18th 2010. Rolling Stone magazine listed "A Day in the Life" at No. 26 in its compilation of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and "Sgt. Pepper" won four Grammy awards in 1968. The lyrics stirred controversy when the Beatles released the album in 1967. The song was banned by the BBC because it twice features the line, "I'd love to turn you on," which was interpreted as supporting illegal drug use. The song was also left off copies of "Sgt. Pepper's" sold in several Asian countries for the same reason. The album's "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was alleged to have glorified the use of the hallucinogenic LSD, a claim that bandmembers denied. In addition, "A Day in the Life" features the lyric " he blew his mind out in a car," which is a reference to the accidental death of Tara Browne, the Guinness heir and close friend of both Lennon and Paul McCartney.

The Nothing Box

John Lennon with The Nothing Box - March 1966

An advert for The Nothing Box 1966

John Lennon met Magic Alex (Mardas) in 1967 an inventor of "The Nothing Box" when some of Alex Mardas' kinetic light sculptures were on display at the Indica Gallery (incidentally, the Indica is where John & Yoko first met). John was particularly taken with Magic Alex's "The Nothing Box," a plain box adorned with blinking lights that JL enjoyed staring at while tripping on acid..

Kenwood Sign





Kenwood sign. Acquired in 1968

John Lennon: Sunroom


 






The Sunroom: December 1968



John Lennon with Julian in the Sunroom, December 1968 before Kenwood was sold.
In Peter Brown's book, "The Love You Make. An Insider's Story of The Beatles", which is very good on John and Yoko's hermetic relationship, their drug use, and their bizarre lifestyle arrangements. His description of the prolonged periods Lennon spends spaced out in the sunroom at Weybridge linger long in the mind: "At Kenwood, on a shelf in the sunroom, sat a white, pharmaceutical mortar and pestle with which he mixed any combination of speed, barbituates, and psychedelics. Whenever he felt himself coming down from his mind-bending heights, he would lick a finger, take a swipe at the ingredients in the mortar, and suck the bitter film into his mouth."
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