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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."
John Lennon outside Sunroom August 1967
John Lennon signing autographs for fans outside the Sunroom in August 1967
Stills from John Lennon Home Movie 1968
To say that Yoko Ono had a profound effect on John Lennon and the Beatles is an understatement. Her first exhibition in London was at the Indica Gallery, a trendy shop frequented by the Beatles and originally started with the backing of Peter Asher, brother of Paul's girlfriend Jane. John visited Indica on November 7, 1966. He climbed a ladder to view the word "yes" through a magnifying glass tied to a string and hanging from the ceiling. He would later say that this particular exhibit caught his attention because the word was positive.
Most accounts agree that, following John's meeting with the performance artist, Yoko did everything possible to be in the company of John, such as forcing her way into Abbey Road Studios or standing outside with young female fans called Apple Scruffs. Yoko also climbed into the backseat of John's limousine, placing herself between Lennon and his wife Cynthia. She also sent John frequent notes and small packages containing her art.
After John and his wife returned from India, Cynthia Lennon was urged by John to go on holiday. She traveled to Greece with Magic Alex and Jenny Boyd, older sister of George's wife Patti. Shortly thereafter, John invited Yoko to his house at Kenwood. It was during this visit that John and Yoko went to the attic studio, dropped acid, and recorded electronic shrieks and noises eventually released as the album Two Virgins. Cynthia returned from her trip to find John and Yoko sitting in bathrobes on the floor of the Kenwood sunroom. Cynthia filed for divorce on August 22, 1968, upon learning that Ono was pregnant by John.
Yoko began attending Beatles' recording sessions during The White Album. She became a constant companion to John and can be seen sitting by his side for most of the Let It Be sessions. To the other Beatles, this was highly unorthodox since Beatle sessions were always closed except to guest performers Eric Clapton ("While My Guitar Gently Weeps") and Billy Preston ("Get Back"). Later, in June of 1969, John had a bed brought into Abbey Road Studios so that while the group recorded, Yoko could recuperate from injuries sustained in an automobile accident.
John and Yoko were married on March 20, 1969, and spent their honeymoon in Amsterdam, staging their first "bed-in." Subsequently, the couple combined political activism with performance art, such as "bagism." They moved to New York in 1971, ultimately settling into the Dakota in 1975. Beginning in June of 1973, John and Yoko separated for eighteen months, with John living in Los Angeles, a period known as John's "Lost Weekend" since his drunken and disorderly conduct was widely reported by the mainstream media while he partied and lived with Ono-ally May Pang. John and Yoko reconciled in January 1975. Yoko is often blamed for breaking up the Beatles, although this is a gross simplification. Tension within the group had run high ever since the death of Beatles' manager Brian Epstein left a gap in the band's leadership, unofficially assumed by Paul. George and Ringo also left the group for short periods of time before reuniting temporarily to record the group's final album, Abbey Road. The consensus of most biographers is that John, George, and Ringo all felt quite aggravated at Paul McCartney's overbearing manner during the final years of the group as he attempted to provide direction for the band after Brian's death. John felt that he, George, and Ringo were becoming a back-up band for Paul.
For the interested reader, details about John and Yoko's relationship can be found in Cynthia Lennon's John (2005), a book that reveals much of John's life in detail for the first time from Cynthia's perspective.
John Lennon at Kenwood
On June 29, 1967, Beatles Monthly editor Johnny Dean and photographer Leslie Bryce visited John Lennon at his Tudor-styled home "Kenwood" in the stockbroker belt of Weybridge. Bryce photographed John in various interesting places throughout his home, even taking some lovely photos of John and Julian together. Over the years, a myriad of pictures taken that day have appeared in issues of the Beatles Monthly. Most of the images in this blog are are from the photographic session in 1967. This one is John Lennon by the swimming pool, which was at the rear north-west of Kenwood, overlooked by the Sunroom.
John Lennon: Sunroom at Kenwood
"The first memory that always comes back is swimming in John's pool at his house in Weybridge. I'd gone to spend the day with him, but when I arrived, it turned out he had decided it was a day for not talking. I walked round his garden with him, not talking. Cynthia made lunch and we ate it, not talking. I sat with John in his cramped little den, under a sticker saying "Safe as Milk" while he watched children's television, not talking.Then we had a swim, round and round in his pool, not talking, but while we were swimming, we suddenly heard the noise of a police siren floating up the hill from Weybridge itself. It was giving that familiar two-note wail - Ah, ahh, ah ahh, ah, ahh. John started playing with the two notes - humming them, while not actually talking.Then he went inside, went to his piano, till he had turned the two notes into a song, or at least half a song."
Hunter Davies
Hunter Davies
Sunroom in 1980s, 1993 & 2006
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Kenwood: 1993
The Sunroom was restructed and made solid by 1993 with the addition of a tile overhang, the sliding doors remain. The sunroom was completely refurbished in 2005, making way for five seperate glazed windows.
Kenwood: 2006
Kenwood Tapes
Recordings that John made at his first home, Kenwood. This was the home he bought in 1964 on the advice of his accountant. This was also the home that he shared with Julian and Cynthia until John ceded ownership of it in his divorce with Cynthia. Recording dates are in parenthesis.
The General Erection (June 18th, 1965)
He Said, He Said (April/May 1966)
He Said, He Said (April/May 1966)
She Said, She Said (April/May 1966)
Good Morning (January 1967)
Across the Universe (1967)
She's Walking Past My Door, You Know My Name (March 1968)
You Can Talk To Me (unknown recording date) -- This song is more familiarly known as Hey Bulldog!.
Cry Baby Cry, Across the Universe (Late 1967)
Julia (May 1968)
Julia (May 1968) -- This take is identical to the previous take, but without the rewinding.
Julia (May 1968) -- This is an instrumental
Interview about Two Virgins -- A brief radio interview given to John Peel on December 9th, 1968. In almost exactly 12 years, John would be dead.
Two Virgins outtakes (May 1968)
She's Not A Girl Who Misses Much (Unknown date) -- This song is better known as Happiness is a Warm Gun
Weybridge tapes and inviting Yoko -- An interview with Rolling Stone from 1971.
Look At Me (October 1970)
Kenwood
When not working in the attic music room, John Lennon could usually be found in a small sunroom at the back of the house overlooking the swimming pool, which he decorated with various pictures, caricatures and stickers, such as those for the Safe as Milk campaign of the mid-sixties, and one advertising the Monterey Pop Festival. He would generally spend his time curled up on a small wicker sofa watching television, devouring daily newspapers or song-writing on the upright piano contained in one corner of the sunroom. Lennon's drug intake, particularly LSD and hashish, but also amphetamine, was fairly high for much of the time he lived at Kenwood, and visitors to the house remarked on the strange atmosphere of the place. At one stage,under the influence of transcendental meditation, Lennon renounced drugs, and buried a huge quantity of LSD, which had been obtained at the Monterey Pop Festival from infamous LSD producer Augustus Stanley Owsley III by representatives of The Beatles, in the grounds. He later tried to find the buried LSD but could not remember exactly where it was. It remains buried there somewhere to this day.
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