Beatles supremo Kenneth Womack on the mysteries of Lennon's last year 

Around 1978 I was working on the QE2 as a pastry chef. One day on a walk around near Central Park I stopped at a traffic light. I looked around and saw this small Japanese lady in a beret and a taller guy with glasses on. I looked at her and thought, she looks like Yoko and the bloke looked like Lennon. He saw me looking at them both and said to me with a smile “yes it’s us “.I apologized for staring at them. I told him I’d seen meatloaf playing American football in the park “he can’t half move for a big man “was my observation. The lights changed, he said take care and he’s was gone. We didn't have mobile phone cameras back then so I have no photographic proof but it's burned into my memory Stay safe and well everyone

I was 6 years old, living in Tulare, California, when I became a Beatlemaniac. My folks took the family to see 'A Hard Day's Night' at the Drive-in movie theater. I remember loving the fun that they were having and the music was fantastic. I was 23 years old, living in Banning, California, and watching Monday Night Football when I heard Howard Cossell tell America that John Lennon had been murdered. I was utterly devestated. I couldn't believe it. Everything had changed. There would be no reunion that I, and millions of others had hoped for.

Only a true fan could love Double Fantasy, great conversation

Great interview and great book about a great man.

Soon after Double Fantasy was released a broadcaster said to John "Many consider it to be middle of the road John" John's response.... "Yep, all the way to the bank" John's last few years outside of the trips to the Far East and South Africa were not only spent in the Dakota but on their estate on Long Island which he referred to as his little part of Scotland which was a big part of his early life spending many holidays up with relatives and remained very close to his heart. John throughout the Seventies actually kept up a very active connection with fans through correspondence and postcards. The John Lennon letters by Hunter Davies reveals his love of communication often replying and imagining the reaction of a fan not expecting reply let alone a hand written one! well worth a read to any Lennon fan. John did have knock backs and not so good sales on previous solo albums, Plastic Ono Band, Sometime In New York City & Mind Games all struggled so to say he wasn't used to something selling slowly is not actually correct. Double Fantasy remains his biggest selling album. Such a sad and tragic end to his life but he really was the real deal and left us a a wonderful legacy especially with his band of brothers.

I am reading the John Lennon 40 book right now. Right now on page 63. A good read I live in the Netherlands and heard the news of John's murder Tuesday morning on the radio. That day, I had to go to schoo being 18 years oldl, but I didn't. Went upstairs to my room and listened to Dutch radio. All day they played Beatles and John music.

I was on a night shift at my local sorting office and when I heard about it and I honestly didn't give a shit, that's what being faced with a mountain of letters at midnight can do. Forty years later I'd like to publicly apologise. John Lennon gave a lot to the world and we need him now.

This was an absolutely riveting interview - many thanks

Another great episode guys, another book recommendation i may have to act on. Btw Kenneth sounds really like Paul Gambaccini!

What a great interview and insight into John Lennon. In a separate interview John did say Yoko was his business manager. He said she looked after his solo and Beatles interests. Women is one of my favourite records of Johns

John had 3 major hits to come - Woman, real love and grow old with me, he would have been massive in 1981, 1980 was just the beginning........

Amazing interview!!!! Congratulations!!!! Got my copy pre ordered months ago. Longing for the launching. Thanks for this book and for all the job to write it. Just to listen to this interview makes me bet its gonna be a GREAT loving book.

I had an odd experience the night John was murdered. For some reason, I was alone at home with my parents out with friends of theirs, and I felt an impulse to put on Mind Games, side two, and go to "Meat City" at the very end of the second side where the three-baby voice sounding three syllables at the end are. Somehow, without foreknowledge of any kind, I ran the record needle backwards and realized that it said, "Fuck a pig". I did not do backward "masking" explorations of any kind like that before. I went downstairs and turned on the television and saw a breathless commentator announce that "John Lennon had been shot". It was definitely one of the strangest nights in my entire life.

Magic, can’t wait to read that book!

I was on an acid trip when I found out! I'm clean now, but it was so shocking! I am musician an won talent contest singing and playing Imagine.

wonderful dialogue, as always! pre-ordering Kenneth’s book . . sounds fascinating . . and looking forward to the layla /All things must pass study. stay safe and well, everyone

Thank you for avoiding the Chapman banter and just barely mentioning him and making this about John ❤

Great to see you here Kenneth!

Lennon had approximately 100 personal confidants -- each one of which claims to be the only one. Many were born after "The Beatles" broke up. And every one an "expert".

très intéressant

John and Yoko moved to New York in 1971. They did move to a house but kept getting broken into. As I understand they moved to the Dakota soon after. The Dakota is an amazing looking building and a credit to New York

Hard to find a new angle on The Beatles but this sounds like a good idea for a book. PS: A note to Mark Ellen’s wife and family: When’s his birthday? Can someone please buy him a decent pair of headphones? Cheers

John wrote loads of demos from 1976 onwards...

I’ve always been mystified that the 30 or so songs Lennon had in various stages of preparation, were not good enough for him to launch his comeback earlier and gave him pause. He had nobody told me, free as a bird, memories, you saved my soul, whatever happened to in the fall of 1977. They’re all very good some enduring masterpieces.

I find it a bit difficult that Fred Seaman was interviewed. I've read Seaman;s book ,Dakota Days, many times and cross referenced it enough to find that he took great liberties in fabricating many stories. His extreme bias towards Yoko Ono also damages any integrity his own journals and notes might have because he's simply trying to convince us to see things his way. What Seaman exposed more was his dogmatic opportunism and theft of Lennon and Ono's personal belongings.

Double Fantasy ( which was subtitled "A Passion Play") was always conceived as a dialogue between the two, so the story that they were going to have one side each doesn't seem to make much sense.

It was originally going to be John solo..with real love on it..

Something that spooked me once was seeing a photograph that I believed was of the Dakota, which turned out to be the Strawberry Fields orphanage, immortalised in John's famous song.

Would love to know about Street of dreams.....

As a few others have touched on, had John made it a truly solo album it would have been much stronger, although the production on DF seems to have muted his edge, as was the case with many other songs during the 70's. Remove Yoko's material (she was or is popular in the dance world) and add "I Don't Want to Face It,' 'Steppin' Out,' 'Nobody Told Me,' and maybe even 'Life Begins at 40' for a lark (tho' it was written for Ringo, as was NTM). It would have been a much more energetic album, even tho' the two albums wouldn't merge too well in terms of content and tone.

Interesting, but not enough of Mark Ellen. more Mark Ellen please.

Frist class 🥃🥃 x

he was planning to go up the Mersey on a ship not the Thames . he missed Liverpool

When Kenneth uses the word "misnomer", he is actually using a misnomer.

The Double Fantasy album was horrendous, John should have made it solo.

Can’t wait for his biography of Mean Mr. Mayo🤪

I was 14 it was 4 in the hot afternoon Sydney summer. Newsflash, hit Australia like an earthquake.

Double fantasy would have gone to no1 with just John songs....

Woman would have sold more copies of the album....

Does anyone actually like Ono's songs on Double Fantasy? I find them utterly unlistenable and can't understand what John was thinking here.

A Tuesday morning, if I remember rightly, waking up to the news announced by Radio Scotland's plummy-voiced Bill Jack. Awful and unreal. I hate Tuesdays.

Well, I did not watch all this. I have liked the Beatles for over 45 years, but this book sounds like more Lennon hagiography. Lennon as god. I do think Albert Goldman got the closest to the truth. The fanboy books don't get you closer to the real Lennon, IMHO.

John was on some microbiotic diet towards the end of his life. The photos from that time make him look anorexic. That, plus his cigarette smoking, leads me to think he would have died in his forties from heart failure.