John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s controversial home: a parody turned song

On March 20, 1969, it happened 55 years and overcome various legal obstacles, John Lennon y Yoko Ono they married in Gibraltar with the famous Peñón de Fondo. When asked about escaping the London paparazzi, the couple planned a secret story with the idea of ​​carrying it out while crossing the Canal de La Mancha. However, due to irregularities in the passengers, they could not be subjected to boarding. They couldn’t do it in Paris because of other bureaucratic problems.

From there, on the morning of March 20, they left on a private plane that landed at Gibraltar airport at the same time as the civil registry opened. An hour later, the same airship was carrying him out of New France, where it consumed his ship in a ceremony that lasted only a short time. 10 minutes. The juiciest one comes later, with the honeymoon song.

That’s why there are no fans Beetles -a band in which Lennon was, among other things, a singer, guitarist and songwriter- who resented the Japanese conceptual artist, accused of interfering with the existing artistic chemistry between his peers and the rest of the musicians, Paul McCartney, George Harrison y Ringo Starr. They met in 1966 and they crush it was immediate. With this apparent resistance, John will be home for the second time (his first wife was Cynthia Powellwith this one in Julian) while Yoko goes to his third daughters.

“We celebrate Gibraltar because it is calm, British and friendly. We tried it in all parts before. I decided to do it on a boat to bring my home to France, but we didn’t leave it. We soon ended up with cross-shaped holes. We intend to do so at the embassies, but they require a three-week stay in Germany and two in France,” Lennon said at the time regarding the choice of the ship’s location. The secretary of the registry office handles it in the same way Cecil Wheelerstudied as a photographer tested David Nutter y Peter Brownmanager Beetle tras la muerte de Brian Epstein. That was the last time Lennon came up with the idea of ​​making a trip to the peninsula belonging to the British Crown.

On 25 March 1969, five days after setting sail for Gibraltar, the remaining families traveled to the city of Amsterdam to continue their honeymoon. The Vietnam War was a hot topic while the US president was Richard Nixon I decided to send the tropics to Laos and Cambodia. Before this dramatic situation, they decided to organize a peaceful protest for six days without taking off their shoes: the famous “a bed for peace“I was in room 402, the presidential suite of the Hilton Hotel in the Dutch city where I was invited to come.

“People should stop peeling and peeling in their bedrooms. We are sending a message to the world, especially to the youth who want to protest against violence,” I told Yoko in front of the microphones. Wearing white pyjamas, floral prints, guitars and cards reading “Hair Peace” and “Bed Peace”, the pair showed up in and out of bedrooms.

In April 1969, Lennon officially changed his name to his middle name “It” in a ceremony celebrated on the terrace of the Apple Corps building, the same scenario in which The Beatles played their last concert that year. Last month, on April 14th to be exact, John was next to Paul in the studios Abbey Road and inspiration hit her door. As if he were a reporter, he recorded the latest episodes of his own life and was heard in the form of music and for posterity the journey he experienced alongside Yoko to make his dream come true, the later honeymoon and the return to London, always under siege by the socket.

“The Ballad of John and Yoko” was released as a single on 30 May 1969. John also adapted it as a song by The Beatles and recorded it with the help of McCartney, who was forced to take up drums, piano, bass and maracas while George was on holiday and Ringo was part of the film.

“I’m standing at the dock in Southampton / Trying to get to Holland or France / The man in the mac said, ‘You’ve got to go back’ / You know they didn’t even give us a chance (…) He finally got the plane to Paris / Honeymoon down by the Seine / Peter Brown called to say ‘You can do it’ / You can get married in Gibraltar near Spain (…) / He drove from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton / Talking a week in our beds / People on the news said, ‘Say what you do in bed ?’ / I said: We’re trying to get some peace,” say some passages that relate to the journey, while mid-estribillo you repeat, “Christ, you know it ain’t easy / You know how hard it can be / How things they are developing / They will crucify me”.

Chorus (in Castellano: “Christ, even if it’s not easy / even if it’s hard that it can be / As everything happens, they’re going to crucify me“) caused controversy in the United States, and the song was banned from some radio stations in that country because it contained the words “Christ” and “crucify”. It was also censored in Spain because the theme said that Gibraltar was “seeking Spain” instead of being considered part of that country.

Less than a year later, the Beatles broke up and John began his career as a solo artist. He was born on October 9, 1975 Sean Taro Ono Lennon, the only boy who was with Yoko, why Lennon supported me for five years outside of music with the intention of fully dedicating myself to my childhood. It takes place on November 17, 1980 with the release Double fantasy, an album signed by Ono and featuring classics like “(Just Like) Starting Over,” “I’m Losing You” and “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy),” composed by Sean. Two weeks later, his great life will be repeated in a repetitive way because of the murder he committed Mark Chapman in the city of New York, where the Beatle stayed with his family.