A Personal Remembrance of John Lennon

(Those who are coming to this serialized story for the first time, you can read the complete opus to date by clicking here.)


I hadn’t planned on writing another blog today, but someone made me aware that it’s the 31st anniversary of John Lennon’s death. I’d like to share a personal story about John that relates to the ghost tale I’ve been telling over the past 10 posts. Those who have been following this saga will remember that in 1974 I visited a psychic named Frank Andrews when I was 27 (see Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3). I was being troubled by a paranormal presence in my parents’ house, and Frank helped me learn more about the ghost’s identity.

It was in this same year that I was dating singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson, off and on. John Lennon was in his “Lost Weekend” period, and also producing Harry’s “Pussycats” album. I’d met John before when he first arrived in New York, so I knew him already. John and Harry were stoned to the eyeballs whenever I saw them. The L.A. recording sessions were apparently like a zoo with the cages open.

They both came to New York to mix the record, checking into a two-bedroom suite at the Pierre Hotel. In order to do the work, John was trying to get a handle on his over-indulgence, and even Harry went on a fast (which he ended after 24 hours by ordering up a double Brandy Alexander). John was also trying to get back with Yoko. He was on his best, subdued behavior when she came over to the Pierre and the four of us sat down to a room-service dinner.

John and Yoko seemed rather tentative around each other, so I tried to fill a silence by telling a story that took place only a few nights before. I’d been eating at a sushi bar next to an exquisite young Japanese woman who struck up a conversation with me. For some reason she confided in me that she was Mayor John Lindsay’s mistress. True or not, her descriptions of their rendez-vous made for very entertaining conversation.

At one point the woman suddenly remarked, “Sometimes I am psychic, and I have a feeling that you will be famous.”

I responded: “That’s funny, because a professional psychic just said the same thing to me.”

“Oh yes,” she said, with a weird confidence. “You mean Frank.”

How could she have known that? I wondered to Harry, John, and Yoko.

Yoko interrupted to demand the name of the psychic. She wanted to see him. Immediately.

So I put her in touch with Frank. Yoko went to see him alone; John was too afraid to go (he went later, though). The next time we all had dinner, she reported that Frank had impressed her hugely. But the one prediction he made that struck her the most was a cryptic statement about John: “He sleeps in blood.”

She and John had discussed the meaning of Frank’s words, and both decided he was seeing something from the past, not the future: the blood referred to the miscarriages Yoko had suffered when they were together and trying for a baby.

The image returned to me six years later, when I heard that John had been shot and killed. I pictured him the way Frank must have seen him: lying in his own blood, as if asleep.

‘Night, sweet prince. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.