#john demos

[get-back-homeward]

September 18, 1966: After a weekend break in Paris with Paul, Brian, and Neil, John travels to Carboneras, Spain to continue filming How I Won The War. He first stays in a seafront hostel, Delfin Verde (The Green Dolphin). Here, he picks up his nylon-stringed Spanish guitar and a tape recorder and works on It's Not Too Bad, a rough idea that will evolve into Strawberry Fields Forever. To accommodate his visitors (Cynthia, Ringo, Maureen, and others), he later moves to a spacious villa, Santa Isabel, and continues to shape the song. The villa bears a distinct similarity to the grounds of the children's home that John visited as a child and may have unlocked memories to inspire the song's title. Before leaving, he writes "Santa Isabel Demos" on the tape.

These demos were released as a bootleg in 1997. The distinct "let me take you down" part of the song shows up at 5 minutes in, but it's missing the song title. Wait another minute to hear John to name it directly.

The back of the bootleg includes a tracklist with take numbers. It's not quite clear how those were decided; they look incorrect to me. I've used the Nothing Is Real numbers to give the timestamps for each: 00:00 Warm-up 00:28 Take 1 01:16 Take 2 02:38 Take 3 04:09 Take 4 05:58 Takes 5 & 6 08:13 Rehearsal

[get-back-homeward]

this seems to be an inverse of the original Mr. Moonlight covered by the band [lyrics]

Late-1970s?: John plays ‘Mr. Moonlight’ plaintively and for himself.

JOHN: Mr. Moonlight / Now you don’t come my way / I’m now here to say you’re gone again / I’m here to say / Mr. Moonlight / Mr. Moonlight / Tonight you don’t come my way / I pray and pray every day / Mr. Moonlight / I don’t cry…

Mr. Moonlight / You should be alright / And now that I’ve seen the day / Du du du du du du du / I won’t cry…

[pro-philosopher]

See if you can out-shine this very shiny boy in Pro Philosopher 2! Maybe you can even give him reality check.

Play our new FREE demo on Steam! It's the whole first chapter!

[thewalrusespublicist]

So didn't realise that people didn't know about the John Lennon 1980 'dear one' thing. As we're all here though I wanted to mention that the phrase 'my dear one' potentially has a bit of a story arc when it comes to John's relationship with Paul. For those familiar with British English, 'my dear one' sticks out as it's not a used term of endearment at all. So where does it come from? It could be a non-straightforward Victorian throwback, but more likely its hearkening to the use of the phrase in Eastern meditation to denote your nearest and dearest. Great, already off to a sweet start (and lines up with Yoko having Paul on the next-of-kin list with Julian and Mimi when John died).

It POTENTIALLY gets a bit more layered than that though once you add in the idea of hugging meditation. Contrary to what Paul says (sorry Paul, I do believe you on most things, just not this) despite being 'Northern men' TM the Beatles were a huggy bunch. John mentions it in the 1967 Hunter Davies interview:

''We used to be embarrassed about touching each other. We’d do an elaborate handshake just to hide the embarrassment… or we did mad dances. Then we got to hugging each other. Now we do the Buddhist bit… arms around. It’s just saying hello, that’s all.''

As pointed out in @thecoleopterawithana and @monkberries amazing posts, the Buddhist bit is hugging meditation which became popular in the 1960s. In hugging meditation, you

''have to make him or her very real in your arms, not just for the sake of appearances, patting him on the back to pretend you are there, but breathing consciously and hugging with all your body, spirit, and heart. Hugging meditation is a practice of mindfulness. “Breathing in, I know my dear one is in my arms, alive. Breathing out, she is so precious to me.”''

We know physical touch was important to John. One of the plusses of being with Yoko was being affectionate with his best friend, he tells Paul that touching is good whilst hugging him and in the Get Back sessions he delightedly asks Paul about a vivid dream where he was touching Paul (whether platonic or romantic this always read to me as a blatant subconscious desire for increased intimacy with Paul). The desire for intimacy is still present in the 'Real Life/Love' demo in 1977 where John muses about holding a mysterious has-a-baby-expecting-another-lives-on-a-farm someone in his arms as if it was only yesterday (another piece of media I still cannot believe we have on tape).

With John's evident desire for physical intimacy in mind and the focus on holding dear ones in hugging meditation, I don't think it's too far to think that John would associate this term of endearment with a certain level of both physical and emotional intimacy. Whether its a slightly bittersweet ironic recollection of those times together in the late 60s or a sincere statement of their current relationship, Paul as his dear one could be seen as continuation of John's suppressed, resentful but ultimately present desire for reignited intimacy with Paul on multiple levels (again romantic? Platonic? Choose-your-own-adventure there, I'm not in charge of you).

Or I could be talking shit. Who knows? It's just fun to think about!

[walkathinline]

Since I made a video for a John demo the other day, I decided it was Paul's turn. Here is a friendly reminder that this beautiful demo exists.

⭑･ﾟﾟ･*:༅｡.｡༅:*ﾟ:*:✼✿　　✿✼:*ﾟ:༅｡.｡༅:*･ﾟﾟ･⭑

"Where the sound of lonely drums

invites me on, I must be by his side."

[blooeyedtroll]

Demo loves making Floyd smile!~✨💖😊

[style-and-kyman]

Took character suggestions on Twitter and these were a lot of fun!

(Blank template below cut <3)

[thethroneislost]

Incantation - "Entrantment of Evil" - 1990 New Jersey, US

[tmbgareok]

Here is a free thing for YOU. Folks-it is our album John Henry's 30th birthday today, so today we are giving away the demos to that album. It's right here on our merch store with all sort of other things too, but for you, today, this exclusive non-streaming thing is available to you gratis. Dig it! https://tmbgshop.com

[get-back-homeward]

From the notes on this fuller version, this is a Kenwood home demo (November 1966).

Beautiful version of Strawberry Fields Forever.

[get-back-homeward]

So the phone rang and John said, “You know, I want to do a record but I don’t know if I want to do a record. I have some material, I’ve been writing for a while, writing down here in Bermuda” and of course he had a near-death experience sailing in a storm down there, which I think changed his perspective completely. Because almost all of those songs were written in Bermuda.

So it was like one creative burst. Was this 1979?

Yeah, ’79. And so I agreed that I would listen to the stuff. And he said, “Yoko has it” and she handed me an envelope that said, “For Jack’s ears only.” And I took it home and he called me at home the next day and asked, “What do you think?” And my honest opinion was that they were very primitive, a whole bunch of cassettes, there was narration in it, he talked me through it. The songs all began with an explanation, a lot of it funny, and all of them ended with, “What a piece of crap. I’m going to give it to Ringo for his solo album.”

Were these all songs that ended up being on the album?

No, there were still a few more. And there was so much on that tape that I didn’t put on the album. But the Beatles had completed "Real Love" many years later, from that cassette. They built off of that cassette. Actually, I had the original so they built that off of a copy that maybe Yoko had.

Were there any songs from that tape that immediately hit you?

Oh yes, there were so many. So many. There was so much material on that tape. Two cassettes.

Do you still have that tape?

Yes.

Did you ever digitize it?

Yes. But they’ll never be—it’s property of Yoko. Period. It’s her property. So anyway, most of it’s been released.

On the box sets [John Lennon Anthology and John Lennon Signature Box]. Yes, most of those demos have been released... Maybe not with his dialogue, which is quite funny, but he’s singing into a tape machine like a beat box, like a Panasonic from back in the day. He’s singing into it, playing guitar, and then playing that into another, just from the speakers and then singing along with it, like playing percussion or doubling his vocals. It was so primitive. Banging on pots and pans. Very primitive. And my first reaction was, “I don’t think I can beat it, to tell you the truth. It’s so good.” And he’s like, “Oh, no, no, no, that’s not—“ and I said, “John, put this out. It will be sensational. Just put this cassette out. I’m putting myself out of the greatest job I’ve ever had in my life, but I’m just telling you.”

—Jack Douglas, producer of Double Fantasy and Milk and Honey albums, on how he was first recruited by John Lennon [x]

[takingbacksundaygifs]

Cute without the E

[javelinbk]

Now And Then: The Last Beatles Song - isolating John’s voice

[menlove]

maybe i did put together a 3 hour long playlist of incredibly gay lennon, mccartney, and lennon-mccartney songs

[mellotronmkll]

[littlemut]