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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. Josh, and there's Chuck
Speaker 1: and Jerry's here too, And this is Stuff you should Know.
Speaker 1: Solemn edition.
Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty solemn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a solemn occasion to this episode is coming
Speaker 1: out on the anniversary of John Lennon's death, and not coincidentally,
Speaker 1: because we're actually doing an episode on the death of
Speaker 1: John Lennon, so it's appropriate.
Speaker 2: It's actually the day before his death. If we're being
Speaker 2: nippicking close enough.
Speaker 1: I was very close to Chuck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm not one to commemorate death dates, especially
Speaker 2: murder dates. But I did want to do this episode,
Speaker 2: and since I saw it alined, I thought, you know,
Speaker 2: if we can get this out quicker than maybe it's timely.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, had you decided you wanted to do this before
Speaker 1: we did JD. Salinger or did it all just kind
Speaker 1: of work out like that.
Speaker 2: I think it just worked out like that, Like the
Speaker 2: two were completely unrelated in my mind, such that when
Speaker 2: you suggested we put them both out on the same week,
Speaker 2: I was like, why.
Speaker 1: Oh, they're related. The two are related for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, so let's.
Speaker 1: Talk about this. I knew about the death of John
Speaker 1: Lennon some, but certainly not to the degree I do now.
Speaker 1: I like, for example, I knew he was forty, I
Speaker 1: knew he was shot I knew he died in front
Speaker 1: of his apartment building the Dakota, which we've talked about before.
Speaker 1: I knew a few other things, but certainly not the details.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know much about the guy who killed
Speaker 1: them that either.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, let's tell everybody what we've learned. Huh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember this happening, believe it or not. Wow,
Speaker 2: because I was, But I guess. And I would have been.
Speaker 3: Nine. When's my birthday? March?
Speaker 1: Yes, so yeah, you would have been nine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would have been nine years old. And I
Speaker 2: remember just like you know, I didn't. I grew up
Speaker 2: in a house that didn't have a lot of music
Speaker 2: in it except for my room and my brother's room,
Speaker 2: So it wasn't like the Beatles were a household name
Speaker 2: or anything like most kids of my age who had
Speaker 2: parents who may or may not have been into the Beatles.
Speaker 2: My parents didn't tell me anything about the Beatles, right,
Speaker 2: But I knew they were a thing, and I knew
Speaker 2: like John Lennon is the guy with the round glasses
Speaker 2: because I was just a kid, and I remember it
Speaker 2: being like a big news and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: that that singer guy, that one of those round Glasses
Speaker 2: was killed.
Speaker 3: That's sad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really big news, as we'll see. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's still big news today, but at the time it
Speaker 1: was just earth shattering for sure.
Speaker 2: Thanks to Olivia for the help with this one. And
Speaker 2: I guess we should start with talking a little bit
Speaker 2: about John Lennon and his love affair with New York City.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure when he moved to New York City.
Speaker 1: I just know that they moved to the Dakota he
Speaker 1: and Yoko in nineteen seventy three. When did they move
Speaker 1: to New.
Speaker 2: York, you know, I don't know if the Bank Street
Speaker 2: apartment was the first one, but they moved to Bank
Speaker 2: Street in seventy one, so that may have been their
Speaker 2: first New York place. I know they lived a sort
Speaker 2: of partially lived in one of the hotels there for
Speaker 2: a while, but they lived at this very nondescript house
Speaker 2: at one oh five Bank Street in the West Village
Speaker 2: and for a couple of years. But one of the
Speaker 2: reasons they moved is because they were robbed in the
Speaker 2: apartment and people busted in former tenants apparently and stole
Speaker 2: some artwork and the TV and Lennon's wallet and his
Speaker 2: address book and supposedly he put the word out on
Speaker 2: the street that Bobby Seal's people are going to exact
Speaker 2: revenge if I don't get that address book back.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like the Black Panthers.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know if he had a legit connection.
Speaker 2: I mean, he seems like the kind of guy that
Speaker 2: would have known the Black Panthers and Bobby Seal. But
Speaker 2: it was enough to where that address book was in
Speaker 2: fact returned, and I guess that was enough to where
Speaker 2: they were like, hey, Yoko, I'm one of the most
Speaker 2: famous people in the world. Maybe we should move to
Speaker 2: a building that's a little more secure.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's why they moved to the Dakota Is
Speaker 1: that had a security guard, that had a doorman. There
Speaker 1: was a driveway that was gated, so you could drive
Speaker 1: in through the gate and they'd close the gate behind you,
Speaker 1: and then you got out of your car in the
Speaker 1: courtyard so you didn't have to get out on the street.
Speaker 1: It was much much safer. But saying that, I've read
Speaker 1: interviews with John Lennon where he talks about his life
Speaker 1: in Manhattan, and like he would walk around Central Park,
Speaker 1: he would go get breakfast, like down the street, he
Speaker 1: was just like living like a normal New Yorker. And
Speaker 1: he said that people would like say hi or whatever,
Speaker 1: but rarely would anybody ever bug him. So he was
Speaker 1: living he was super super famous, but at the same
Speaker 1: time he was just living like a normal person by
Speaker 1: this time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's one of the allures of New
Speaker 2: York is you can be one of the most famous
Speaker 2: people in the world and generally, like New Yorkers themselves
Speaker 2: aren't the ones that are gonna bug you anyway.
Speaker 3: It's any tourists probably.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But otherwise you can kind of live in New
Speaker 2: York and walk around and just do your thing. And
Speaker 2: that's what they did when they bought five apartments at
Speaker 2: the Dakota. They lived in a couple of them. They
Speaker 2: had a studio one which was Yoko's work studio, and
Speaker 2: they had a guest apartment, very nice thing to have,
Speaker 2: and then a storage apartment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they also had Sean Lennon in nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 1: and this whole era from about that time until his
Speaker 1: death has a couple of different portrayals depending on who
Speaker 1: you ask. Yeah, a lot of times is portrayed is
Speaker 1: John Lennon's house husband era. He reputedly would bake bread
Speaker 1: and he would take Sean to go walk in Central
Speaker 1: Park and just being like a stay at home dad.
Speaker 1: He turned his business affairs over to Yoko and just
Speaker 1: basically was like, I'm just here to live. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: another set of reporting, including from people who were like
Speaker 1: there part of his life, like at least one personal
Speaker 1: assistant who was there. Toward the end, he said, that's
Speaker 1: kind of a charade, that he was actually really depressed.
Speaker 1: He would lock himself in his room and just watch
Speaker 1: TV for days on end. He was into the occult
Speaker 1: may or may not have been doing drugs, but he
Speaker 1: wasn't like baking bread and just been paying attention to Sean.
Speaker 1: He was he was depressed. But even if that holds true,
Speaker 1: by the time his death rolled around, he had turned
Speaker 1: some sort of corner because he was on a schooner
Speaker 1: somewhere on the way to Bermuda and ended up being
Speaker 1: the only person on the ship that wasn't seasick and
Speaker 1: was asked to like steer the boat through a storm,
Speaker 1: and apparently going through that gauntlet made him like just
Speaker 1: it just gave him some confidence or produce a spark
Speaker 1: in him that had been missing. So even if the
Speaker 1: people who said that his last years were pretty depressing,
Speaker 1: the last year of his life was different than that.
Speaker 1: It was renewed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was probably a little bit of both.
Speaker 2: John Lennon struggled his entire life with you know, with
Speaker 2: just issues. He had issues from the moment he was
Speaker 2: raised until the day he died, generally speaking in and
Speaker 2: out of drugs, stuff like that. So it was probably both,
Speaker 2: would be my guess as far as the work goes.
Speaker 2: That fall of nineteen eighty is when the album Double
Speaker 2: Fantasy came out. Great record released on November seventeen, the
Speaker 2: first one since Sean was born, and it was you know,
Speaker 2: things were looking I think more positive. You know, he
Speaker 2: regretted how he fathered Julian. I think he felt like
Speaker 2: he had a second chance here with Sean. He was
Speaker 2: madly in love with Yoko Ono, just like partners and everything,
Speaker 2: and things were looking pretty good. I think he had
Speaker 2: largely sort of let the Beatles thing. That was a
Speaker 2: tough breakup, you know, so he had to get through.
Speaker 1: That, Yeah, But it sounds like he kind of had
Speaker 1: by the time Double Fantasy came out because it was
Speaker 1: a fairly upbeat album about like family life and stuff, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of it was Yeah, so that's John Lennon.
Speaker 1: Kareening toreed him on a separate but soon to intersect path.
Speaker 1: Was another person who was not in any way famous,
Speaker 1: and depending on what interview you read of his, who
Speaker 1: you talk to, what psychiatrist notes you read, was very
Speaker 1: disappointed that he was not famous or that he was
Speaker 1: a nobody. His name was Mark David Chapman, and I
Speaker 1: should say, right out of the gate truck, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people who are like, don't even mention that
Speaker 1: guy's name. Yeah, because he said multiple times that the
Speaker 1: reason that he killed John Lennon spoiler alert, Mark David
Speaker 1: Chapman was the person who killed John Lennon to gain fame,
Speaker 1: to like basically basque in the reflective glow that he
Speaker 1: would gain from taking John Lennon's life. So people are like,
Speaker 1: don't give that guy any publicity. You can't talk about
Speaker 1: the death of John Lennon unless you talk about Mark
Speaker 1: David Chapman. And from interviews that I've wrote with him,
Speaker 1: there's a lot more to the story than him just
Speaker 1: killing John Lennon because he wanted to be famous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, although I mean, like you said, he has literally
Speaker 2: said I thought I could acquire his fame by killing him.
Speaker 2: So he was born in nineteen fifty five in Fort Worth, Texas,
Speaker 2: to an Air Force father and a nurse mother, and
Speaker 2: he grew up four miles from my house. Wowee, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I had looked it up before years ago, and I
Speaker 2: did it again today because I couldn't remember. He had
Speaker 2: a Decatur address, but it wasn't like a Decatur Decatur
Speaker 2: like we think of it. He went to Columbia High School,
Speaker 2: which was a rival high school to my high school
Speaker 2: that I went to. Obviously older than me, but yeah,
Speaker 2: he grew up right down the road. And his dad
Speaker 2: was a pretty tough guy. Apparently there were stories that
Speaker 2: he told about physical abuse against his mother in which
Speaker 2: he would step in to defend her. The mother did
Speaker 2: say that there were there was some abuse, but she,
Speaker 2: you know, I think, like a lot of women of
Speaker 2: the time, down played that. But he didn't seem like
Speaker 2: a very good guy, as evidenced by the fact that
Speaker 2: at one point, as we'll see, Chapman thought about killing
Speaker 2: his father, like he wanted to kill somebody, right, And
Speaker 2: we'll get into all that, But as a kid, there
Speaker 2: were you know, he was sort of a go get
Speaker 2: her in some ways. He started a newspaper for the neighborhood,
Speaker 2: he was a coin collector. He was kind of a
Speaker 2: normal kid in some ways. But then he also, you know,
Speaker 2: Olivia found this one thing, and I've seen this elsewhere
Speaker 2: that he would create these fantasies about people who lived
Speaker 2: in the walls and that he was their king. And
Speaker 2: you know, initially, I'm like, that's that's kids stuff, Like
Speaker 2: kids do all kinds of things like that. But the
Speaker 2: more and more I read, it seemed like it was
Speaker 2: it bordered on like like a godlike complex rather than
Speaker 2: just sort of you know, make belief friends.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they considered him important, and they were the only
Speaker 1: ones who considered him important supposedly. Yeah, but I think
Speaker 1: like that's a good illustration that he was showing signs
Speaker 1: that could be taken a mental illness, like as early
Speaker 1: as childhood. Yeah, there's a lot of debate on the
Speaker 1: internet whether he's mentally ill at all. It seems like
Speaker 1: the growing consensus is, especially as we understand mental illness
Speaker 1: more and more, that yeah, he's probably very mentally ill,
Speaker 1: which makes the fact that he's not being treated for
Speaker 1: mental illness in prison like that much worse, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, So he came of age in like the
Speaker 1: sixties and really kind of bought into the whole hippie
Speaker 1: thing for a little while. When he was in high school,
Speaker 1: started doing drugs. I think he started huffing in Halen's
Speaker 1: which is that's what you do when you start trying
Speaker 1: drugs in Georgia. And then he just moved on and
Speaker 1: eventually came to acid. I think he tried heroin a
Speaker 1: few times. Like he definitely tried all the drugs. And
Speaker 1: he also was into the Beatles. His favorite album was
Speaker 1: Sergeant Pepper's. He also kind of got into conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: in UFOs. Who's just kind of like into all the
Speaker 1: stuff you get into when you start doing lots of drugs, right,
Speaker 1: And then he had a turning point, Chuck, He like
Speaker 1: completely didn't about face during high school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was only he only had did drugs for
Speaker 2: a couple of years, and you know, from fourteen to
Speaker 2: sixteen at Columbia High School he became a born again
Speaker 2: Presbyterian Christian quit drugging and during his drug years, like,
Speaker 2: you know, I saw those just weed and LSDVE, but
Speaker 2: I guess some other things were sprinkled in there. But
Speaker 2: he was actually ran away from home and was living
Speaker 2: on the streets of Atlanta for a couple of weeks
Speaker 2: as like a fifteen year old.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: But when he straightened himself out, he got a job
Speaker 2: at the YMCA after he graduated and was a counselor.
Speaker 2: He worked with Vietnamese refugees in Arkansas, and by all accounts,
Speaker 2: was really good at it. He was popular with the kids,
Speaker 2: he was popular with the campers. This is sort of
Speaker 2: I guess where we can start talking about the Catcher
Speaker 2: and the Rye. Yeah, because the one thing that he
Speaker 2: sort of identified with was well Holden call Field as
Speaker 2: a whole, but Holden call Field and his liking kids
Speaker 2: more than he liked adults, and that was certainly seen
Speaker 2: to be true with Chapman.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he definitely came to identify with Holden call Field
Speaker 1: for sure. I read a people Like People magazine interview
Speaker 1: with him from nineteen eighty seven. It's really long piece
Speaker 1: by a guy named James R. Gaines, and in it
Speaker 1: you get the impression that Mark David Chapman during this
Speaker 1: time is struggling with trying to be sane, trying to
Speaker 1: be good, try not to be bad, trying not to
Speaker 1: feel like he's going crazy. Yeah, and at one point
Speaker 1: he finally got to the point where he's like he
Speaker 1: was apparently tired of struggling. He started he basically turns
Speaker 1: his back on God and started praying to Satan and
Speaker 1: was just like, just turn me crazy. I'm basically I'm
Speaker 1: sick of trying not to be crazy. From that point
Speaker 1: on his words, yeah, Yeah, from that point on, he
Speaker 1: just kept really going downhill from there essentially.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that can be the case, as
Speaker 2: you you know, depending on what sort of mental illness
Speaker 2: you have, as you get up in your upper teenage years,
Speaker 2: things can really sort of settle in.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I saw a lot of interviews. He talked a
Speaker 2: lot about the two sides of himself. As we'll see later,
Speaker 2: there were certain psychiatrists after, like during the trial, that
Speaker 2: diagnosed him as having paranoid schizophrenia. He heard voices in
Speaker 2: his head like things like that were starting to happen
Speaker 2: with more regularity. So in nineteen seventy seven he kind
Speaker 2: of dropped out and moved to Hawaii. I think thinking
Speaker 2: it would be good for him. He did have a
Speaker 2: suicide attempt there, but he also got treatment for depression
Speaker 2: and started traveling and stuff.
Speaker 1: Like that he did. This is really strange. He at
Speaker 1: this time managed to travel the world. I could not
Speaker 1: find how he paid for it, but I know that
Speaker 1: he paid for a later trip by selling an original
Speaker 1: Norman Rockwell that he had acquired. So this guy who
Speaker 1: is like basically living on the beach in Waikiki with
Speaker 1: no money, suddenly goes on a trip around the world
Speaker 1: to Asia to the Middle East during this several month
Speaker 1: period between oh, I think it's sometime in nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1: It's a really bizarre little footnote that there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of information on. But that's one thing he did.
Speaker 1: And the reason that we bring this up is because
Speaker 1: his travel agent, a woman named Gloria Abbe, ended up
Speaker 1: marrying him and they're still married.
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, they were. I mean that may be one
Speaker 2: of the facts of the podcast. They were married for
Speaker 2: eighteen months before he murdered John Lennon, and she has
Speaker 2: subsequently stayed married to him. And the interviews that I read,
Speaker 2: she's like, you know, I took an oath of marriage
Speaker 2: in front of God and everybody, and I'm gonna honor that.
Speaker 2: So that's basically the end of the story. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's really not more to it than that she has
Speaker 2: stayed by his side. You know, does regular conjugal visits
Speaker 2: with him in prison, and they're you know, they're still
Speaker 2: going strong, I guess. But in Hawaii is when although
Speaker 2: he was getting depression treatment, he really went downhill with
Speaker 2: his mental health there and that's where he started obsessing
Speaker 2: about killing somebody famous in order to gain fame. And
Speaker 2: Lennon was on a list as well as Johnny Carson
Speaker 2: and Elizabeth Taylor, Paul McCartney, George C. Scott, the governor
Speaker 2: of Hawaii, Ronald Reagan, apparently David Bowie was on the list.
Speaker 3: It was a big list.
Speaker 2: Of people that, you know, the police found this upon
Speaker 2: their investigations of people that he wanted to murder.
Speaker 1: Yes, alarmingly, he was hired as a security guard and
Speaker 1: outfitted with a gun during this period, and in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty he quit his job and he bought his own gun.
Speaker 1: He flew from Hawaii to New York with a gun
Speaker 1: in November of nineteen eighty and by this time, like
Speaker 1: you said he'd come up with a list of famous
Speaker 1: people who he might kill. And during this trip, he
Speaker 1: later said that he visited both Reagan's and Carter's election
Speaker 1: night parties, probably with a gun, kind of like a
Speaker 1: Travis Beck yeah, bikel kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he.
Speaker 1: Didn't do anything, obviously, And he actually went back to
Speaker 1: Hawaii afterward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And before he did that, he went to Georgia
Speaker 2: to get bullets because at the time, you know, the
Speaker 2: good old days, you could not even buy bullets in
Speaker 2: New York City. So he went back to Georgia to
Speaker 2: get bullets. And I don't know if he couldn't buy
Speaker 2: them there or what, but his plan was to get
Speaker 2: them from a cop friend of his and said that
Speaker 2: he was thinking about killing his dad. And then, you know,
Speaker 2: went back to Hawaii at that point, then went back
Speaker 2: to New York on December sixth, which was a Saturday.
Speaker 2: And maybe that's a good time to take a break,
Speaker 2: what do you think? Yeah, all right, we'll be right.
Speaker 3: Back, all right.
Speaker 2: So Mark David Chapman is in New York on December eighth.
Speaker 2: John Lennon and Yoko Ono are promoting the album they
Speaker 2: had just released, Double Fantasy, they went to breakfast. John
Speaker 2: Lennon went got a haircut. He had that awesome hair
Speaker 2: at the time. It's when he was sort of in his.
Speaker 3: Kind of like grease or stray cats look.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3: That was kind of kind of a cool.
Speaker 2: Look because he always had this long hair usually, and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden he had sort of this greaser look,
Speaker 2: which is which is super cool. Yeah, And he had
Speaker 2: a very very famous photo shoot done at his apartment
Speaker 2: that day with Annie Leibovitz for Rolling Stone. What a Day,
Speaker 2: the iconic cover that was released much later in January
Speaker 2: of nineteen eighty one, where John Lennon is curled up
Speaker 2: naked beside Yoko Ono and the picture's kind of taken
Speaker 2: from above, very very famous photograph.
Speaker 1: And that photograph was, you said, taken on the day
Speaker 1: he died.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: Isn't that nuts?
Speaker 2: Yeah, not as nuts as one of the other photographs taken.
Speaker 1: That No, that is it's great foreshadowing. So after the
Speaker 1: Annie Leebowitz photo shoot, they went downstairs to Yoko's studio
Speaker 1: and they were interviewed by RKO Radio and then after
Speaker 1: that was time to go to work. It's like five
Speaker 1: PM and Yoko and John leave the Dakota to go
Speaker 1: to the Record Plant, a recording studio, to work on
Speaker 1: a new single called Walking on Thin Ice. This is
Speaker 1: around five o'clock and they leave the Dakota and as
Speaker 1: they're leaving, they met a fan who was standing out
Speaker 1: on the sidewalk, and it turns out had been standing
Speaker 1: out on the sidewalk essentially for the last few days
Speaker 1: to waiting to run into John Lennon. And that fan
Speaker 1: was in fact, Mark David Chapman.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: As an odd side note, and I think this just
Speaker 2: came out in sort of semi recent years. He was
Speaker 2: not the only person to meet Mark David Chapman as
Speaker 2: a musician there. Yeah, But James Taylor said that he
Speaker 2: bumped into him. He lived, i think a couple of
Speaker 2: buildings up from the Dakota, and he met Mark David
Speaker 2: Chapman on the subway and he told the story, you know,
Speaker 2: in the past few years. He said that he had
Speaker 2: button holed me in the tube station right in front
Speaker 2: of seventy second Street the day before the murder, and
Speaker 2: he had sort of pinned me to the wall, not physically,
Speaker 2: but you know, just sort of metaphorically. I guess he
Speaker 2: was glistening with my niacal sweat and talking some freak
Speaker 2: speak about what he was going to do with this stuff,
Speaker 2: and how John Lennon was interested, because I don't think
Speaker 2: we mentioned he wanted to be a he wanted to
Speaker 2: be famous, but he supposedly tried to play guitar. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure how much he fancied himself a musician, but
Speaker 2: I don't think it's like he was delivering demo tapes
Speaker 2: or anything unless I had never caught that. But freak
Speaker 2: speak about what he was going to do, how Lennon
Speaker 2: was interested in how he's going to get in touch
Speaker 2: with John Lennon. He said he seemed either drugged or
Speaker 2: in a manic break of some sort. His eyes were
Speaker 2: darting all over the place, dilated like crazy. And then
Speaker 2: he closed by saying he was just someone who knew
Speaker 2: me and who I didn't know, and he had an
Speaker 2: agenda that I couldn't deal with, and I knew that
Speaker 2: I needed to get away from him.
Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy? He met James Taylor the day before
Speaker 1: he killed John Lennon.
Speaker 2: And Taylor heard the shots from his apartment. Yeah, when
Speaker 2: it happened.
Speaker 1: So all but before that, after he met James Taylor,
Speaker 1: but before he shot John Lennon. This is still where
Speaker 1: around five o'clock, when Yoko and John are leaving the
Speaker 1: Dakota for the record plant, Mark Chapman walks up and
Speaker 1: asks him to sign his copy of Double Fantasy, that
Speaker 1: record that had just come out the month before. And
Speaker 1: that photo that you referenced, Chuck, that even weirder photo.
Speaker 1: There's a picture of this happening of John Lennon signing
Speaker 1: Mark David Chapman's copy of Double Fantasy. Just so happened
Speaker 1: that there was somebody with the camera standing on the
Speaker 1: sidewalk that decided to snap a picture of John Lennon
Speaker 1: signing an album for the man who would take his
Speaker 1: life a few hours later.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of the creepier photos that exists, especially
Speaker 2: if you're a Beatles fan. It was a photographer named
Speaker 2: Paul Garesh, and.
Speaker 3: He didn't quite happen to be there.
Speaker 2: He was someone who hung out there all the time, okay,
Speaker 2: to get pictures of Lenin and they were in fact
Speaker 2: friendly because he was always around and you know, obviously
Speaker 2: a huge Beatles fan and John Lennon like he would
Speaker 2: chat him up, and he was he was really he
Speaker 2: was a generous human as a super famous musician, right,
Speaker 2: and so he would spend time talking with Gorsh and
Speaker 2: stuff like that when they were he was waiting on
Speaker 2: a car or something like that. And that's why he
Speaker 2: was out there for a few minutes this time, as
Speaker 2: they were kind of just waiting on their car. And yeah,
Speaker 2: he signed it in pen. That record was auctioned off
Speaker 2: a couple of years ago for nine hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 2: and was signed in pen. But it also has you know,
Speaker 2: like police sharpie markings, like evidence markings on it and
Speaker 2: stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It also has Chapman's enhanced thumbprint, like from police forensics
Speaker 1: testing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's I mean, I don't know one other.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to cast his persions on who would
Speaker 2: buy something like that for almost a million dollars. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but you know, ten people been on it, so I
Speaker 2: guess I'm not sure if it was a Beatles fan
Speaker 2: looking to show it off or destroy it or what.
Speaker 3: I didn't get any information about who bought it.
Speaker 1: There's one other creepy footnote of this initial meeting too.
Speaker 1: Apparently somebody reported who was there when all this happened
Speaker 1: that John Lennon asked Mark David Chapman, is that all
Speaker 1: you want? And Mark David Chapman apparently just stood there
Speaker 1: and stunned silence, and John Lennon asked him again, is
Speaker 1: that all you want? And I guess Mark David Chapman
Speaker 1: said yeah or something like that, And so John Lennon said, okay,
Speaker 1: see you later and turned around and got in the
Speaker 1: car and left.
Speaker 3: For the record, planted yeah, and that was enough.
Speaker 2: That interaction was so amicable and friendly as a super
Speaker 2: famous guy talking with someone, you know, stalking outside of
Speaker 2: his apartment that Mark David Chapman reconsidered in that moment
Speaker 2: and was like, geez, you know, maybe I should go
Speaker 2: home and show my wife this autograph that I got.
Speaker 2: He was really kind to me, but that didn't happen
Speaker 2: because he has mental illness. He heard in his head.
Speaker 2: When he came back Lennon and Yoko Ono got back
Speaker 2: just before eleven, he was still there. That limousine, like
Speaker 2: you said, could pulled in that courtyard area where they
Speaker 2: would have had a gate behind them, but they dropped
Speaker 2: them off on the sidewalk, and in his brain he
Speaker 2: said he heard a voice saying do it, do it?
Speaker 3: Do it?
Speaker 2: With his external human voice, he just said, mister Lennon,
Speaker 2: and John Lennon turned around, and he fired his thirty
Speaker 2: eight pistol five times and hit him four times.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So John Lennon stumbles forward, and I believe it
Speaker 1: was either the doormant or the security guard is standing
Speaker 1: there and John Lennon says to him, I've been shot.
Speaker 1: And there's a three part documentary series coming out on
Speaker 1: Apple Plus called John Lennon Colon Murder without a Trial.
Speaker 1: And I guess some publicists didn't do their research or whatever,
Speaker 1: because all of the stuff that all of like the
Speaker 1: ink that's being written about that documentary in the last
Speaker 1: week is about how it reveals John Lennon's last words,
Speaker 1: which turned out to be I've been shot. But anybody
Speaker 1: who cared to even go read even the first couple
Speaker 1: articles that covered this at the time, we'll see that
Speaker 1: his last words were I've been shot.
Speaker 3: But they made it sound like it was breaking news.
Speaker 1: Yes, they made it sound like at long last, this documentary,
Speaker 1: forty three years later is revealed his last words, but
Speaker 1: his last words were I've been shot. Technically, his last
Speaker 1: word was yes, because when he was laying there on
Speaker 1: the sidewalk, the police got there within two minutes and
Speaker 1: one of the cops that, are you John Lennon? And
Speaker 1: he said yes, and that was the last thing he
Speaker 1: ever said. The cops got there really quickly. But the
Speaker 1: thing that they found that was extraordinarily creepy was what
Speaker 1: Mark David Chapman did after he shot John Lennon.
Speaker 3: Right yeah.
Speaker 2: The security guard yelled out, do you know what you
Speaker 2: just did? And Chapman said, I just shot John Lennon,
Speaker 2: which would become a Cranberrys song in nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 2: that was about the murder of John Lennon. And he
Speaker 2: picked up his copy of Ketchri and the Rye and
Speaker 2: he leaned against the building and started thumbing through it.
Speaker 2: I think it was a he had bought a new
Speaker 2: copy that day of his favorite book. And he you know,
Speaker 2: didn't try and get away, didn't try and do anything,
Speaker 2: went very peacefully. The police when they got there, knew
Speaker 2: how dire this was. You know, four bullets at close
Speaker 2: range like that was, you know, basically a death sentence,
Speaker 2: and they knew they certainly couldn't wait for an ambulance,
Speaker 2: so they put him in the squad car, drove him
Speaker 2: to what was the time Roosevelt Hospital now Mount Sinai West,
Speaker 2: and supposedly, I mean I saw that he was listed
Speaker 2: as dead on arrival. They tried to resuscitate him, I
Speaker 2: think for about twenty minutes. Yeah, and they finally pronounced
Speaker 2: him dead at eleven fifteen. But I've heard different accounts
Speaker 2: that he died in the police car too. He died,
Speaker 2: you know, upon arrival at the hospital, And I'm not
Speaker 2: really sure anyone knows the exact moment.
Speaker 1: No. I read a interview with the emergency room doctor
Speaker 1: that tried to save him, Stephan Glynn, and he said,
Speaker 1: like the bullets were so incredibly well placed that he
Speaker 1: actually had Lennon's heart in his hand trying to pump
Speaker 1: the blood to keep the blood flow going, and he
Speaker 1: said there was nothing to pump. He'd lost so much blood,
Speaker 1: there was no blood to pump in at any rate.
Speaker 1: All the arteries around the heart were so torn up
Speaker 1: they couldn't move any blood anyway. So it's probably likely
Speaker 1: he was dead in just that short car trip to
Speaker 1: the hospital.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the official autopsy found two bullets went into his
Speaker 2: back and went through his left lung, another went through
Speaker 2: his left shoulder, also through his left lung and then
Speaker 2: lodged in his neck, and the other one hit his
Speaker 2: left armbone. And in a very sort of strange turn
Speaker 2: of events, this news got out very quickly because there
Speaker 2: was a producer for WABCTV there in the emergency room
Speaker 2: named Alan j Weiss who was being treated after a
Speaker 2: motorcycle crash, and all of a sudden, you know, it's
Speaker 2: not like a just a regular person being wheeled into
Speaker 2: an er. It was people were sort of losing their
Speaker 2: minds and it was really chaotic. He knew that something
Speaker 2: was going on, and he just gathered from sort of
Speaker 2: hearing things that it was in fact John Lennon. And
Speaker 2: as he says, and this sounds I'm not sure why,
Speaker 2: I don't want to believe it, but he says that
Speaker 2: the musaic playing in the room while they were trying
Speaker 2: to revive him was all my Loving.
Speaker 1: Yeah Beatles song. Yeah for those of us who aren't
Speaker 1: really into the Beatles enough to know that that's a
Speaker 1: Beatles song.
Speaker 2: Sure, because he would not mention all my Lovin by
Speaker 2: the Everly Brothers.
Speaker 1: You never know, He's like, that's just weird. He also
Speaker 1: said that he heard Yoko and no scream, and he
Speaker 1: talked to one of the doctors attending to him and
Speaker 1: they agreed that John Lennon probably was and he was
Speaker 1: convinced enough that he called the station WABC and told
Speaker 1: them the news. And so the news broke on ABC,
Speaker 1: which just so happened to be airing Monday night football,
Speaker 1: and it was Howard Cosell that broke the news to
Speaker 1: the world essentially of John Lennon's death.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was a Patriots Dolphins game, tied up in the
Speaker 2: fourth quarter, and Frank Gifford, you know, while they were
Speaker 2: in commercial, they discussed, like what should we do here?
Speaker 3: This is too big to kind of sit on.
Speaker 2: Apparently coselle did not really want to do it, but
Speaker 2: Frank Gifford was like, we kind of have to. And
Speaker 2: so as the quote goes, Gifford said, you know, three
Speaker 2: seconds remaining, John Smith is on the line, and I
Speaker 2: don't care what's on the line, Howard, you've got to
Speaker 2: say what we know. In the booth, and Howard Cosell
Speaker 2: talked about, you know, this is just a football game.
Speaker 2: He said, Lennon was shot twice, so the you know,
Speaker 2: the news wasn't even accurate that quickly off the you know,
Speaker 2: off the wire, or I guess it wouldn't even a
Speaker 2: wire at that point. But he said that he was
Speaker 2: dead on arrival and that it's hard to go back
Speaker 2: to the game at that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I also read Stevie Wonder stopped his concert
Speaker 1: in Oakland when he heard the news and broke it
Speaker 1: to his fans too. It was a huge, huge deal.
Speaker 1: I mean, like you said, you were even aware of it,
Speaker 1: and you weren't even like a Beatles fan or very
Speaker 1: aware of the Beatles if you were a Beatles fan
Speaker 1: at the time. Yeah, right, yeah, if you were a
Speaker 1: Beatles fan at the time, it was the most devastating
Speaker 1: news you've heard since the Beatles were breaking up. Maybe
Speaker 1: even more devastating than.
Speaker 2: That, I would say, so, probably because that ruined any
Speaker 2: chance of it ever being reunited.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fair point. I saw that somebody was like, what
Speaker 1: would have happened if John Lennon hadn't been killed. Somebody
Speaker 1: was like, they probably would have played together here or there,
Speaker 1: you know once in a while. So yeah, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: sure it was much worse.
Speaker 2: But well, he and Paul had had repaired their relationship
Speaker 2: by that point, and the whole you know, the Beatles
Speaker 2: breakup was it was acrimonious in that they were all
Speaker 2: sort of not tired of each other, but just tired
Speaker 2: of being in that band together. But it wasn't you know,
Speaker 2: they never hated each other. It was like any long
Speaker 2: term creative partnership. They had a strain, but they had
Speaker 2: worked it out, and they were hanging out together in
Speaker 2: New York some when Paul was in town, and you know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't like, you know, they weren't talking anymore or
Speaker 2: anything like that. Things were headed toward reconciliation, if not professionally,
Speaker 2: certainly personally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they did work it out. Please, I think with that, Chuck,
Speaker 1: we should probably take a break.
Speaker 3: Huh, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Okay. So we're back and the world is now just
Speaker 1: learning that John Lennon has been killed. Yoko No, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure exactly when she did it, but she released
Speaker 1: a statement saying like there's not going to be a funeral,
Speaker 1: which is probably a wise move because I can't imagine
Speaker 1: what John Lennon's funeral would have looked like. It would
Speaker 1: have just been chaos. But instead she said, I think
Speaker 1: it would be more appropriate to have like a ten
Speaker 1: minute silent vigil. And around the world people observe this
Speaker 1: ten minute silent vigil, and apparently in Central Park there
Speaker 1: was upwards of fifty thousand people standing there silently for
Speaker 1: ten minutes. And I heard a report that the only
Speaker 1: thing you could hear in Central Park in Manhattan at
Speaker 1: the time where the helicopters s whirling overhead who were
Speaker 1: covering this for the news, Like no one talked to
Speaker 1: car horns. There was nothing for that ten minute vigil,
Speaker 1: which must have just really kind of driven home like
Speaker 1: the significance of that moment, you.
Speaker 2: Know, Yeah, I mean it was before that though the Dakota,
Speaker 2: like there are pictures of I mean, it looked like
Speaker 2: a you know, a festival, a concert, festival of people
Speaker 2: just outside the Dakota. I mean, it's not a stretch
Speaker 2: to say it was like on the manner of like
Speaker 2: the Queen dying or something like that. I mean, people
Speaker 2: all over the world, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands
Speaker 2: gathering together to mourn his death, and even very sadly,
Speaker 2: a couple of people in the following days took their
Speaker 2: life by suicide. Mentioning Lenin's death and depression kind of
Speaker 2: pushing them over the edge and their suicide notes.
Speaker 1: Yes, Paul McCartney when he heard the news and was,
Speaker 1: I guess asked by a reporter Tom on it, he
Speaker 1: said something like drag, isn't it okay? Cheers and was
Speaker 1: very widely criticized for it, and he, in his defense
Speaker 1: said like, I couldn't bring to words like what I
Speaker 1: was feeling at the moment. I was in shock. Apparently
Speaker 1: he went off and wrote a a song about the
Speaker 1: whole thing called Here Today. Have you heard that song?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, it's on the Tug of War record, the
Speaker 2: Good One. It's okay, I mean, it's not my favorite
Speaker 2: from that record, But that that interview that always has
Speaker 2: bothered me. If you see the interview, it's just like
Speaker 2: he's jammed in the middle of throngs of people on
Speaker 2: a sidewalk and someone you know, sticks a camera and
Speaker 2: microphone in his face, and when you watch it, it's
Speaker 2: clear he's not being flip.
Speaker 3: He's he's a guy who's who.
Speaker 2: Probably doesn't want a camera and microphone shoved in his
Speaker 2: face at that very moment and is just trying to
Speaker 2: get out of there. Paul McCartney was obviously crushed, as
Speaker 2: were all the Beatles. Ringo Star was in the Bahamas,
Speaker 2: immediately came to New York and acted as you know,
Speaker 2: sort of temporary dad to Sean, because Yoka was like,
Speaker 2: I need I need help with my son. You know,
Speaker 2: you don't think about like the nuts and bolts of
Speaker 2: going through something like that, one of which is I
Speaker 2: have a five year old that needs to be looked after.
Speaker 2: And Ringo stepped in there, which is amazing that it.
Speaker 1: Seems like a pretty Ringo Star thing to do too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: George Harrison, he was off on his kind of like
Speaker 1: Eastern philosophy trip and had been devoting his life to
Speaker 1: preparing for a peaceful death. So when he got the news,
Speaker 1: he apparently thought he got the call in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night and his wife Olivia took the call,
Speaker 1: and he thought he just guessed at first that Ringo
Speaker 1: Starr was dead for some reason. I never saw what
Speaker 1: his reasoning was. He just said that he thought that
Speaker 1: in an interview. But then when he found out what
Speaker 1: had happened, he apparently was really angry that that John
Speaker 1: had been like robbed of a chance of having like
Speaker 1: a peaceful, like calm death, that he died in such
Speaker 1: a violent manner, and it took him a while to
Speaker 1: get over that and just kind of accept that that happened.
Speaker 1: But on that note too, about the fact that John
Speaker 1: Lennon died in a violent manner, he supposedly had kind
Speaker 1: of postulated that something like that might happen to him someday,
Speaker 1: and he chalked it up to his violent pass that
Speaker 1: he was a violent person and that he expected he
Speaker 1: might die violently when he went. I thought was very bizarre.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very much. Julian was seventeen. He was in North Wales,
Speaker 2: and he said he woke up with a gut feeling
Speaker 2: that something terrible had happened, and he, as the story goes,
Speaker 2: went downstairs and opened the curtains of his mother and
Speaker 2: stepfather's house and it was just mobbed with press. So
Speaker 2: that's how he finds out terrible. Lenin was cremated at
Speaker 2: Ferncliff Cemetery outside New York City, in Hartsdale. But there
Speaker 2: was somebody who took another photograph, an unfortunate one of
Speaker 2: his body in the morgue, and the New York Posts
Speaker 2: published it, which is terrible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, on the front page, I think. And if it
Speaker 1: wasn't the New York Post that put it on the
Speaker 1: front page, the Inquirer definitely did. So, Yeah, there's some
Speaker 1: really significant photographs just that circle this event. So Mark
Speaker 1: David Chapman shows up in court two days later, he's
Speaker 1: taken to jail of obviously by the police, placed under
Speaker 1: suicide watch. And also I think he was wearing a
Speaker 1: bulletproof vest in court because there was just such a
Speaker 1: chance that somebody would kill him for killing John Lennon.
Speaker 1: Still today, I think if he left prison, somebody might
Speaker 1: kill him for killing John Lennon forty three years later,
Speaker 1: you know. And I suspect he might be aware of that.
Speaker 1: But he underwent a battery of psychiatric tests with I
Speaker 1: believe a dozen psychiatrists over two hundred hours between over
Speaker 1: about the six months between the first time he was
Speaker 1: arraigned and when he ended up pleading guilty in court,
Speaker 1: and every single one of these psychiatrists, prosecution and defense
Speaker 1: said this guy has some sort of mental illness. The
Speaker 1: degree of it was disagreed upon by the prosecution and
Speaker 1: the defense. The defense a psychiatrist real like he has schizophrenia,
Speaker 1: he has psychosis. He's not aware of what he did.
Speaker 1: The prosecution said, he's very aware of what he did.
Speaker 1: He has mental illness, probably some sort of personality disorder,
Speaker 1: but definitely not anything that's made him so detached from reality.
Speaker 1: He's not culpable for this crime.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Finally, on June twenty second, he changed
Speaker 2: his plea himself. His attorney. It was actually a second
Speaker 2: attorney because the first one withdrew very quickly because there
Speaker 2: were death threats, like you're, you know, defending Mark David Chapman.
Speaker 2: But Jonathan Marx was the second US attorney appointed, and
Speaker 2: he was like, don't change your plea to guilty, because
Speaker 2: you know, we could probably get you, you know, at
Speaker 2: least insane at the time of the shooting, like temporary insanity.
Speaker 3: Which did they still even use that as a plea?
Speaker 1: I don't know, man. I know we've done an episode
Speaker 1: on it, but I don't remember where it landed these days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not sure. But he changes guilty plea to
Speaker 2: guilty of second degree murder. On August twenty fourth, the
Speaker 2: judge sentence send to twenty years to life at green
Speaker 2: Haven Correctional Facility and said you should get psychiatric treatment
Speaker 2: and Mark David Chapman read from The Catcher in the
Speaker 2: Rye the part where I was just going to read
Speaker 2: it but it's a little long, but the part where
Speaker 2: holding call Field is basically talking about saving the kids, yeah,
Speaker 2: that are in danger of wandering off the cliff. And
Speaker 2: you know that's when he calls himself the Catcher and
Speaker 2: the Rye and that's you know, he was still so
Speaker 2: attached to that book at that point that that was
Speaker 2: sort of his final statement. And I think he even
Speaker 2: had a copy of the book that he had inscribed
Speaker 2: and said this is my statement.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Apparently the book, the copy that he was reading
Speaker 1: after he shot John Lennon had that written in it.
Speaker 1: And if you read that James R. Gaines interview with
Speaker 1: him and people from nineteen eighty seven, this period of time,
Speaker 1: that six months are when he really seems the most
Speaker 1: mentally ill, when it really shines through, because he's vacillating
Speaker 1: between a complete and total immersion in The Catcher in
Speaker 1: the Rye and rejecting the Catcher in the Rye and
Speaker 1: going to the Bible and then vice versa. And there's
Speaker 1: a point where he has this awareness that the whole
Speaker 1: reason he shot John Lennon is to let everyone know
Speaker 1: that he's this generation's catcher in the rye, and every
Speaker 1: generation has a catcher in the rye, and he's the
Speaker 1: one now. And it's really unsettling and disturbing. And it
Speaker 1: would be really difficult to say the things that are
Speaker 1: coming out of this guy's mouth documented and be just
Speaker 1: making it up to make yourself seem mentally ill. It's
Speaker 1: just it's too off, unhinged essentially.
Speaker 2: Well, and there was a history of this in his life,
Speaker 2: you know. It wasn't like all of a sudden after
Speaker 2: the murder he just started saying these things.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah. And also, I mean, even if if
Speaker 1: you exclude all that, don't you have to be mentally
Speaker 1: ill to kill somebody to become famous. Doesn't that require
Speaker 1: a certain level of at least like a fundamental personality
Speaker 1: disorder that would qualify as a genuine mental illness?
Speaker 3: I think so I do too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm no psychiatrist, but if you believe that you
Speaker 2: can acquire someone's fame by murdering it, then essentially, yeah,
Speaker 2: there were a couple of the other motives. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, the motive is what it is, which is
Speaker 2: a disturbed person wanting to kill a famous person to
Speaker 2: gain fame. But he also was a very devout Christian
Speaker 2: after this, and at one point, you know, the Beatles
Speaker 2: talked about being more popular than Jesus. He offended his
Speaker 2: Christianity with stuff like that and the song Imagine. But
Speaker 2: you know, I don't think those were like the big reasons.
Speaker 2: He has expressed more and more remorse and shame over
Speaker 2: the years as time went by, because in twenty I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: In two thousand he became eligible for parole, and every
Speaker 2: two years he goes up before the board and he
Speaker 2: expresses shame. Now, he said in twenty twenty, what I
Speaker 2: did was despicable. I assassinated him because he was very,
Speaker 2: very very famous, and that's the only reason. And I
Speaker 2: was very very much seeking self glory, very selfish. For
Speaker 2: her part, Yoko Ono always writes a letter saying, please
Speaker 2: don't let him out. I don't feel like it's a
Speaker 2: punitive plea. From hearing interviews, she genuinely thinks that herself
Speaker 2: or Sean or Julian would be in danger if he
Speaker 2: was let out, And who can blame her?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I don't know what else to
Speaker 1: say after that.
Speaker 2: And one more thing I want to mention is, of
Speaker 2: course Strawberry Fields, the place in October of nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 2: on what would have been Lennon's forty fifth birthday, Central
Speaker 2: Park dedicated dedicated an area near the Dakota where he
Speaker 2: used to go and walks with Sean as Strawberry Fields.
Speaker 2: And it's a wonderful place to visit. It's got this
Speaker 2: beautiful mosaic on a walking path and if you go
Speaker 2: there are always you can't go there without seeing still
Speaker 2: just scores of Beatles fans paying their respects. Nice. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and Yoko ninety years old, still going strong and lived
Speaker 2: in that same apartment until just a few years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. And there's a lot of people who
Speaker 1: love to hate on Yoko. If you want to get
Speaker 1: into John Lennon conspiracy theories, she's frequently the person who's
Speaker 1: blamed as like hiring in it indirectly mark David Chapman
Speaker 1: as the hit man to kill her, right exactly at
Speaker 1: the same time. That kind of that, that's the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that gives people who despise her fodder for
Speaker 1: being like sea. She just she'd walk past the place
Speaker 1: where her husband died every day and it didn't you know,
Speaker 1: she didn't move or something like that. So she's a
Speaker 1: very misunderstood person. I think in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: She finally did move during the COVID pandemic up to
Speaker 1: upstate New York.
Speaker 2: I think with Sean, yeah, people need to stop all
Speaker 2: the Yoko stuff for God's sake.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean it's still going strong if you read
Speaker 1: the Internet, but it does feel like it's gone. There's
Speaker 1: been a sea change. I think it used to be
Speaker 1: way more acceptable to just hate on her, and just
Speaker 1: in general, I think it's gotten a little more conspiracy
Speaker 1: oriented rather than just mainstream these days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yoko Ono did not break up the Beatles full
Speaker 2: stop stop saying that. If you watch that the great
Speaker 2: Peter Jackson documentary that was out recently, it was it
Speaker 2: was definitely an odd thing for all of a sudden
Speaker 2: to have her in the recording studio with them. It's different.
Speaker 2: But Paul was like, it was an adjustment, and Paul
Speaker 2: was like, hey, listen, I it's a little weird, but
Speaker 2: like he needs her, he loves her. She's great for him,
Speaker 2: and she's not It's not like she's much of a
Speaker 2: disruption or anything like even when you watch the footage,
Speaker 2: she's she's just there and other family members are popping
Speaker 2: in here, here and there all the time. She was
Speaker 2: there the whole time, and he really needed her at
Speaker 2: that point, like she was his life. And Paul McCartney
Speaker 2: understood that, and he knew that like that was going
Speaker 2: to be part of the working arrangement moving forward, and
Speaker 2: they were getting okay with that, you know.
Speaker 1: Nice. Well, I'm glad you finally settled it once and
Speaker 1: for all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure not everyone will be like well Chuck said,
Speaker 2: it goes great.
Speaker 1: So if you got anything else.
Speaker 2: No, I don't love her singing, but that's a different
Speaker 2: story we've talked about.
Speaker 1: I think we have. But I'm sure I've mentioned before.
Speaker 1: I have you ever seen her cover of Fireworks?
Speaker 3: Uh huh? I love that, man.
Speaker 2: I just think she's a true original artist. So even
Speaker 2: if I don't love the singing, like, she's always done
Speaker 2: interesting things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, Well, if you want to know more about
Speaker 1: the death of John Lennon, there is no shortage of
Speaker 1: articles and documents and stuff that you can read on
Speaker 1: the Internet. And since I said that, of course it's
Speaker 1: time for listener mail, I'm.
Speaker 2: Gonna call us just a recent email from a young listener. Hey,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, not even hey, Yo, Josh and Chuck. My
Speaker 2: name is Ben S and I'm a thirteen year old
Speaker 2: from Eagle Mountain, Utah. Love your podcast. I have been
Speaker 2: listening to it for years and it makes me feel
Speaker 2: very smart around my friends. My dad introduced us to
Speaker 2: it by having us listen to it on all of
Speaker 2: our road trips because we really like to go camp.
Speaker 2: I come from a family of six kids, and four
Speaker 2: of us have a rare skin condition called epidermalysis epidermalysis
Speaker 2: belosa Simplex'd be super cool if you guys did a
Speaker 2: podcast about our skin condition and also this. We have
Speaker 2: a contest in our family to see who can get
Speaker 2: on listener mail first, and I'm really hoping it can
Speaker 2: be me. So if you do read this on the podcast,
Speaker 2: can you shout out my family, Mom, Dad, Ricky, Lily, Me, Olivia,
Speaker 2: Sam and Grace.
Speaker 3: Thanks again for the show.
Speaker 2: Hopefully I can listen to it all through high school
Speaker 2: and college and Ben, sometimes we like to make dreams
Speaker 2: come true, so that's why I picked this one. So
Speaker 2: take that to Mom, Dad, Ricky, Lily, Olivia, Sam and Grace.
Speaker 1: Ben one everybody contest is over.
Speaker 2: First one to email as far as I know, but
Speaker 2: that's all goes well.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Thanks a lot, Ben. We appreciate him. We're
Speaker 1: glad we could help you out a little bit. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much for listening, and we hope you do
Speaker 1: continue to listen throughout the rest of your life and
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