John Lennon and Yoko Ono at the 'Bed-In For
Peace' in Montreal, Canada. Photo: Ivor Sharp
THE JOHN LENNON / YOKO ONO BED-INVisit the Suite where
Give Peace a Chance was Recorded in Montreal, Canada.
About.com
By Susan Breslow Sardone
"Our life together is so precious together." -- from
(Just Like) Starting Over, by John Lennon
Every generation has its couples who mesmerize the public. In the late 1960s, none felt the worldwide glare of the press more than Beatle John Lennon and then-girlfriend Yoko Ono. The two met in London in November 1966, at an Ono performance-art exhibition. Many blamed Ono for the break-up of the Beatles, which became official with the group's last public appearance in January 1969. But John and Yoko's story, like most romances, is more complicated than it seems.
In the summer of 1968, John and Yoko moved in together, in Ringo Starr's London flat. October 18 that same year, the couple was arrested and charged with marijuana possession. Lennon claimed the drugs were planted by the police, but subsequently pled guilty to the charges on November 1, 1968.
That petty conviction that would haunt him for years. A week later, his divorce from first wife Cynthia Lennon was granted. Three days after that, John and Yoko's first album collaboration,
Two Virgins, was released. The cover showed nude photos of the lovers front and back, and was banned.
On March 20, 1969, the couple wed in Gibraltar. The following week, the two master media manipulators used their celebrity for good, hosting a honeymoon
bed-in for peace in
room 902, the
presidential suite of the
Amsterdam Hilton. The press avidly pursued them, assuming that the famous nudists would make love for their cameras. Instead, the pajama-clad newlyweds spoke out about world peace. It was the honeymoon as performance art, interlaced with a protest against the Vietnam War.
Lennon's
The Ballad of John and Yoko chronicles the week in song:
Drove from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton / Talking in our bed for a week / The news people said / 'Hey, what you doin' in bed?'/ I said, 'We're only tryin' to get us some peace!'"For a week, John and Yoko give interviews, ignoring the mockery and hostility to spread their words of peace to a global audience.
Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Canada.
London's Daily Mirror noted: "A not inconsiderable talent seems to have gone completely off his rocker." Mid-May, the couple planned to mount a
second bed-in, this time in New York. Authorities at the US Embassy in London refused to issue Lennon a visa because of his earlier marijuana arrest. So on May 24, 1969, John and Yoko flew to the Bahamas. John found the island it too hot and humid to stay in bed there for a week. So they abruptly left.
The newlyweds headed north, taking corner
suite rooms 1738-40-42 at the stately
Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal on May 26, 1969 to stage their
second week long bed-in for peace.
As Dave Bist, a reporter for the Montreal Gazette called, "All kinds of people came to pay their respects, from comedian-singer Tommy Smothers to L'il Abner cartoonist Al Capp, who kind of betrayed the price of entry by getting into a shouting match with the Peaceful Pair."
On June 1, 1969, the call went out for recording equipment. A guitar was found for Tommy Smothers. Oversize lyrics went up on the walls. And John and Yoko, along with a roomful of people that included Dr. Timothy Leary, Montreal Rabbi Abraham Feinberg, musicians Derek Taylor and Petula Clark, and members of the Canadian Radha Krishna Temple in the chorus, recorded
Give Peace a Chance. The single is credited to "The Plastic Ono Band." Five weeks later, on July 7, the 45 was released in the United States.
Give Peace a Chance reached no. 14 on Billboard's chart -- and inspired an entire generation to chant a song of peace along with John and Yoko.
Today couples can relive John & Yoko's Bed-In for Peace at Montreal's Queen Elizabeth Hotel.
Lined in beige moire wallpaper and covered with wine-colored carpeting, the full three-room suite includes two bedrooms (one with twin beds, another with a comfortable king), three black-marble bathrooms, a dining room with a polished wooden table and eight upholstered wine-and-gold chairs, a living room with green jacquard couch that folds into a sofa, and several gold-rimmed mirrors. Large windows overlook Montreal's Marie the Queen of the World basilica, its statues and dome turned a glorious verdigris.
The package, good
Friday and
Saturday nights,
includes accommodations in the
John Lennon suite, a souvenir photo of the 1969 event, breakfast for two, a bottle of sparkling wine, and a welcome gift.
Commemorating the bed-in, framed pictures of the event by Ted Church hand in the suite's foyer. In the living room there's a color photo of John and Yoko surrounded by eight gold 45s of their Apple-label recording and the song lyrics.
Many of the hotel's bellmen have been with the
Queen E for decades, and will share their memories of the groupies and the sweet smell of marijuana that pervaded the hallway that week more than thirty years ago.
And yes, they'll tell you, still every year on December 8, the day John Lennon was murdered, two dozen roses, half red and half white, are left by the door of the suite.
No one has ever been able to determine who sent them — or seen how they get there.
www.fairmont.com/queenelizabethhoneymoons.about.com/cs/canadiangetaways/a/johnyoko.htm
