While their relationship lasted only 18 months, the romance between John Lennon and May Pang remains one of the most storied chapters of The Beatles leader’s life and produced many classic anecdotes.
Filled with notorious hell-raising by the Liverpudlian legend, ample creativity alongside some of the day’s other most significant musicians, and what comes across as genuine happiness from Lennon, Pang, and his young estranged son Julian, this chapter known as ‘The Lost Weekend’, is an enlightening period for fans. Not only does it give more insight into the inherent complexities of the greatest songwriter of all time but also that of those around him.
Demonstrating just how significant Pang’s role in Lennon’s life was during their romance in 1974 when she rented a Santa Monica beach house for herself, Lennon, and his creative collaborators, Harry Nilsson, Ringo Starr and Keith Moon to live in, she also encouraged him to reach out to his family and friends. As a result, Julian Lennon saw his father for the first time in nearly four years, and John mended fences and played with Paul McCartney for the first and only time since The Beatles split in 1970.
Years later, when looking back on that time, Lennon would appear to lament what he had lost. As quoted in his longtime friend Larry Kane’s biography Lennon Revealed, he said: “You know Larry, I may have been the happiest I’ve ever been… I loved this woman (Pang), I made some beautiful music, and I got so fucked up with booze and shit and whatever.”
Understandably, as Lennon and Pang had such a consequential time together, she remembers the period fondly. This includes her holding a favourite song by her late ex-lover. When speaking to Uncut in 2015, Pang named her favourite track by the former Beatles leader as ‘#9 Dream’ from 1974’s Walls and Bridges.
She said: “John had just produced Harry Nilsson’s Pussy Cats album, and he’d created a beautiful string arrangement for the opening track, ‘Many Rivers To Cross’. John liked it so much he wanted to use it himself. He literally dreamed the rest of the song, including the words ‘Ah, bowakawa pousse pousse.’ Like so many of his lyrics, people searched for the hidden meaning, but there was none. [In the dream], two women were calling his name, which he figured were me and Yoko. It was his idea to have me sing it. He had to turn the studio lights down because I was shy doing those sultry ‘Johns’.”
Pang also claimed that when Lennon’s wife, Yoko Ono – from whom he was separated when they were together – created a video for the song in 2005, she included footage lip-syncing to her vocals, which is why some fans might be “confused” at who sang it. Pang said that whenever he was inspired, John wrote his songs on his Martin acoustic, which was a regular occurrence.
She explained: “He’d play me his songs and tell me what he envisioned them to be. In the case of ‘#9 Dream,’ he wrote the orchestral arrangements and produced the track in such a way to lull the listener into his dream.”
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Listen to ‘#9 Dream’ below.
