A Day in the Life Blog

In UK The Ballad Of John And Yoko by The Beatles was in the top 5 hits.

With their Montreal Bed-In completed, John Lennon and Yoko Ono leave the Queen Elizabeth Hotel and fly to Ottawa to attend a university conference on peace. Later that evening they take a flight back to London.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono clashed with satirical cartoonist Al Capp in Montreal hours before the recording of Give Peace A Chance at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Canada.

John and Al Capp had an argument that later appeared in the documentary film Imagine. Capp introduced himself with the words "I'm a dreadful Neanderthal fascist. How do you do?", and later sarcastically congratulated Lennon and Ono on their Two Virgins album cover.

Then John Lennon and Yoko Ono recorded Give Peace A Chance in room 1742 of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel.

The recording session, which had been arranged at the last minute, was attended by dozens of journalists and celebrities, including Allen Ginsberg, Abbie Hoffman, Tommy Smothers, Timothy Leary, Petula Clark, Dick Gregory, Murray the K, Derek Taylor, Rabbi Abraham Feinberg and members of the Radha Krishna Temple. Many of them were mentioned in the lyrics, either directly or allusively.

The song was recorded by Montreal studio owner André Perry with four microphones and a four-track tape recorder. Lennon played acoustic guitar and was joined by Tommy Smothers of the Smothers Brothers, also on acoustic guitar. A wardrobe door provided percussive sounds.

EMI requested that Perry come to the hotel for the recording. He hired a four-track Ampex machine from RCA Victor, and arrived at around 5pm.

Four microphones were used: one for Lennon and his guitar, another for Tommy Smothers, and two for the rest of the room.

Give Peace A Chance was briefly rehearsed, then the recording was quickly done. It took place at around 10pm, and afterwards Perry remained behind to record the song's eventual b-side, Yoko Ono's Remember Love.

-The Beatles' single, Get Back, is #1 in the US charts for the 2nd week.

The Ballad Of John And Yoko, The Beatles' second UK single of 1969, was released on this day. The b-side was George Harrison's Old Brown Shoe.

The Ballad Of John And Yoko was recorded by John Lennon and Paul McCartney at Abbey Road's studio three on April 14, 1969, without the other two Beatles present. It was released six weeks after it was recorded, while Get Back was still at number one in the UK charts. The Ballad Of John And Yoko was released as Apple R 5786, and was The Beatles' first single in Britain and Europe to be released in stereo.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Montreal Bed-In For Peace continues. Unable to enter America in person, John Lennon bombards the nation with phone interviews. The Bed-In coincides with an anti-war demonstration in what has become known as “Peoples’ Park” in Berkeley, California. Unable to travel to the event, Lennon phones through his support to radio station KPFA in Berkeley, advocating a policy of passive resistance (which was Ghandi’s method of protest).

Today's session involved the creation of a stereo mix for the song Let It Be, and the compilation of the master tape for Glyn Johns' unreleased Get Back album.

Johns had worked for a number of days on the album, without much involvement from The Beatles, and this day saw the completion of his work.

In UK Get Back by Beatles With Billy Preston was in the top 5 hits.

Beatles star John Lennon and his newlywed wife, Yoko Ono, spent a famous week in bed at Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel to promote peace, love and pyjama power.

The couple welcomed scores of friends, fans, fellow musicians, reporters, photographers and others into suite 1742 during their seven-day retreat, which took place two months after their honeymoon bed-in at the Amsterdam Hilton.

The highlight of their bed-in was the composition and recording of Lennon’s antiwar anthem Give Peace a Chance. A piece of paper bearing the hand-written lyrics to the song, given by Lennon to star-struck Montreal teenager Gail Renard after the recording session, was sold for $800,000 at a Christie’s auction in 2008. In 2009, another Lennon placard that had adorned the hotel room — this one with the hand-written message “L’Amour et la Paix” (Love and Peace) — sold for $140,000 at a Christie’s sale in London.

John and Yoko Ono had flown to the Bahamas from London the day before and wanted to recreate their second bed-in for peace at the Sheraton Oceanus Hotel in Freeport.

However, after one night there, they realized that they were further from the United States than they thought, so wouldn't attract as much publicity as hoped for. Also, the sweltering heat and humidity didn't seem like a good idea for the bed-in.

John was attempting to arrange a hotel stay in Toronto, Canada. Derek Taylor, Apple Corps' press officer, then announces that he has booked a direct flight from Freeport to Toronto at 5pm. Lennon strums his acoustic guitar and sings "Good old Air Canada!"

Despite being held at Toronto airport for over two hours by immigration authorities, they were eventually allowed to enter the country. They spent the night at the King Edward Sheraton Hotel, Toronto, and the following day flew to Montreal.