Article Sheds Light On Lennon’s Bermuda Visit
Acting as a precursor for an upcoming Radio 4 show in Britain, an article published by the Telegraph has shed new and interesting light on John Lennon’s famous foray to Bermuda, including details as to what lead him here and the effect that the island had upon his music.
Journalist John McCarthey wrote the article, drawing on the experience of locals present during Lennon’s visit for previously unknown and surprisingly intimate details of the famous musician’s time in Bermuda, from his extraordinary trip to the musical awakening he underwent while on the island.
The article says, “Lennon stayed for two months and started working intently on new material, including, Starting Over, Watching the Wheels and Woman, with which he would return to the recording studios and plan to take on the road with a band. He didn’t get the chance to perform again: he was shot dead outside his apartment block in New York on December 8 that year. But he did release an album, Double Fantasy with Yoko Ono, the month before his murder. Other songs recorded with his wife went to make up the posthumous album Milk and Honey.”
“What Lennon wanted to do was work, to concentrate on making music again. And on making landfall in Bermuda he decided that this was the place to settle for a while and get writing songs. Donna Bennett, an estate agent, helped him find a new home. She didn’t recognise him at first. Calling himself John Greene, he explained that he wanted to stay for a while and bring his family down from their home in New York. He was charming, diffident but above all very friendly, with no airs or graces. As she drove him around the island, he eagerly took in the new surroundings.”
“Like most people I’ve been touched, am still moved, by his music and wondered what it was like to be John Lennon, the Beatle. Now, appreciating how strange his life must have been and how the voyage here clearly affected him very deeply as he entered a new phase of creativity, I imagined him sitting on the dock at Undercliff, strumming his guitar and playing with Sean, swimming and sailing in a borrowed dinghy. I felt a curious closeness to this man who had been watching the wheels going around for a long time but was now back “playing the game”, happily on his own terms.
Lennon returned to New York at the end of July 1980 and four months later would be dead. But as he left Bermuda he was looking towards a bright horizon, at peace with himself and the world and buzzing with artistic energy.”
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