Murder defendant Charles Manson gives a jailhouse interview that appears in the June 1970 issue of Rolling Stone. “This music is bringing on the revolution, the unorganized overthrow of the establishment,” Manson says. “The Beatles know [what’s happening] in the sense that the subconscious knows.” At his trial, Manson says “Helter Skelter” is about confusion. “It’s not my conspiracy. It is not my music.…Why blame it on me? I didn’t write the music.”

John also protests that he didn’t write the song. Although he’s on the witness list, he refuses to appear at the trial, asking, “What’s ‘Helter Skelter’ got to do with knifing somebody?” then offering, “I’ve never listened to the words properly, it was just a noise.”

Chapter 42

Chapter 42

That’ll be the day when I die.

—“That’ll Be the Day”

At Tittenhurst Park, John and his son, Julian, row across the lake and explore the grounds on weekends. They drink Dr Pepper while they play on a Mellotron. Julian would later fondly remember this time: “When Dad moved to Tittenhurst, it was the first time he’d called me in quite a long time,” he reflected. “It was an exciting thing for me to go and see him again after not seeing him for such a while. Tittenhurst was this enormous, palacelike place with 99 acres, golf-cart buggies, a lake, a little island. It was like a house of fun.”

At seven years old, Julian possesses a curious mind.

“If you die, will I ever see you again?” Julian asks.

“If I can communicate from the dead, I will float a white feather straight across the room to you.”

Julian smiles at his father’s answer.

At Capitol Records in Los Angeles, executives couldn’t be grimmer. In 1970, the year of the Beatles’ breakup, they record a loss of $8 million (nearly $54 million today).

Still, John reveals in the second part of his first published interview with Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner, “America is where it’s at. I should have been born in New York, I should have been born in the Village, that’s where I belong.”

*  *  *

In early 1971, John is in bed at Tittenhurst, reading Grapefruit, Yoko’s book of poetry from tiny Wunternaum Press, in Bellport, New York. She’d underscored her chosen American identity by selecting July 4, 1964, as her publication date.

John lands on a poem titled “Tunafish Sandwich Piece.”

“Imagine one thousand suns in the / sky at the same time,” Yoko writes.

The concept is simple, artful.

He reads another of Yoko’s poems. This one is called “Cloud Piece.”

“Imagine the clouds dripping,” she writes.

John walks downstairs and over to the in-house Ascot Sound Studios. The word imagine is swirling in his head.

He sits at the Steinway piano, spray-painted white and inscribed “For Yoko, Happy Birthday, love John.” He’d bought his wife the exquisite instrument when she turned thirty-eight, on February 19.