Clipped into the file is the lackluster review of the performance in the Detroit News. “Yoko can’t even remain on key,” notes one complaint lodged against John’s tribute to Sinclair, which the article dubbed “an interesting piece, but lacking Lennon’s usual standards.”

“Source advised this song [‘John Sinclair’] was composed by Lennon especially for this event,” the FBI report notes, a detail corroborated by the Detroit News—“They were so new that Lennon had to read the lyrics from a music stand as he sang.”

“I wrote a ditty about John Sinclair and his plight,” John told event organizers. “I’d like to come there and perform it.”

“I heard the song while I was in prison,” says Sinclair. “I made them bring me in a tape because I didn’t believe Lennon had written it and that he was coming to Ann Arbor to sing it. It was a beautiful thing to do,” he marvels.

Despite its less than enthusiastic reception, and although the unpolished songs won’t be released by Apple until the following June (September in the UK), on John and Yoko’s 1972 political double album, Some Time in New York City, the raw performance spurs the desired effect.

Within a week, the Michigan Supreme Court rules the state’s marijuana laws unconstitutional, and the poet-activist becomes a free man.

“It was the culmination of two and a half years of agitating and organizing to get me out,” Sinclair says of his release. “I just lucked into Lennon hearing about it and wanting to help. That meant a lot to me.”

The idea that John has the kind of star power to influence cases like Sinclair’s, however, is exactly what the Nixon administration fears most. They wanted him stifled.

Gone.

Out.

—

December 7, 1980

Mark is lying on his hotel bed, staring up at the ceiling, when someone knocks on his door.

The young blonde standing in the hallway is wearing a green dress that hugs her generous curves. She swallows nervously, and when she says hello, he catches a European accent. German, he thinks.

Good. He specifically told the madam who ran the escort service listed in the Manhattan Yellow Pages that he wanted a woman who came from another country—and she had to be quiet. He didn’t want someone who talked.

Mark invites her inside. Her eyes flit across the room, looking for signs of trouble.

“I’m not kinky. I’m clean,” he tells her. “I’m not a weirdo.”

He explains that he hasn’t asked her here for sex.

“I just want to be in the company of a woman tonight,” he says. “I’m expecting that tomorrow will be a very difficult day for me. Now take off your clothes and get in bed.”

She obeys. Mark disrobes and joins her.

The woman is clearly nervous. He gives her a massage. It takes a considerable amount of time to get her to relax. To trust him.