Friend and local radio DJ Elliot Mintz picks them up at the airport. With John and Yoko, Mintz was accustomed to talking “not about me or them but the state of the world.” Now John surprises him by cutting straight to the state of his marriage and telling Mintz that Yoko has “kicked him out and he didn’t know when or even if they’d be getting back together.”

Meanwhile, John’s with May and finishing up a new album he recorded at the Record Plant before leaving New York. He’s self-producing it under the title Mind Games.

Over a steady stream of his signature French cigarettes—unfiltered brands such as Gauloises and Gitanes, which he feels make his voice deeper—John tells a reporter for Melody Maker that his intention is “to sit on Capitol, to do the artwork and to see to things like radio promotion.”

The sitting part was certainly accomplished. “It was a big blow when they [the Beatles] split up, of course,” says Don Zimmerman, executive director of Capitol Records. “But after that, we got to know them more on an individual level. When John was splitting up with Yoko, he spent time at the Tower [the Capitol Records Building]. He’d come in and put his feet up on the coffee table, the only problem being that you couldn’t get any work done.”

As for the music, “It’s rock at different speeds. It’s not a political album, or an introspective album,” John says of Mind Games. “Someone told me it was like Imagine with balls, which I like a lot.”

In Los Angeles, John is relaxed, reconnecting with dozens of old friends and making scores of influential new acquaintances. Although he would eventually come to characterize the following year and a half as a “lost weekend” of depression and debauchery—and there are bouts of both—there’s also a great deal of creativity, productivity, and fun.

For the first time in his adult life, John is defined neither as a Beatle nor as the husband of Yoko Ono. “He reached artistic heights and healed a lot of his personal relationships,” recalls May. “Most important,” she adds, in contrast to the way media reports present it, “he wasn’t miserable for 18 months.” Journalist Larry Kane concurs, revealing that in 1975, John tells him his months with May were among the “happiest times of my life.”

John finishes three solo albums and produces two others for friends. “It wasn’t by any means a lost weekend,” says Elliot Mintz. “Just a very long one.”