“Don’t get too serious, we’re not getting paid,” John tells his friends. It turns into a spirited jam session with Paul and Linda, Stevie Wonder, and May Pang on tambourine, among other session musicians.

It’s been more than four years since the former bandmates have played together, and while a bootleg recording of the session—eventually released under the title A Toot and a Snore in ’74—reveals a set heavy on the blues and sloppily executed, “they made joyous music together that night,” May remembers.

They certainly make history. And everyone there is acutely aware of it. Even though others were also playing, John notes, “they were just watching me and Paul.”

Chapter 49

Chapter 49

Light of the love that I found…

—“Fool in the Rain”

The affair was something that was not hurtful to me,” Yoko insists. From the start, she says, “I was prepared to lose him, but it was better he came back. I didn’t think I would lose him.”

But now she feels it’s gone on long enough. Although it’s been more than six months since John left for LA, Yoko’s been in constant communication with him. And with May Pang. And with several other friends, such as radio DJ Elliot Mintz and photographer Bob Gruen.

May finds the calls from Yoko increasingly controlling.

“First they were directives to keep our relationship quiet, which was fine with me,” recalls May. But John was too openly affectionate with her for that to last long. Once that news got out, Yoko’s “crisis mode kicked in. She would call with instructions of what to say, that she had thrown John out. She’d call every day to remind us what to say. One drama after another,” May says in exasperation.

Yoko’s explanation for calling John so often was much simpler: “We missed each other. We were calling each other every day. Some days he would call me three or four times,” Yoko tells reporters.

And while by all accounts John isn’t nearly as unhappy or out of control as some people make him out to be, he has never expressed anything other than a desire to reconcile with Yoko. “The sense with him all the time was ‘What do I have to do to get out of here and back to her?’” says Mintz.

Now that she’s convinced John’s “lost weekend” must come to an end, Yoko needs advice. In addition to the psychics and numerologists she’s always consulted, she begins making recurring appointments with her tarot card reader, John Green. Green, who joins Yoko’s staff in 1974, is able to provide multiple readings a day on any subject of her choice.

She also reaches out to John’s friends to ask for help.

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