“Yoko came to our house in England and asked if I would do her a favor,” Paul says in 2019. “When I went to LA, would I mention to John that she was prepared to take him back as long as he would make the effort to court her?”

When Paul conveys that message to John privately, he can see the relief on his old friend’s face.

On April 2, 1974, when the Oscar statuette for Best Song is handed out at Los Angeles’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to “The Way We Were” rather than to “Live and Let Die,” John is waiting backstage to console Paul.

Though music insiders spin visions of a renewed partnership, Paul’s role as an envoy for Yoko remains under wraps.

By late April, the Hollywood glitter is fading. John can no longer resist the powerful pull of New York.

*  *  *

John returns to New York, but not to Yoko. Instead, he and May stay at the Pierre hotel on Fifth Avenue, in a suite right above Elton John’s. He remixes Harry Nilsson’s Pussy Cats and starts work on a new album, Walls and Bridges.

John stays up late watching TV, wondering if he’ll ever have another hit record. Paul, George, and Ringo have all achieved multiple number-one hits as solo artists (including Paul’s “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” and “My Love,” George’s “My Sweet Lord” and “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth),” and Ringo’s “Photograph” and “You’re Sixteen”)—but John hasn’t had any, and the exclusion stings. “I’m out of favor at the moment,” he laments to Elton.

John flips the channels, stopping on Reverend Ike, a thirty-nine-year-old black minister who preaches out of a converted Loews movie theater uptown, on 175th Street.

“Let me tell you, guys, it doesn’t matter,” Reverend Ike is saying. “It’s whatever gets you through the night.” John takes down the minister’s words and starts writing.

On June 17, 1974—shortly after Paul slips in a third US number-one single with Wings’ “Band on the Run”—John’s at the Record Plant working on the rough mixes for his new album, Walls and Bridges. As he’s “fiddling about,” Elton John and Tony King walk in. John plays them several of the new songs, including “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night,” inspired by that line from the TV evangelist. It’s not his favorite of the songs, but Elton seems to like it.

John’s producing the record himself, and since Elton likes how he works—“fast, and he got bored easily, which was right up my street”—he pipes up.

“Say, can I put a bit of piano on that?”

“Sure, love it!” John replies. Though the two of them are good friends by now, this is the first time he’s ever actually seen Elton play the piano, and he’s blown away.