“We would sell our production, which we call ‘peace.’ And to sell a product you need a gimmick, and the gimmick we thought was ‘bed.’ And we thought ‘bed’ because bed was the easiest way of doing it, because we’re lazy.”

Wilson dashes to the hotel, where he joins two dozen or so reporters and photographers on the way up to room 902, John and Yoko’s honeymoon suite. They’re in bed, wearing pajamas.

“Why not Saigon or Dallas if peace is the cause?” Wilson asks.

“Because I’m dead scared of Saigon or Dallas,” John replies. “There’s less chance of getting shot or crucified here.”

On March 21, while John and Yoko are on their honeymoon, Allen Klein is appointed Apple’s business manager. He begins firing Apple staff in anticipation of his new three-year arrangement, which allows him to collect 20 percent of Apple revenues (though none on existing Beatles contracts).

On the final day of John and Yoko’s bed-in, March 31, George and Pattie stand trial. Rumors are swirling that Pilcher and his Drug Squad planted a stash in their home—“I’m a tidy sort of bloke. I don’t like chaos. I kept records in the record rack, tea in the tea caddy, and pot in the pot box,” George insists of the hash the police say they found on his floor—but the Harrisons plead guilty, are fined £250, and are sentenced to a one-year probation.

*  *  *

John and Paul meet at Paul’s house on Cavendish Avenue. As songwriting partners, they take a walk in the garden.

On April 14, the two newly married men start recording “The Ballad of John and Yoko” at Abbey Road studios. Though neither Ringo nor George is available that day, to the two original Beatles, it seems like the best of old times.

Over seven hours, John takes the lead on guitar and vocals while Paul handles the bass, the drums, and even the maracas.

“Go a bit slower, Ringo,” John jokes.

“Okay, George,” Paul replies with a cheeky smile.

Engineer Geoff Emerick is watching from the control room. “It was a great session, one of those magic times when everything went right and nothing went wrong.”

The May 1969 single becomes the Beatles seventeenth number-one UK hit—and their last to top the charts in that country.

Chapter 39

Chapter 39

A time to be born, a time to die…

—“Turn! Turn! Turn!”

This is my story both humble and true,” John writes in a poem he’s calling “Alphabet.” One line reads, “T is for Tommy who won the war.”

There is a poetry stand in People’s Park, a community garden created by students protesting for peace on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. To clear the crowd, on May 15, 1969, police had turned guns loaded with bird shot and buckshot on the students, killing one and seriously wounding many more.