‘The Lost Weekend: A Love Story’ is the story of John Lennon and May Pang’s affair from 1973 to 1975. 23 year old May was John and Yoko’s personal assistant in 1973. When John and Yoko were having problems Yoko suggested May should start going out with John but she did not expect what was about to happen. It became a full-blown love affair.
John referred to his time with May as “the lost weekend”. The movie tells the story from May’s perspective with Julian Lennon also contributing to the background.
John Lennon fans who think they have heard all the stories will hear plenty of new ones in this movie. May Pang was at John and Yoko’s home Tittenhurst Park the day John walked into the room, sat at the piano and played ‘Imagine’ for the first time.
May met John a few years earlier when she was working for Allen Klein’s ABKCO Records. Klein was handling the business affairs of John, George and Ringo.
‘The Lost Weekend: A Love Story’ does not paint Yoko in a nice light. May describes Yoko as manipulative and controlling. She talks about how Yoko would screen all of John’s calls and block a young Julian from talking to his father. Yoko set their affair up and broke it off later at a time of her choosing. However, May says that while Yoko set it up, it was then John who pursued her. “John charmed the pants off me,” May said.
John wrote songs about May. ‘Surprise Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradox) of Walls and Bridges is about her.
“Just like a willow tree
A breath of spring you see
And oh boy you don’t know what she do to me
She makes me sweat and forget who I am
I need, need, need, need her”
John’s ‘Whatever Gets You Thru The Night’ title came from watching a late night TV evangelist Reverend Ike who used the term in his show. John was captivated by his command of the audience. Elton John played piano on the track. Elton told John that if it ever got to number one he would perform with him on stage. It did and they did. On 28 November 1974 John Lennon performed in front of an audience for the last time ever with Elton at Madison Square Garden.
John Lennon recorded again with Elton John at Calibou Ranch in California where they put down their new version of Lennon’s Beatle classic ‘Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds’. It was Lennon who suggested the reggae break in the song.
John had a dark side. During the lost weekend he befriended his drinking buddies Harry Nilsson, Micky Dolenz, Alice Cooper and Keith Moon. They called their drinking group The Hollywood Vampires. (Today it is the name of Alice’s band with Johnny Depp and Joe Perry). John would sometimes turn violent with his drinking. May admits that he physically abused her at one stage. John said “I am a violent man who learned how not to be violent”. It was too much for May. She left him, returned to New York but was ordered back to Los Angeles to be with John again by the manipulative Yoko.
There is so much to learn in this movie. It talks about how a paranoid Nixon had John tracked, stalked and wanted him deported. There is a wonderful story about John, May and Julian going to Paramount Studios to watch a taping of ‘Happy Days’ and pictures of John with the cast.
There is the story of the recording of the ‘Pussycats’ album John produced for Nilsson and how they hired a house where John F Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe met. May tells how they slept with each other in the same bed JFK and Marilyn Monroe slept together in.
May confirms the sessions John and Paul McCartney attempted in Los Angeles together in 1974 happened but were not very good. Stevie Wonder played on the session. May and Linda McCartney sang on it. Nothing ever happened with it and it remains unreleased to this day.
There is so much information in just 93 minutes in ‘The Lost Weekend: A Love Story’.
The movie will premiere in North American theaters on April 13 and 14 and the rest of the world in June. Streaming details are unknown at this stage.
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