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| David Peel performs with his band. Those flags remind me of a certain pair of jeans John wore. |
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| Peel with John and Yoko (did this man ever close his mouth when he got a photo taken?) |
John and I Wrote Songs About Each Other
By David Peel
The Toronto Star
December 14, 1980
I don't get stoned much anymore, so I remember it all very clearly. In the fall of 1971, John Lennon was on St Mark's Place, the main drag in the East Village. I couldn't believe how easy it was to meet him. I invited him to meet me in Washington Square Park to see how I did my scene. I didn't think he'd come, and lo and behold, he showed up. There was a big crowd, and I started singing "Pope Smokes Dope", and he got turned on to that.
I was an underground street musician then. I still am. I'm still living in the same place I lived 13 years ago, after I got fired from my job on Wall Street for letting my hair grow long, on the Lower East Side, on Fifth Street. When I met John, he was living at 5 Bank Street in the West Village. He was far safer there than uptown. In the village, people are people. When he moved uptown to the Dakota, it turned into an exhibition.
John and Yoko were into American radical politics. Later in 1971, we played together at St Mark's place. Of course, the police couldn't stand the pleasure of what was going on, so they stopped it. That's when John wrote the song about me, "New York City". I consider that the highest honor. At the same time, I was writing a song about him; I wrote 'The Ballad of New York City, John and Yoko.' They were just blown away. They loved it so much. They asked me to be on Apple Records. Of course, I said yes.
In December, we went to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to help John Sinclair get out of prison by getting public support for him. Sinclair was in prison for the same reason they wanted to throw John and Yoko out of the country: two joints of marijuana. We played at the University of Michigan's Chrysler Arena as the Plastic Ono Band at about four in the morning. Three days later, Sinclair was out of prison. He had been sentenced to 10 years.
We went on the David Frost Show in January. We had 14 people on the stage. I played skiffle board and Yoko played drums... and man, the energy. I have never, never included the time when he was with the Beatles seen John so happy.
My Pope Smokes Dope album was banned in every country except America and Canada. Later, Yoko and I sang "America" together. It came out on my John Lennon for President album that was released last month.
John wasn't afraid of anyone when we played Ann Arbor; we had 40 bikers around him to make sure no one would touch him. Without the Hell's Angels, there would be no Mick Jagger right now. When that person pulled a gun at Altamont and the Angels stomped him, they stopped the murder of Mick Jagger, and I thank them for that. If the bikers were still with John, this would never have happened.
John Lennon didn't really change me. I'm still the same person, but his friendship was like adding another color to the rainbow. It was a very beautiful thing, and I'll never forget it.
