When I opened May Pang's new book, “Instamatic Karma: Photographs of John Lennon,” the first thing that struck me about it was the dedication, which reads, “This book is dedicated to everyone who loved John.”
As an avid Beatles fan and someone who has had a strong affinity for John Lennon for the better part of my life, my initial thought was, "Wow…thank you, May, for dedicating a book to me."
But then common sense took over and I figured that since the dedication (and the book) was coming from someone who knew John on such an intimate level, surely, it couldn't have been meant for me. It had to be for people who'd actually known John. People who were his friends, people with whom he'd worked or at the very least, met.
I'd never met John Lennon. I was only seven- years-old when he was killed and though my memory of the events surrounding his death is still powerfully vivid, at the time, I vaguely knew who he was. My love for him and for the Beatles wouldn't come until a few years later. To think May's dedication could have been for me-the nameless fan on the street-seemed presumptuous.
So, during a recent phone interview with May in which she openly and graciously chatted with me about her new book, I asked her to explain (for my own personal clarification) exactly to whom her dedication was targeted.
“This book is for everyone who loved John,” May said. “It's for every stranger, every person. This book is for you guys.”
'You guys' meaning people like me, the eternally-dedicated Beatles fan. I was ecstatic. I got a lump in my throat because even though I didn't know John personally, I have loved him since I was 10. His life and his lyrics speak to me in a way that has given me license, at least in my own heart if nowhere else, to have a personal affection towards him that makes me feel I knew him even though he never laid eyes on me. You don't have to know someone personally in order to love them and in my heart, the fact that John didn't know me has been irrelevant. But to hear that clarification come from someone who did know John was reassuring, almost as if John were saying it himself.
“John knew he was loved,” May said. “He knew he affected people. He may not have known how deep or to what extent but he knew.”
As with her 1983 memoir, “Loving John,” May's latest book, released last month by St. Martin's Press, paints a portrait of John that I feel many other books about him have failed to provide. While most Beatles books seem intent on sanctifying and preserving the world's image of John Lennon as a larger-than-life cultural icon, May Pang has always given me the impression she was more intent on upholding the memory of John the man, someone who, in the midst of his tremendous talent, was still human and despite his fame, could have been a guy I would have felt very comfortable talking to over a cup of coffee. That is the John Lennon that after years of reading all the sensationalism surrounding him, I've always wanted to know more about.
“Instamatic Karma” offers fans that side of John.
The photos, taken by May during John's separation from Yoko Ono, contradict some of what fans have read about him and that period of his life, which has come to be known in Beatles lore as the “Lost Weekend” because of John's highly publicized drunken exploits with rock star pals like Keith Moon and Harry Nilsson.
“When I pulled these photos out, I wanted the world to see that there was a different scenario,” May said. “I want to erase that myth that John was a down and drunken man. That wasn't the real John. This book is John through my eyes. It's the John that nobody saw.”
Contrary to popular belief, the “Lost Weekend” was not a literal weekend but a period of about 18 months (from 1973-1975) in which May Pang, who was a personal assistant to John and Yoko, shared an intimate relationship with John.
“I was his girlfriend, his companion, his lover, his friend,” May said of her bond with John that continued though he and Yoko reconciled in 1975. “Even after we split we were still in touch with each other through friends, notes and cards.”
In her book of photographs, May counters John's wild, playboy image (behavior which she said John was not proud of) with pictures that reveal a relaxed and happier John who, at least while he was with her, seemed to have made peace with himself and his Beatle past.
