On This Day in 1974, John Lennon Released a Song That Continued an Uncanny Occurrence in His Life

John Lennon was born on the ninth day of October, lived in the 9th house on Newcastle in Wavertree, Liverpool (all nine-letter words), rode the No. 72 bus as a Liverpool Art College student, and became famous alongside a man whose last name, McCartney, contained nine letters. The band that would propel Lennon to international stardom, The Beatles, performed their first set on the ninth day of February, they met their manager nine months later on the ninth of November, and the band made their iconic Ed Sullivan Show debut on the ninth of February.

Notice a pattern? Lennon certainly did. In a 1971 interview with Rolling Stone, Lennon called the number nine his “lucky number and everything,” and it’s easy to see why. From his earliest days in Liverpool to his fast ascent to fame, the number nine seemed to follow Lennon everywhere he went. Even his death created another uncanny connection to the number. Although he technically died on December 8, 1980, in Manhattan, it was already December 9, 1980, in his native Liverpool. (All the numbers in 1980 add up to a multiple of nine, by the way.)

On December 16, 1974, Lennon released one of multiple songs that referenced his connection to the number nine: “#9 Dream”. The song appeared on his fourth solo album, Walls and Bridges, and peaked—naturally—at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. Interestingly, Lennon seemed to pull this Top 10 hit out of thin air.

John Lennon Released “#9 Dream” on December 16, 1974

Depending on who was asked, the true origins of “#9 Dream” varied in degrees of romance. When speaking with David Sheff in 1980, Lennon called the track “a bit of a throwaway” that “was based on some dream I had.” He echoed similar sentiments in a BBC interview that same year (via SongFacts), calling the song “craftsmanship writing, meaning, you know, I just churned that out. I’m not putting it down. It’s just what it is. But I just sat down and wrote it, you know, with no real inspiration, based on a dream I had.”

For personal assistant and one-time girlfriend of Lennon, May Pang, the song’s origins were far more whimsical. “That was one of John’s favorite songs because it literally came to him in a dream,” she once said, per BeatlesBible. “He woke up and wrote down those words along with the melody. He had no idea what it meant. But he thought it sounded beautiful. John arranged the strings in such a way that the song really does sound like a dream. It was the last song written for the album and went through a couple of title changes: ‘So Long Ago’ and ‘Walls & Bridges’.”

The dreamy words in question sounded an awful lot like a crass slang term for the female anatomy, which led Capitol Records’ Al Coury to tell Lennon the song would never get radio airplay because of it. According to studio engineer Roy Cicala, his wife, Lori Burton, saved the day by modifying the lyrics to “Ah! Böwakawa poussé, poussé.” (Count the syllables.) The slight change made the nonsense syllables sound more French than suggestive, which likely saved the song from being lost in a sea of unheard deep cuts and Billboard rejects.

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