Even if the rest of the world was none the wiser in early fall of 1969, The Beatles were well aware that their band was on the outs—a disintegration that would come that much more swiftly and divisively, thanks to a controversial John Lennon single he released in October of that year.
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The subject matter of Lennon’s single was certainly sensitive. But it was nothing that The Beatles hadn’t covered already in songs like “Happiness is a Warm Gun”. Interestingly, Lennon’s actions following the release of his Plastic Ono Band track drummed up more drama than anything else.
Lennon’s response? “They’re so stupid about drugs.”
John Lennon Begins Recording Controversial Single in September
Whispers of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s worsening h***** addiction had already made their way into The Beatles discography by the late 1960s. “Happiness Is a Warm Gun” and “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey” from the band’s 1968 eponymous “White Album” both touched on Lennon’s substance abuse. But “Cold Turkey” did more than touch—it prodded, pushed, and screamed the entire experience out onto vinyl. It’s a brash, intense, from-the-bones kind of song and, unsurprisingly, not one The Beatles saw fit for the group.
In the midst of working on Abbey Road, Lennon wrote “Cold Turkey” and presented it to the rest of The Beatles. As Paul DuNoyer described in John Lennon: The Stories Behind Every Song 1970-1980, the song was “so harrowing and so personal that it could only be a Lennon solo project.” And so it was. Lennon released “Cold Turkey” in October 1969 under the Plastic Ono Band. The track was Lennon’s second solo single after “Give Peace a Chance”, which he released in July.
Even for The Beatles, a transparent association with h***** was a bit too intense. American radio stations began banning the track, a decision Lennon would later call “stupid” during one of his final interviews with David Sheff in 1980. “They were thinking I was promoting h*****,” Lennon said. “They’re so stupid about drugs. They’re not looking at the cause of the drug problem. Why is everybody taking drugs? To escape from what? I’m not preaching about ‘em. I’m just saying a drug is a drug. Why we take them is important, not who’s selling it to whom on the corner.”
Notably, Lennon blamed The Beatles’ worsening relationships with him and his second wife as a driving impetus for the couple’s addiction.
How “Cold Turkey” Began Weaning the Public off the Beatles
Not even the massive success of Abbey Road and Let It Be could stop the runaway train that was The Beatles’ impending split. Every musician seemed to be getting increasingly restless. Tensions were at an all-time high. The Beatles had effectively introduced the concept of a band to the mainstream musical world, and now, the band was breaking up. The public’s perception of the group was rapidly changing with each new development, tabloid tiff, and album that came out of the late 1960s. Controversial songs like John Lennon’s single, “Cold Turkey”, also contributed to the deconstruction of The Beatles’ image.
“Cold Turkey” never quite took off as a chart-topping hit, something Lennon blamed on American radio stations that wrongly banned the track. But it marks a pivotal moment in Lennon (and The Beatles’) career. The excesses of the late 1960s were beginning to wear the musicians down. Lennon was no longer interested in writing and releasing music based on its commercial viability. In another divisive move, Lennon rejected his MBE (Member of the British Empire) status, a royal honor all four Beatles received in 1965, signaling that the soon-to-be ex-Beatle had no interest in keeping up public niceties with the Crown, either.
“Your Majesty,” Lennon wrote in a letter to the Queen. “I am returning this MBE in protest against Britain’s involvement in this Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam, and against ‘Cold Turkey’ slipping down the charts. With love, John Lennon of Bag.”
Photo by WATFORD/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images
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