Found this gem — The New Yorker, January 1, 1972. Hendrik Hertzberg visits John and Yoko in their West Village studio, right when they were settling into New York. Right when they'd found me in Washington Square Park. Right when we were making "The Pope Smokes Dope."

And look what opens the whole article:

John Lennon Yoko Ono New York City are your people. John Lennon Yoko Ono New York City is your friend. —David Peel and the Lower East Side

That's my song. "The Ballad of New York City." The New Yorker used MY lyrics to introduce their piece about John and Yoko's arrival in Manhattan. Primary source. Written while it was happening.

THE SCENE

The reporter finds them in their West Village studio — "high-ceilinged, with serrated skylights, trees outside the windows, and a cast-iron circular stairway." John's on a big bed in jeans and a blue tank top. Yoko in green beside him.

Here's what they said about New York:

John: "We love it, and it's the center of our world."

Yoko: "It's the first international city, race-wise, if you think about it. It has more Jews than Tel Aviv."

John: "And more Irish than Dublin."

They talked about the creative atmosphere on "this little island of Manhattan." John said Britain was "the fifty-ninth state" and America was "the mother country of the whole culture."

JERRY RUBIN CONNECTION

Get this — Jerry Rubin took them to see a building where Yoko used to be the superintendent ten years earlier. She got fired because she was having a concert at Carnegie Recital Hall, forgot to turn on the incinerator, all the garbage backed up, she burned it two days late, smoke everywhere, Fire Department came. FIRED.

That's the New York I know. Artist cum waitress cum superintendent. That's how we all survived.

"THREE TATAMI"

Yoko explained her philosophy: one tatami is the space of a person lying down. Three tatami is all you need — one for yourself, one for your companion, one to breathe in.

John was ready to shed everything: "All structures and buildings and everything I own will be dissolved and got rid of. I'll cash in my chips."

"Imagine no possessions" wasn't just a lyric. He meant it.

LIVERPOOL AND NEW YORK

John connected his hometown to ours:

"Liverpool is the port where the Irish got on the boat to come over here, and the same for the Jews and the blacks. The slaves were brought to Liverpool and then shipped out to America. On the river front in Liverpool you can still see the rings in the side where they were chained up. We got the records—the blues and the rock—right off the boats, and that's why we were advanced musically. In Liverpool, when you stood on the edge of the water you knew the next place was America."

That's why we understood each other. Same energy, different accents.

THE CLOSING LINE

John walked the reporter to the door, stepped out on the stoop, and said:

"Everywhere's somewhere, and everywhere's the same, really, and wherever you are is where it's at. But it's more so in New York. It does have sugar on it, and I've got a sweet tooth."

This was three weeks after we played the John Sinclair Freedom Rally together. Two weeks before we did the David Frost Show. Right in the middle of everything.

And The New Yorker opened the whole story with my words.

The song survived. ✊

See also: The Apple — the day Lennon walked into Washington Square Park. The Pope Smokes Dope — the album they made together. The David Frost Show — two weeks after this article. I Was There — the rally, three weeks before.

Source: The New Yorker, January 1, 1972 (republished August 2022)