Original subtitles

I think we're on this one for now.

Yeah, if you can plug him in, just for now.

Cos we can maybe use the same amps.

One, two, a-one, two, three, four.

It was Ascot, England.

Early summer.

And we just kinda said, "OK, why not, you know?

OK, let's do it."

And we invited some friends and we had breakfast

and then we just go right into the studio.

So, it was really like home cooking

and that's how Imagine was made.

But we didn't know it was gonna be that big.

OK.

- Hello, hello? - These cans are not working.

Oh.

Hello? Mine are working.

Maybe we should just go and do 'Imagine', then?

What's this one, a ballad?

Yeah, come on, I'll teach it you.

Sure.

- That's a nice one. - Yeah.

- Sure. - That's the one I like best.

I wish there's another piano,

because you could get the same kind of piano

and do an octave higher, it would be beautiful, you know?

- We can always use this. - Instead of electric.

- We could do it on one. - It's a delicate song.

We can do it on the top half of the piano, maybe.

If we get a mic through to the front room?

- Yeah, that's it. - Yeah.

Well, I'll go on the white one, cos that's what I wanted to do.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

Playing over you already.

See, I think it would be better if we just played...

...either a piano underneath.

You know, it should be just a piano song.

When we play back through here, we get some of the drums.

What?

There should be a higher sound on the piano.

- The piano's very... - My piano?

No, not your piano. Nicky should...

Yeah, I think we should try Nicky playing an octave above me

or the same, maybe, you know?

We haven't had one with just piano.

Sounds great that way, you know.

Nicky, we can try you an octave higher on the piano

- playing the same as me. - Yeah, OK.

I might be a bit daft, cos I sometimes go do-do-do.

And you know, he shouldn't do the same as you,

he should do, when you go dah-dah-dah,

he should go dah-dah-dah. You know, like... complementary.

What about the drums?

Cos it sounds daft now. It really sounds daft.

I don't like that stopping. The bass sounds too trebly.

I actually thought it was best when there was no drums at all.

Bass, too. Bass may be too much.

Let's hear it again. We'll just eliminate...

Sounds really nice on the cans

when I was just listening to the piano.

If you're gonna use the drums,

the ticky-tack on the hi-hat, would have to be in,

because the jerkiness of that little... at the end.

Let's hear the bass. Can you go and play bass,

cos it sounds like Bert Kaempfert again.

So, we'll try it with just the piano,

or me and Nick on the piano and then they come in on F,

until the middle eight.

It really...

- That's better. - That's better. You've got it.

Yoko, why don't you go in there and listen,

- instead of being here. - Yes, OK.

Oh, I see.

...playing on this piano that Nicky is playing.

Yeah.

And then you try to play something in an octave...

Yeah, OK. Well, look, I'll just do it and track it myself,

but not in octaves, the same key, you know?

- Same register. - Yeah, right, right.

- The problem was in that room. - OK, let's go, then.

...spread out like hell.

I wish they'd told us before.

And the world will be as one!

Oh, so we'll have to do

this some other day, ladies and gentlemen.

You see? Because they've only taken an hour, you see,

to tell us that the noise is spread in this room, you see?

- Do you remember? - I think so.

- You were wrong. - Yes. Oh, maybe not.

Women first.

Come on.

- It's not the final version. - Oh, yeah?

Ahhh.

No, but you see... and then in the back, there'll be a profile.

- Yes, imagine. - 'Imagine'.

Yeah.

And the back is gonna be eyes with the sunset in.

Two sunsets in it.

- Yeah. And inside... - Inside, there'll be like

four or five Johns standing.

Figures getting bigger from childhood up to full size.

Very, very good.

I've just seen the words for 'Imagine',

which is very, very good.

Oh, good. I'm glad you like it.

You should see all the other lyrics.

Well, there's only three I've written this year

all the rest were things that I'd written before.

I've just polished them up.

There's a nice one called 'Crippled Inside'.

I'll play it you later.

Yeah, but this has a nice little twist to it.

Yeah.

Very corny, country and western, it goes like...

You can go to church and sing a hymn

You can judge me by the colour of my skin

You can live a lie until you die

One thing you can't hide Is when you're crippled inside

And a little heart there and that'll be it.

I don't know why I love you but I do

I don't like other people

doing personal things like this for John, you see?

So I still do this.

She's a lovely mother to me. A lovely mother.

I don't know what I'd do without her sewing up me fly, you know?

Which way, John? Look.

- This way? - No.

I think that it would come like that, wouldn't it?

No, like... Like that. It's like that.

All right, all right.

That's it.

That's "in the middle of the night" verse.

We don't want that. We want the one about clouds.

You can take your time,

but let's give them the right one, OK?

Because otherwise they gonna probably make a mistake.

- OK? - All right.

Hey, you're giving us

"in the middle of the night" instead of cloud.

That's not the one. Remember...

We're both doing harmony again to it.

Let me explain, OK?

What's the matter with you, Philip,

it's the last fucking verse?

..."In the middle of a cloud, I call your name."

"Oh, Yoko." He stopped here once, remember?

And that's the one you're playing now.

We don't want that one.

We want the one that he recorded afterwards,

all new and free, that was from

"in the middle of a cloud", up to the end.

Yeah, OK.

Look, the end of the song is just like the fucking rest of it!

We're gonna sing the harmonies to "Oh, Yoko". Come on!

Is this the one we want?

Why don't you just forget about this, darling?

Relax, you know, until we say OK.

- What's the matter with it? - What are you doing?

- Aren't you hearing your voice? - No.

Otherwise we'd be singing, wouldn't we?

Sorry, I sang the fucking melody.

You have to sing Oh, Yo...

Don't be afraid. Just sing into the mic.

Yeah, that's it.

Phil? Do you wanna make sure about your sound

and then just sing very loud, OK?

Why don't you...

John, why don't you just sing it for him once?

That's good.

- Great, isn't it? - Yes. It does show something.

Actually, what I wanted was this to be around here, you see?

That's what I was trying to do.

Yoko!

Yoko!

John!

Yoko!

John!

- John! - Yoko!

- John! - Yoko!

Yoko!

Yoko!

Yoko!

Look at this, John!

John!

Right.

Do you think that in new attitudes

towards love and relationships...

...would it be fair to say we're getting away

from the property concept of relationships?

Of owning the other person?

I think, yeah, we could be.

But, that's all very well intellectually,

but when you actually are in love with somebody,

you tend to be jealous and want to own them,

possess them 100%, which I do,

but intellectually, before that,

I thought, "Right, well, I mean, owning a person is rubbish."

I love Yoko. I wanna possess her completely.

I don't wanna stifle her, you know?

That's the danger, is that you wanna possess them to death.

- Great. - Thank you.

Ha, you lying git.

It's great working with you, Phil.

Really great.

I've worked with a lot of cats in my time.

Honestly. Really great. Sincerely.

Really great, working with you.

- OK. - Next tune.

It'd be very hard to sing again with that, wouldn't it?

Yeah. You didn't sing any of the same words, though.

I sang almost the real words.

That's why I print 'em on the lyrics sheet.

If they really wanna know, they can read 'em.

With Paul's album, there's no lyrics printed.

You can't hear anything he says.

Who wants to know all that?

I mean, you know, for example.

What's the German, "mach Liebe, nicht Krieg"?

"Liebe mach."

"Mach Liebe, nicht Krieg."

OK.

"Mach Liebe, nicht Krieg."

Make love, not war.

And what was the French one?

"Faites l'amour, pas la guerre."

Now, is this just your French or...?

I'll check it, OK?

Check it, would you?

- But it sounds good. - It is!

But I don't wanna be, like, coming on the air

and saying, "Not love, do war".

No, "faites I'amour" is make love...

"Mach Liebe..."

"Mach Liebe und 'Stoller'!"

"Nicht fahren." Oh, no. "Nicht" what?

- Krieg. - K-R-I-E-G.

Or something else to market.

- No, no, no. - Yeah?

"Mach Liebe, nicht Krieg."

It's not every day

I get the opportunity to do a press conference.

Yes. We brought you here to say nothing!

Shall we listen to the tape, or shall we just get on?

Let's do it.

Let's go do another one. OK, let's go.

George, are you coming? Come on, gang.

Come on.

A typical life in the day of John Lennon.

Yeah, right.

Wars, I think the most...

The thing we should really be talking about is the violence,

you know, that goes on in this society, not in Vietnam.

But just right in England or in Northern Ireland,

which is part of Britain.

That's a far more important subject to talk about

than how... where's your hemline

and did you sleep with somebody when you were 15 or 16?

I think that humans always tend to talk about rubbish,

because they don't really wanna face the reality.

Come on, I'm doing Eddie Cochran. It doesn't last long.

"Cut across, Shorty. Shorty, cut across."

Here we go.

OK.

Come on, you cunts!

What did you stop for?

It doesn't play. Where's Eddie?

Eddie Veale!

He's on the floor here.

- Get him up. - He's pissed again.

Or we'll have Veale-fucking-stroganoff.

Is it veal Stroganoff?

I always whisper to them.

It's very nice.

John, don't sing it the Eddie Cochran way yet,

- just come in. Just sing. - OK, OK.

Now, this is the truth.

All right?

Come on!

Come on!

It won't sound the same as...

Because the other night I was playing on a slide.

- That one is Friday, isn't it? - Yeah.

I don't... The tin one probably sounds too..

- Too aggressive. Yeah. - Maybe too, like, jangly.

Yeah.

So, what do you think we should do, then,

artistic representative?

Just the four of you.

- Who's that? - Where's Alan and...

Shall we have drums, then?

They can try 'em live.

Yeah. Just something different on them.

- It's getting a bit the same. - It's all the same.

It sounds, to me, like one of the ones where

he would have had those guitarists playing the rhythm,

if you only, like...

- But just another piano. - Yeah, well, maybe one'd do.

- I'll be playing piano. - No, there's two now.

...the organ thing we were trying to do last night.

It is good.

Well, I don't know who made the golden rule

that sex and love have to go together.

Because I've enjoyed love without sex

and sex without love.

And, they quite often come together...

But just... Ha-ha! Very good!

But quite often, they don't.

So, what is love, then?

I really think that love is something to do with relaxation.

When you're guarded with somebody, you know,

then you're not relaxed.

And when you're guarded with somebody,

you can't love that person, you know?

Love is when you understand it so well...

that you relax finally, you know?

And we have that kind of relaxation between us a lot.

Oh, fucking hell. What's that, Nick?

Oh, don't start changing fucking reels in the middle of a take.

- Here we go. - Hey.

One, two, three, four.

I think we shouldn't ring off.

Ring off when George does his...

- Let him start the bass. - Yeah.

So we'll ring off then and we'll go...

- Ring off? Stop? - Ring off.

Do you ever see much of The Beatles, these days?

The Beatles? No.

I did see Beatlegs, though, recently.

It's doing quite well in Sweden, I believe.

Number five. Number five. Yeah, I heard that, too.

Yoko, is that a fresh pot of tea?

- Yes. - It's fairly fresh.

This is actually a Beatle wife fixing the tea

for one of the 'Fab Four', ex-Beatles.

- Fab three. - Fab three.

And I have my wife here.

Beatlegs are doing very well in Sweden.

- He's my wife. - I'm Beatle wife number three.

I see Beatle Phil making a pig of himself.

He likes his... whatever it's called.

I see you like chemical stuff, George?

- Sugar isn't chemical. - What is it, then?

It's pure sugar from the mouth of Mr Tetley himself.

He used to live at the back of Liverpool.

- Chemical product in the world. - What's that?

- Tea. You like some milk? - Yeah.

- Just like the old days. - Yes...

Yeah.

That's it.

Oh, no. I only did one of them.

Yeah. That's the nasty one.

You can rise, gentlemen.

Here, Philip.

- Hello, Phil. - Hello, John.

Welcome to Hollywood.

- Is that how it works, then? - Yeah.

Then like that.

Yeah, well. OK.

That's vaguely how it is.

Yeah, let's get on the electric piano and...

- He's bringing another one in. - Which one, the Fender?

Well, I'd like electric piano's sound,

really like The Thrill Is Gone or something sound.

It changes later.

And now down to the...

Yeah, when it gets to the D bit,

let's try and change the rhythm slightly.

I always sort of envisioned something kind of a bit reggae,

I don't know what it is, you know?

But something that...

You know, something a bit more jumpy there.

I don't know whether it's just a feeling or an actual change.

- John? - Yes.

Does that include straight piano?

What?

Does that include the straight piano?

Should both pianos do it too?

- Keep it going. - OK. Everybody do it, then.

You see, in Japanese there's no...

That's it.

- But that's too long, you see. - No, no.

I know, but you see, in Japanese,

I know that you've heard it before. It's wrong in Japanese

because it's bound to happen. So instead...

Everybody in the world's heard that before.

The thing is, you can't say it in one line,

so why can't you say...

Well, I'll try it.

OK. From the top.

Yeah, all of you hit the G on the way down to F.

One, two, a-one, two, three, four.

OK, stop, stop.

This guitar is just crippling beyond belief. I can't play it.

Too free?

- All that... - All what?

Is Mal around, or somebody...

Didn't they get the idea of what you were saying?

...who could shift this thing, if it's not needed?

I can see you're the band.

...that feeling.

Which feeling? Tell me exactly.

Just that tightness and, you know, just funky.

- It's not funky. - So what's going on, tell me?

- They're improvising. - OK. Stop improvising.

Yeah.

And just keep it solid.

- No, I want it really tight. - Tight.

You've just gotta think it's nasty, you know?

It's a nasty song and...

I don't want it to swing too much. Just...

OK, OK.

Do you think we should listen and see what we're doing?

I wouldn't mind hearing it.

- What? - I wouldn't mind hearing it.

Yeah, OK. What? OK.

Don't confuse the songs with your own life.

I mean, they might have relevance to your own life.

But a lot of things do.

So we met, you know,

I'm just a guy, man, who writes songs.

You can only say hello, and what else is there?

Yeah.

Yeah, I figured that if we met, I'd know, you know,

just by meeting you.

But know what?

You know, if what I was thinking was... true.

Well, what were you... Is it true?

- Well, I guess not. - Right, I'm just a guy, man.

Yeah.

But then... But then it all fits, you know?

Anything fits, you know.

If you're tripping off on some trip, anything fits, you know?

Yeah, like... Like when you sang,

"Boy, you're gonna carry that weight for a long time",

- did... That was just... - That's Paul sang that.

- Paul sang it? - That belongs to all of us.

He's singing about all of us.

We've all gotta carry it till we die, haven't we?

But you really... you weren't thinking of anyone in particular

- when you were singing that? - How could I be?

How could I be thinking of you, man?

I don't care me, but it's all somebody.

I'm thinking about me.

Or at best Yoko, if it's a love song.

But that's it. I'm basically singing about me.

I'm saying, you know, I had a good shit today

and this is what I thought this morning and... you know?

And I love you, Yoko, whatever.

I'm singing about me and my life.

If it's relevant to other people's lives, that's all right.

Are you hungry?

- Hmmm? - Yeah.

Let's give him something to eat.

Yeah, I'm losing a little rhythm here, man.

Come in, John, because you may have the opening,

we can just use the first bridge,

and then the last "How can we".

Oh, I see.

On the original, you make two million "How can we"...

Yeah, but I never finish the tail ends of...

So they should tail over the break, you see?

Right through the...

Well, I ain't gonna fight you! I ain't gonna fight...

Well, listen to it, you'll see what we mean.

Oh, I'll see what you mean all right.

If there's two of you, I'll lose.

That's what I mean.

This is a delicate moment of choice, ladies and gentlemen.

Deciding whether to use the old voice or the new voice.

Two, three, four.

I like this one best.

I think we'll take it all.

It's great. Looks like an old one, too.

Yes, it's all right.

A little bit Japanese, and it's just the right size.

We'll have this, Dan, but on the island. Isn't it beautiful?

Yeah, that's perfect.

Isn't it nice?

Just on the island.

- Really lovely. - Great.

- He can't... - I can't.

OK. We want it sort of underneath this tree here.

I guess about here, Yoko, don't you think?

- Yeah, right. - Facing down there.

A bit nearer the edge, possibly, please.

About here?

With the wall... next to the tree there, please.

John, look. That should be the back of the house.

So it should be almost here.

- Yeah, right. - Yeah.

Is there any way

of getting windows put on the back of it later?

- I don't see why not. - OK.

Well, we'll put it up and we'll change it later, then.

OK.

Then we can see out both ways.

- Hi! - Who's that?

That's Julian.

Julian!

How long will it take to put it up?

Can you hear me?

Can you hear me?

Just relax and think of clouds and things like that.

It comes on the face a bit.