Picture by LAWRENCE BOGLE
Yes... that's me with John Lennon's psychedelic Rolls-Royce. I had the unexpected pleasure of checking it out on its brief visit to London a few days ago when it was part of a display of famous Rollers at Bonhams in central London.
It normally resides at a museum in Canada, but it was here to help R-R promote a new model – along with cars belonging to Fred Astaire and the Queen.
Lennon took the car to the States in 1970, and ended up donating it to a New York museum to ease a tricky tax situation. It is now reckoned to be the most valuable automobile in the world
Even today, it is still a work of outrageous art. Chums such as Paul, George and Ringo, not to mention Brian Epstein, Bob Dylan and Keith Moon, all seemed to have had a jolly time in the back of the car – which was said to have an extensive supply of drugs and alcohol.
But the exterior was perhaps the trippiest thing of all – a collision of psychedelia with gypsy caravan-style art that defies you not to smile at the irreverence of it.
I thought of it again today when I was in rehearsal with my old band, the Shark Dentists, working on the infernally difficult-to-play Lennon song 'Happiness Is A Warm Gun'. With a little more work, it – and its combination of 4/4, 3/4, 6/4 and 2/4 – should be ready for performing at a little festival in the Midlands next month.
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