Drunk Lennon Recording Sold At Los Angeles Memorabilia Auction

The London Telegraph reported Monday that a cassette containing a song recording made by a drunk John Lennon was sold over the weekend for more then $35,000.  The item was sold at a Memorabilia Auction in Los Angeles.

The cassette, which has never been publicly aired, features Lennon singing the 1957 Lloyd Price track Just Because. Lennonheard substituting the song's original words with "debauched lyrics" of his own, according to Bonhams and Butterfields, the auction house.

The recording was made in 1973 during a notoriously drunken phase of the musician's life after he had left his wife Yoko Ono. Lennon later referred to this 18 month drinking bingeperiod, in which he moved from New York to Los Angeles, as his "lost weekend".

Bonhams and Butterfields described Lennon as being "drunk" during the making of the tape and listed some of his alternate lyrics in the rendition.  The singer's warblings include: "I wanna take all them new singers, Carol and the other one with the nipples, I wanna take 'em and hold 'em tight."  In another line, Lennon chirps: "Just a little cocaine will set me right."  The recording lasts six minutes before someone is heard calling the session to an end.

The auction has facilitated the sale of a hand written letter from actress Marilyn Monroe to New York Yankee Legend Joe DiMaggio, which sold for $35,000.  Another notable item sold at the auction was Monroe's Department of Defence ID card, which commanded a whopping $55,000.