The way May Pang recalls things, “John and I were listening to playback. I was facing the door which suddenly opened and I mouthed to John, “it’s Paul and Linda.” John turned as if he had spoken to him that morning and said, “Hey Paul.” Paul asked, “Is the session over?” “Yeah but we’re about to jam. Want to join?’ And in that moment, five years of animosity and anger simply disappeared…Stevie Wonder came in from the studio next door. Linda joined in on organ. Mal Evans, the original roadie for the Beatles, and me, we grabbed the tambourines and the fun began.” (Narration excerpted from the 2022 film The Lost Weekend: A Love Story, some punctuation added.)
John began 1973 fighting U.S. immigration to stay in the U.S. while undergoing constant surveillance by the FBI, due to his political activism and promotion for peace. Under the pressure cooker of the times, John and Yoko Ono began to experience marital difficulties. He began recording Mind Games in June 1973; by August 1973 he and Yoko would be separated. It was Yoko who prompted May Pang, their personal assistant, to become John’s companion and lover for what turned into that time in L.A. known as the Lost Weekend.
John told journalist Larry Kane, “You know Larry, I may have been the happiest I’ve ever been…I loved this woman (Pang), I made some beautiful music and I got so fucked up with booze and shit and whatever.” May encouraged John to reach out to family and friends and arranged for his son Julian to visit him for the first time in two years. These would be the closest times Julian would share with his father, until Yoko drew him back.
It’d be unfair to say John was just screwing around for those 18 months. True, he was smashed and doped up, but at the same time he produced the Pussy Cats album for Harry Nilsson as well as two albums of his own (Walls and Bridges, recorded in June to August, 1974, and eventually, Rock ‘n’ Roll) that recaptured the magic of songwriting he lost while on his Peace mission in the early 70’s.
John began recording sessions for his next album, Rock ‘n’ Roll, before producer Phil Spector disappeared with the master tapes. To top everything off, on March 31, 1974, Spector got involved in a car accident that left him in a coma. By his own estimation John waited eight months for Spector to come back with the master tapes. In that time he hung out with Keith Moon, Ringo Starr and Harry Nilsson, which involved getting drunk a lot of the time. With nothing else to do, John decided, let’s do an album with Harry.
Paul and Linda McCartney dropped in on the first night that John was producing Pussy Cats with Harry at Burbank Studios on March 28, 1974. Paul sat behind Ringo’s drum kit (Ringo wasn’t present, though he has commented, “(he) always messes up my drums!”), and Linda behind the organ. They were joined by Nilsson, Stevie Wonder on electric piano, (he’d played with John at a few of his concerts, including the benefit concert in Madison Square Garden in 1972); guitarist Jesse Ed Davis, and saxophonist Bobby Keys both of whom had been contributing to Pussy Cats, and producer Ed Freeman on bass. Mal Evans was credited with ‘Tea’ and May Pang with ‘Sympathy’ (they actually played tambourine).
It was probably intended to be an impromptu jam session. What emerged was an incoherent mess with fragments of songs and the poorest recording of a jam session in Beatles history. Do you recall John’s first three albums like Two Virgins and The Wedding Album, those experimental avante-garde records he spun off with Yoko Ono in 1969? This was worse. Which was too bad, since this would be the last recording session with John Lennon and Paul McCartney playing together since the breakup of the Beatles in 1970, unfortunately. Even so, you know, it was all for fun.
This jam was first mentioned in 1975 in an interview with John, with more details following in May Pang’s 1983 book, Loving John. In a interview with ‘Whistling Bob’ Harris on the BBC2 music program The Old Grey Whistle Test, from March 11, 1975, John said, “I’ve worked with Ringo, I’ve worked with Ringo and George. I haven’t worked with Paul because we’ve had a more difficult time but now we’re really close, you know…I jammed with Paul. I did actually play with Paul. Yeah. We did a lot of stuff in L.A., but there were fifty other people playing too. They’re all just watching me and Paul.”
[The Last photos of John & Paul together, March 29, 1974, by May Pang]
Paul’s recollection of this jam went like this: “We were stoned. I don’t think there was anyone in that room who wasn’t stoned. For some ungodly reason, I decided to get on drums. It was just a party, you know. To use the word ‘disorganized’ is completely understating it. I might have made a feeble attempt to restore order—‘guys, you know, let’s think of a song, that would be a good idea’—but I can’t remember if I did or not.”
In a 1997 interview with Australian writer Sean Senett, Paul said, “(the) session was hazy…for a number of reasons.” Bobby Keys had been questioned a number of times about this session, but couldn’t recall any of it.
Track listing:
1-A Toot and a Snort (26 seconds)
2-Bluesy Jam Session (2:31)
3-Studio Talk (2;38)
4-Lucille (by Little Richard, 5:57)
5-Nightmares (2:37)
6 through 8-Stand By Me
9-Medley: Cupid/ Chain Gang (Sam Cooke)/ Take This Hammer (traditional railroad song)
On the first track, all of 26 seconds, John calls, “You wanna snort, Steve? A toot? It’s goin’ around.” That’s how it begins. ‘Snort’ refers to cocaine, the ubiquitous drug at the time, which is where we get the name of this bootleg.
Paul laid a scattershot, random drumbeat, or tries to; no wonder Ringo was pissed off with what he does to his kit. John improvised some words while the others tried to follow along: “I just gotta say it, Brooklyn Bridge, San Francisco Boot, Elementary Canal, Boston Strangler…it’s so wonderful to be waiting for my Green Card with thee…I would never doubt it, but I have to shout it, ‘Chicago, Chicago’, it’s a hell of a town, solo, play it man!” We’ve seen John spout these kind of nonsense lyrics before, in songs like “Come Together” and “I Am the Walrus”, or anything from his books like In His Own Write.
John asked if anyone knew a song they all knew: “It’s gotta be something done around Fifties, or no later than ’63, or we ain’t gonna know it.” Stevie laid down a bluesy refrain for “Lucille” and the others pick up on it, with John screaming the words accompanied by Paul.
“Lucille” may have been the most coherent song of the night. The band began with three instrumental choruses on sax, organ, guitar and bass in a middle-tempo blues style, before John came screaming in with Paul on harmony. This is the only tune where one can hear those old harmonies like on their old records. John turns in a couple of ragged guitar solos. Paul and John sing a middle eight a capella section, followed by another chorus.
“Nightmare” was probably supposed to be the 1961 Shadows instrumental “Midnight”, and it might have been, if this had been a professional session. As it was John ad-libbed some lines, adding “Someone give me an E and a snort.”
John had repeated troubles with his microphone and headphones on ‘Stand By Me’. While the band is trying to find its footing, John says, “OK, OK, let’s not get too serious, we’re not getting paid…we ain’t doing nothing but sitting here together…” Despite a strong start, the second try breaks down after the first verse; worse, John is still having trouble with his mic. “If you’re trying to get rid of me guitar, tell me…It’s gone all sort of dead in the earphones, you know? Dead! Dead!…”
“Hand up, who doesn’t know ‘Stand By Me’?…Just turn up the f—-n’ vocal mic on! McCartney’s doing his harmony on the drums! Stevie might get on it there if he’s got a mic!” They get a decent harmony going between John and Paul on the third go-round, until partway through the song, John’s vocal mic fails and we’re left with Paul’s voice, joined by Harry’s hoarse voice on the last refrain.
Stevie tried to salvage the moment, singing a couple of verses of “Cupid” by Sam Cooke with Paul; leading into “Working For the Chain Gang” (titled simply “Chain Gang” on the label), with Harry joining on vocals, at which point his mic started going bad, too. Paul leads a short version of the traditional song “Take This Hammer” as the tape fades out. That’s where this half-hour recording ended.
Bootleg Zone: John Lennon & Paul McCartney- A Toot and a Snort in 74
A Toot and a Snore in ’74 (2023) Supersession, but what a bore/ Aril 23, 2023 by Graham Reid/ Elsewhere
Availability: For obvious reasons, there has never been an official release of this session, despite its historic importance as the last time John and Paul played music together. That hasn’t stopped the bootleggers; a CD was issued, unofficially, by Mistral Music, from Luxembourg, in 1992.
Papablues Scrapbook 