John Lennon wrote a legendary “nasty letter” to his childhood friend and songwriting partner Paul McCartney during the final stages of The Beatles. This was preserved in the original.
The document has now been auctioned off, more than 50 years after the aggro ink dried up. After a 17-day bidding war, an unnamed bidder was awarded the contract. For a whole bunch of change.
Dylan Kosinski of pop memorabilia auction house Gottahaverockandroll tells US gossip platform TMZ that the cable sold for around $70,000 last Saturday (Aug. 20). The winning bid was $56,000, plus the buyer’s premium of $14,000 – a fee they charge for participating in the auction.
“Get Back” in the review:
John Lennon fired his paper poison dart a few days after a critical interview about him and the Beatles appeared in the then influential “Melody Maker” in November 1971. John couldn’t let that sit on him. He shot back correspondingly hard at the time. But there were also thoughtful passages.
But the frustration with Paul prevails. Lennon wrote that Paul was grossly ungrateful for all the money he would make from The Beatles.
Later in the three-pager, John laments that Paul rejected his song “Imagine”. He continues to berate Paul for his quest for dominance. According to Lennon, he wanted to “bag us at any cost”.
Initially, the hot letter was estimated at 30, maximum 40,000 dollars. According to unconfirmed insider reports, there were a total of eleven letter bidders, with a total of 14 digital bids in two and a half weeks.
Incidentally, this episode did not appear in Peter Jackson’s Disney+ documentary “Get Back”. John and Paul’s relationship is portrayed as friendly.
Brought back into the limelight by the auction, the letter shows just how frayed the Lennon/McCartney relationship was in the 1970s.