Did You Know That a Car Accident Kept John Lennon From Early Sessions for ‘Abbey Road’ in 1969?

The Beatles decided to make the Abbey Road album in 1969 as a way of removing the bad taste of the Let It Be sessions. As it turned out, however, only three of the group would participate in the group’s initial sessions.

John Lennon arrived nine days into the proceedings. He was late due to a car accident that injured him and Yoko Ono.

An Unhappy Journey

In June 1969, Beatles business was at a lull. Having just completed his bed-in for peace in Toronto, John Lennon felt that he needed some time away from the spotlight. He decided he’d take a little holiday with Ono. And he chose to make it a kind of family trip.

In addition to Yoko and her daughter Kyoko, Lennon decided to try and reconnect with his six-year-old son Julian. With Lennon driving, they made stops in Wales and in Liverpool. The latter location gave him a chance to introduce Yoko to his family. That event allegedly didn’t go so well.

The last stop was Scotland to see more family. There, the icy reception Ono had received for the bulk of the trip only intensified. Lennon knew he wasn’t going to make it back for the tentative July 1 date that Paul McCartney set for the new album’s sessions. But he decided it was time to high-tail it back to London on that date anyway. After all, this trip wasn’t going as he’d hoped.

The Accident

Lennon was planning to take his little entourage in Scotland on their way back home. Unfortunately, the road he was traveling on in his Austin Maxi was only wide enough for a single car to pass. When he saw another car coming towards him, he panicked.

Instead of slowing and trying to pull off to the shoulder, he jerked the wheel. The car landed in a ditch. While the two children in the car were uninjured, Lennon and Ono both suffered cuts on their faces that required stitching.

When Paul McCartney received a call from Beatles publicist Derek Taylor that day, he learned that Lennon and Ono were holed up at Lawson Memorial Hospital, a relatively small facility in Golspie. The couple stayed there for the next five days. The extended length of the stay was caused by the fact that Ono was pregnant at the time, meaning that doctors wanted to make sure that she and the baby were fine before any release.

Another Bed-In

The pair left the Scottish hospital on July 6, Lennon praising the treatment they’d received from the staff during their stay. Three days later, Lennon and Ono rejoined The Beatles for the Abbey Road sessions. Those sessions had been ongoing, with the other three members of the group doing what they could in Lennon’s absence.

But it was anything but a smooth transition back to the working environment. The other three Beatles, already a bit fed up with Lennon’s insistence that Ono be included in the band’s activities, watched in shock when a bed was delivered to the studio.

That bed was meant for Ono, who could recuperate in style without being separated from Lennon. On top of that, a microphone was installed above the bed so that her comments would be heard by all. Such was the odd conclusion to the story of John Lennon’s untimely car accident.

(Photo by Chris Walter/WireImage)

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