Angry Lennon Letter Sells at Auction

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed)
May 25th 2006 at 2:04PM

An angry letter written by John Lennon sold for more than $22,000 at a Bonham's auction yesterday. The note was dashed off on a piece of American Airlines notepaper, clearly in a hurry. It was written to a journalist who accused him and the Beatles of ripping off "black" songs, but John defended the band by saying that they "drank, ate and slept the music" and "it wasn't a rip off. It was a love in." The band started off covering hit songs in dance halls, like "Money" and "Twist n' Shout," before their own songs were "good enough." Included with the letter was a photocopy of the article that prompted it and a copy of the replying letter from the same journalist.

Though some other Lennon pieces have done very well at auction this year, a black felt hat worn by Lennon in the last official Beatles photo shoot failed to sell, despite projections that it could fetch as much as $37,000.

[Image Bonhams]

Tags: auction, beatles, bonhams, john lennon, lennon, letter