{"id":325273,"date":"2025-12-03T16:09:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T16:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/325273\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T16:09:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T16:09:07","slug":"why-john-lennon-threatened-a-partygoer-at-knifepoint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/325273\/","title":{"rendered":"Why John Lennon Threatened a Partygoer at Knifepoint"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Lennon<\/a> will always be associated with peace and love, but the rock icon also wasn\u2019t afraid to show his darker side when necessary.<\/p>\n

Producer Jack Douglas was a close friend and collaborator of Lennon\u2019s for many years and was part of the musicians inner circle. During a recent appearance on The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan<\/a>, Douglas recalled a contentious evening alongside the Beatle.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne night [Lennon] called me up,\u201d the producer remembered. \u201cAnd he said, \u2018I have to go to this party. There’s all these kind of nutcases here. I just want you to keep an eye on things because I don’t know them personally.\u2019 It was Abbie Hoffman and that whole crew.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Revisiting John Lennon’s Five-Year Battle With the FBI<\/a><\/p>\n

Hoffman was a political and social activist and one of the leaders of the Flower Power movement. Lennon came into his orbit in the early \u201870s, a connection which led the Beatle to be investigated by the FBI.<\/p>\n

John Lennon ‘Grabbed a Knife’<\/p>\n

At the party in question, Douglas recalled Lennon getting irritated by some activists who were pushing radical extremism.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were talking in this apartment. [Saying things like] \u2018Off the pig\u2019 and they were talking about violence,\u201d Douglas explained, adding that Lennon \u201cwas getting drunker and drunker\u201d during the conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe made quite a scene at that party,\u201d the producer continued. \u201cHe grabbed a knife in the kitchen and he went at this woman who had been yelling to off the pigs. And he was like, \u2018You want violence? I’ll show you violence!\u2019 He scared the shit out of her. And then we left.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Lennon obviously bristled with some of Hoffman\u2019s associates, he remained linked to the activist for several years. Notably, Hoffman\u2019s politically-charged rhetoric influenced Some Time in New York City<\/a> by the Plastic Ono Band.<\/p>\n

The Best Song From Every John Lennon Album<\/p>\n

One of the 20th century’s most significant artists had a solo catalog that can be as maddening as it is enlightening.<\/p>\n

Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Lennon will always be associated with peace and love, but the rock icon also wasn\u2019t afraid to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-325273","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}