That said, Lennon had his experimental side too, as did his wife and musical partner, Yoko Ono. But the former Beatle wasn’t just inspired by Zappa’s music \u2014 he also liked Zappa’s attitude when it came to leadership of his band, the Mothers of Invention.<\/p>\n
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As the former Fab revealed in his 1970 interview with Rolling Stone<\/a>, he was unhappy dealing with artistic differences in the Beatles and, especially, with how he believed he was portrayed in the media alongside Paul McCartney and George Harrison.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sick of reading things that say Paul is the musician and George<\/a> is the philosopher. I wonder where I fit in, what was my contribution?\u201d he mused.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d sooner be Zappa and say, \u2018Listen, you fuckers, this is what I did, and I don\u2019t care whether you like my attitude saying it. That\u2019s what I am, you know, I\u2019m a fucking artist, and I\u2019m not a fucking PR agent or the product of some other person\u2019s imagination.<\/p>\n “Whether you\u2019re the public or whatever, I\u2019m standing by my work,” he added, “whereas before I would not stand by it.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Lennon and Ono perform in 1971. (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n It didn’t take long for Lennon to meet his new hero. It happened on June 6, 1971, in an unusual introduction that Zappa recalled on The Frank Zappa Interview Picture Disk,<\/a> released in 1984.<\/p>\n \u201cA journalist in New York City woke me up, knocked on the door, and is standing there with a tape recorder and goes, \u2018Frank, I\u2019d like to introduce you to John Lennon,\u2019 waiting for me to gasp and fall on the floor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Well, Okay. Come on in.\u2019 And we sat around and talked, and I think the first thing he said to me was, \u2018You\u2019re not as ugly as I thought you would be.\u2019 I thought he had a pretty good sense of humor, so I invited him to come down and jam with us at the Fillmore East.\u201d<\/p>\n What to read next<\/p>\n Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were engaged in a two-night stand at the famed New York CIty venue for June 5 and 6. The shows were being recorded and would be released that August as Fillmore East \u2014 June 1971.<\/p>\n Lennon and Ono came out for the encore that second night and played for half an hour with the group. The couple were well-suited to Zappa\u2019s idiosyncratic musical approach, and the show was a success.<\/p>\n \n Lennon and Ono appear The Dick Cavett Show, September 24, 1971. (Image credit: Ann Limongello\/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)<\/p>\n Although Zappa didn’t include the Lennon and Ono songs on the initial release of Fillmore East \u2013 June 1971, the recordings appeared roughly one year later on the couple’s 1972 double-album set, Some Time in New York City.<\/p>\n A sprawling album containing songs inspired by the couple’s growing activism for peace and justice, Some Time in New York City was a divisive effort among Lennon’s fans. The politically themed content on the first disc was at times blunt and unvarnished, while the second disc showed the couple’s more avant-garde side via recordings from a 1969 UNICEF charity concert in London (featuring George Harrison) and the Fillmore East concert.<\/p>\n But the fans’ disappointment was nothing compared to what Zappa must have felt when he discovered Lennon and Ono had remixed one of the Fillmore East tracks and claimed it as their own.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a song that I wrote called \u2018King Kong\u2019 which we played that night,” Zappa explained. “And I don\u2019t know whether it was Yoko\u2019s idea or John\u2019s idea, but they changed the name of the song to \u2018Jamrag.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201c[They] gave themselves writing and publishing credit on it, stuck it on an album, and never paid me. It was obviously not a jam session song: It\u2019s got a melody, it\u2019s got a bass<\/a> line; it\u2019s obviously an organized song. [It was a] little bit disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n In remixing the track, Lennon and Ono removed the vocals sung by Mothers members \u2014 and former Turtles \u2014 Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan. Only Ono’s wailing vocals were retained.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter they had sat in with us, an arrangement was made that we would both have access to the tapes,\u201d Zappa explained. \u201cHe wanted to release it with his mix, and I had the right to release it with my mix, so that\u2019s how that one section came out.\u201d<\/p>\n Because Zappa was legally prevented from releasing his version of the Lennon-Ono jam until 1992, his mix of the recording didn’t come out until it was featured on Playground Psychotics, one of the last releases before his death the following year. The set was also included on the 2022 expanded edition of Fillmore East \u2013 June 1971.<\/p>\n The first thing he said to me was, \u2018You\u2019re not as ugly as I thought you would be.\u2019 I thought he had a pretty good sense of humor.\u201d <\/p>\n \u2014 Frank Zappa <\/p>\n![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/RQVNQKdg8VZ9DqAPQqAqMc.jpg\")
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