The Ballad Of John And Yoko - Remastered 2015

This isn't really a ballad - it's uptempo. John Lennon wrote the song about his marriage to Yoko and their run-ins with various international authorities. They married on March 20, 1969 in Gibraltar and honeymooned in Amsterdam. John and Yoko's decision to get married came very suddenly on March 14, 1969, just two days after Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman. On March 14, John and Yoko were being driven to Poole in Dorset to visit John's Aunt Mimi. John asked his chauffeur Les Anthony to go to Southampton and ask about the possibility of getting married at sea. After learning that this was not possible, Lennon decided to go to Paris, and called his office instructing his staff to arrange a quiet wedding there. Peter Brown discovered that getting married in Paris on such short notice was impossible, but that they could marry in Gibraltar, because it was a British protectorate, and Lennon was a British citizen.

The line "Christ, you know it ain't easy" caused a great deal of controversy and got the song banned by the BBC and most US radio stations.

After the wedding, John and Yoko flew to Amsterdam and invited the press to join them in their room. Some reporters thought they were being called in to witness the couple consummate their marriage (John and Yoko appeared nude on the cover of their 1968 Two Virgins album), but what they got instead was a "Bed-In," where John and Yoko protested the war from their bed - fully clothed.