Blood on the Tracks is a production of I Heart Radio and Double Elvis. John Lennon was a musical genius and one of the most beloved cultural figures of the twentieth century. His songs inspired dreamers to imagine, his search for the truth gave power to the people. But some thought he dreamed too much. Others thought he was too powerful. So he was followed, he was threatened, he was declared a danger to the United States, and in night he was assassinated. This is his story told by his so
called friends. This is Special Agent Jim Steele with the Federal Bureau of Investigation work in case number double oh nine DAP zero eight DAPH zero four nine one. Case subject as Lennon, John Winston oh No. This information pertains to a period ending December. Interviews subject as Caulfield Holden Interview number one DASH one one, Dash five one nine Dash eight six Spirit Confessional Recall number two December. Now
say what you want about John Lennon. He may have proven himself a hypocrite when it came to how he dabbled in politics and protests. He may have said near the end of his life that he only got involved with John Sinclair and Jerry Reuben and all those other princes because he was so goddamn rich, and he felt guilty about it. Maybe he wanted to prove that he was a working class hero after all, even if he was as much of a working class hero as I
am Jesus Christ himself. And speaking of Jesus Christ, John Lennon certainly wasn't the first famous person to take the Lord's name in vain. And that's a goddamn fact. So why get sore about it? Why I get sore about a guy who changes his mind? Why I get sore about a guy who isn't the same guy he was ten years before? Do you know how many times I've changed my mind? Do you know how many things have come out of my goddamn mouth that aren't true? I mean,
I lie like a dog. Sometimes I can't even help myself. I just start lying and I can't stop. Sometimes I can't even tell what's water under the bridge and what's
blood on the tracks? Chapter ten, John Lennon and Holden Caufield. Now, if you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is whether or not Mark David Chapman walked through that door, whether he became somebody became me for Christ's six the way he believed he would, and all that Harry Houdini kind of crap. But I don't feel like going into it. If you
want to know the truth. It seems as though that kind of stuff always happens right before Christmas, that madman stuff. It's supposed to be a joyful time of year, the holidays, that's what they tell you. At least they don't tell you how lousy it can be. All the singing and the phone he smiles, and the phone he cheered, And if you're back east, back in New York City, it's goddamn cold too. And then some crumby bastard like Mark
David Chapman goes and makes the season that much worse. Look, I know all about the son of a bit, Okay, I know how he was obsessed with my story. He was obsessed with me, and he didn't just want to be like me, you know, dress like me and talk like me, and all that he wanted to become me. I mean, talk about missing the whole concept of unreliable narrator. Right, Even I know that I'm not somebody you want to be,
and I am me. Even if I was somebody that somebody else wanted to be, how would you even start? He thought he could aim a gun at a famous singer, pull the trigger, and what he would transform on the spot He would be transported into the goddamn pages of the dog eared paperback he was carrying. I got a real bang out of that one, I'll tell you. I mean, can you imagine. First of all, Old Chapman thought John
Lennon was a phony John Lennon. About John Lennon, Now, I didn't go in for all that bubblegum pop music stuff, but the Beatles had a few songs that really knocked me out. I mean, they were all more authentic than Herman's Hermits or any of the boring groups that came over from England after them. Those groups would just, I don't know, depressing, because even if the song was catching, you get around to listen to the words and you'd be so bored you could just vomit. But John Lennon,
he was a witty bastard. I am the Walrus. I mean, that song is nuts. He was also a real cut up guy in person too. You know, you'd see him on those late night talk shows, chewing the fat with those hot shot hosts, you know, like Dick Cavin and uh, what's his name, Mike Douglas. Yeah, Old Lennon was actually funny and smart. Sure he got in over his head when he tried to dabble in politics, but but he was just trying to do the right thing, you know.
And he did come clean about it when he said he only got involved because he felt lousy for having so much dough. Maybe he wanted to prove that he was a working class hero after all, even if he was as much of a working class hero as I am Jesus Christ himself. And speaking of Jesus Christ, John Lennon certainly wasn't the first famous person to take the Lord's name in vain. Okay, that's a goddamn fact, Jesus gross. So why get sore about it? Why get sore about
a guy who changes his mind? Why get sore about a guy who wasn't the same guy he was ten years before? Do you know how many times I've changed my mind? Do you know how many things have come out of my goddamn mouth that just aren't true? I mean, I lie like a dog sometimes sometimes I can't even help myself. I just start lying and lying, and I
can't stop. John Lennon may have been a lot of things, okay, A rock star, a recluse, a prophet for the people, an enemy of the state, a husband, a father, an artist, a dreamer, the Walrus, working class hero. Maybe he was a liar too, but he wasn't a phony. Mark David Chapman. Now there's a phone. There's a guy who thinks he's doing the world a favor. A guy who thinks he's God all the answers that he is the answer. A guy who thinks his disappointment in his rage is unique.
I mean, are you kidding me? For Christ's sakes, Chapman wasn't special, okay, no more special than anyone else. And he wasn't just a phony. He was a coward. He shot John Lennon in the back. You can't get more yellow than that. Now, I don't hate too many guys, and there are some guys I hate. For a little while. Sometimes I feel like I'm surrounded by jerks. I don't know. Strad Later from Pensy Pratt. That's an aggress sound Pennsylvania.
By the way, you probably heard of it. The place runs those advertisements of some guy on a horse jumping over a fence, like all we did at Pencey Prepp was played Polo. I never once saw a horse near that place anyway. Strad later that Prince and Robert Actley. I've hated both of them once in a while, okay, but then time would pass and I wouldn't see him for a while, and my anger would fade, and then I'd find myself actually missing the bastards. But I hate
this Mark David Chapman guy. I don't think anyone would ever even miss him. He's like a goddamn actor. Actors never acts like people. They go out to Hollywood and and they prostitute themselves. They really do make me puke. I'm not kidding Mark David Chapman though. He's even worse than a Hollywood actor. God, it makes me feel depressed just thinking about it. Because Mark David Chapman thought he could pull that one over on everybody, that he could
be somebody. For Christ's sakes, he thought he could be me, that he would be me. Maybe he wanted to prove so ironical. The only door he walked through was a goddamn cell door at Attica. He refused to eat, so the guards had to force feed him. And it was all phony because do you know what Mark David Chapman really us. He was a goddamn dirty moron, that's what he was. And he was evil. Do you believe in evil? If you don't or you're not sure, just look at him.
Look at the guy, Look at his eyes. Listen to his voice. Hear what he's saying, you'll hear it. Pure evil. It's not just New York City, Okay, this whole world is lousy with phonies. They're everywhere New York, Hollywood, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, even London, England. John Lennon knew that, maybe more than anyone else in the world. John Lennon hated phonies. The phony bastards gave him some award, right, this medal from
the Queen in England. People say it's aces this medal, but those are the same people who get a kick out of shoot in the bull all day. So what did John do? He sent it back, certainly wasn't the first famous person. He told the queen he didn't want a Crumby medal. He didn't like what our country was doing getting involved in other countries Nigeria, Biafra or somewhere. I don't know. I don't really pay much attention to that sort of thing, but John did. I should warn't
to be sure about it. John said that society was run by insane people for insane objectives, that countries were run by maniacs for maniacal ends. He said, if anyone could put down on paper what our government is doing, what the American government is doing, the Russians, the Chinese, what they're actually trying to do, what they think they're doing, he said, he'd be very pleased to know what they all thought they were doing. Look at this country, John's
adopted country. As soon as he came over here and started living in New York, he launched a tirade against phonies. Give me some truth, he said, Give peace a chance. He said, Look, here's peace. You can buy and sell and trade peace on the goddamn open market, just like you buy and sell and trade war. That made sense to me. I'm not really a tough guy either. I'm a pacifist if you want to know the truth. But did you know what happened when John Lennon told us
war was over? If we want. Nobody wanted to hear about it. So he went and got himself good and drunk a long while, and then occupied himself with family life just to escape all the phonies. This country couldn't be bothered to give a good God damn. Just a month before old Chapman, that coward son of a bit shot John dead on a sidewalk in this dirty city, the country went and elected this guy Reagan. That killed me, Really it did. Reagan. I mean, talk about a phony.
The guy's an actor. Literally, you all see that movie Bedtime for Bonzo that came out the same year my book did Bedtime for Bonzo more like Bedtime for Democracy. Reagan was just another one of those Hollywood prostitutes. I mean, don't even get me started. He's not a real person, and yet the majority of Americans thought that a phony Hollywood prostitute would be best to serve in the highest
office of the free world. Like I said, I could care less about politics and all that, but you didn't have to be a goddamn political scientist to see what was going on. Reagan thought Lennon's murder was street crime, a random act of violence, and he used it as proof that the country didn't have a gun problem, It had a street crime problem. The street criminal, the drug pusher, the mobster, the corrupt policeman, public official. They formed their
own criminal subculture. They contribute to and they prosper in the climate of lawlessness. They need each other, they use each other, they protect each other. I mean read between the lines. To Reagan, there were people who mattered and people who did it. People who belonged and people that did it. The United States of America was being remade for a very particular type of person. Morning in America,
my ass. Welcome to the nineteen eighties. Of course, it was some of the phoniest bullshit ever peddled by a sitting president. But what do you expect from an actor. I mean, Jesus Christ, if you think about it too much, it'll really depress you. And then Reagan went and got himself shot just a few months after John was assassinated, and the shots were fired apparently at President Reagan as he was coming out of the Washington Killdon Hotel this afternoon.
Six bullets in two seconds. This real Prince John Hinckley was the guy that did it. He was just as much of a lunatic as our guy Chapman. He just started shooting into a crowd, the President's entourage. He shot a cop, a secret Service agent, He got the Press secretary in the head. His last bullet bounced off the President's limo and caught Reagan under his arm. It went into his lung and just missed his heart. For God's sake, Hinkley thought he was going to impress Jodie Foster, another
phony actor. She'd been in this movie Taxi Driver where she plays a prostitute and some crazy vigilante kills her pimp. It thinks he saved her from a life of exploitation. And I guess that in Hinckley's mind, he thought he was gonna suddenly become a part of Jodie Foster's life by shooting the goddamn president of the United States, just like Chapman thought he was gonna become me. Jesus Christ. I mean, you can't make this ship up, Jesus Christ. Lunatics, morons,
crumby bastards. They're always ruining everything. Do you know what John Lennon really had planned what he was going to do in nine eighty one, and in two and in Night three. What he was going to do in ninete in two thousand ten, Well, first he was going to show up at the Clashes seventeen nights stand at Bonds Casino over on Broadway in the summer of eighty one. That was going to be how he got pulled back into the limelight, back into the public eye, you know,
and back into politics. I'm serious. Sure, Joe Strummer sang all about phony Beatlemania and no Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones, but he always let John off the hook. Joe looked up to John, idolized him. Even John's all right, he always said. And so it would make perfect sense at the time in one for old John to appear on stage with Joe and the class, just like he had appeared on stage withouton years before. And John would
have fun with it, you know. He would come out on stage to the opening chords of London Calling, and he even sang along with the phony Beatlemania line cheeky Bastard, because John knew that Beatlemania was phony. Rock and roll music was a lot like Hollywood, a bunch of phonies prostituting themselves. And being on stage again at that over sold club in front of thousands of New Yorkers singing
Joe's songs of defiance. He would know that he, goddamn John Lennon was potentially crossing over into phony territory himself. But Joe Strummer in the clash would throw him a lifeline. You don't know how many things have come out of my God, aren't true. Meanwhile, Breagan would be calling the Soviet Union at the evil Empire while this whole Cold War thing was heating up. But if history teaches anything it teaches the simple minded of peacement or wishful thinking
about our adversaries is folly. They were setting up strategic missiles in base for Christ's sakes, and world annihilation was around every single corner. Sure, I know what I said in that book, I'm sort of glad that they've got the atomic bomb invented. If there's another war, I'm going to sit right the hell on top of it and all that. But like I said, do you know how many times I've changed my mind? This was series. I mean even I got a little nervous. But old John Lennon,
he wouldn't have been able to take it anymore. He would have put peace back out in the marketplace again. He would have dusted off his bullhorn, his handmade signs. He would have rallied his people again, much to the dismay of that lousy Reagan, who didn't have a legal reason to eject John from the country the way that Nixon had a decade earlier. John would have been terrified of impending nuclear destruction, and he would have wanted everyone
else to be terrified into action alongside him. He'd need a groundswell of support, strengthen numbers and all that, and so to entice the American people to stand with him, to stand against fear and corruption. He would have given everyone a reason to give a good goddamn This time around, John would have bought up billboard space all across the country, from Times Square to Sunset Boulevard to Stump for the support of his fellow man. They were gonna march on Washington.
They were gonna demand change. They were gonna look Reagan in his goddamn lousy face and demand change. It would have been the biggest mass protest in the history of the United States. In Nix and John's billboards would promise a reward that no one would be able to resist. Show up raise your fist, Join the march, called for the end of Reagan's fear mongering, and John was going to deliver the first live concert from the Beatles in nearly twenty years. We'll be right back after this word
word word. Now. Evil doesn't just go away simply because no one is paying attention to it. Believe me, evil is always there. That madman stuff is never truly gone. And fact so in six while Ronald Reagan was focused on the Evil Empire and John Lennon was focused on the evils of Ronald Reagan, the evil that is that crumb bum mark, David Chapman still had his sights on John Lennon. If we're talking about what would have happened had John never died, then that means that Chapman never
would have actually followed through with shooting John. In let's say he got cold feet right popped on a plane back to Honolulu. But he still thought about it all the time. He still thought about little else than shooting John. He would close his eyes at night, the jerk and visualize walking up behind John with his charter arms pistol. Isn't the same guy Some people go to sleep counting sheep or really given it to someone, you know, Mark David Chapman would go to sleep murdering John Lennon, the
bastard for six years. He would have done that every night. He'd hear that voice in his head, the one that just said, over and over the phone, he must die. Set the catcher in the rye, the phony must die. Set the catcher in the rye. Freaking goddamn lunatic. Un He wouldn't say anything to his wife about it either, Oh no, on account if he didn't want or learning the authorities. He knew he was going to murder John Lennon, and he wasn't about to be stopped. It was only
a matter of time. John would have been all over the news again. He'd be making new music, some of the best music in his solo career. His songs would be of political and social importance again, and he'd even used The Clash as his backing band on a record he released called Revolution four about a guy who isn't the same guy he was ten years before. The record would be so goddamn popular that it knocked Thriller down a peg. And don't you dare say cut the crab
to me? Okay, this is an alternate reality from what you people in the so called real world. No, so the clash stayed together and they backed John Lennon and continue to be the only band that matters for many more years. Anyway, John's billboards were all over the place, right, He even got some billboards way down in Honolulu, Jesus Christ, and there they were just staring Chapman in his lousy face.
Soon enough, John was being interviewed most nights by the major news networks because he had very publicly hitched his wagon to that Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament.
They were a grassroots organization that was in the middle of a nine month walk from Los Angeles to Washington, d C. Now, John was by far the walk's most famous participant, even if he didn't do the entire thirty seven hundred mile walk, only the last little bit, because he still had a little bit of phony in him, right, maybe he wanted to prove that he was a working class hero. Anyway, he and Yoko were with the group for a few weeks, enough time to really raise its profile,
you know. And by the time they reached Washington, d C. The Great East March for Global Nuclear disarmament was millions strong. I'm serious. You should have seen the goddamn thing. The streets were alive, and just as promised. When the group got to d C in November and stood outside the White House chanting for Reagan to stick his crumby had out the door so many of them that traffic was completely choked up for miles in every direction. Just as promised,
the Beatles appeared John Paul George and Ringo. I don't know exactly how they got the goddamn permit to do it. They probably just did it. You know, fifty million Beatles fans can't be wrong, right. They set up a riser on the lawn of the White House and played for about ninety minutes. They did Revolution, of course, as cheesy as it sounds, and they did get back, and this one song that really knocked me out. I Want You,
She's so heavy, that's about us. Far from that. I want to hold your hand garbage as you can get. Huh Jesus Christ. They played I Want You for close to twenty minutes alone, just that same drone, on and on, and you know that the longer they played that one song, the more insane it drove. Old Ronnie Kid inside the White House. The people and the crowd went berserk. I've never seen that many people gathered in one place before, let alone that many people losing their minds like that.
But God damn Beatles. They said it would never happen again, but it did, and millions witnessed it, and Old Reagan felt like a prized horses ass. Which was the point. The masses were right, the masses were good, and the masses were going to take over the country right there. But nothing that is right and good has ever been easy, you know that. Once the concert had ended, John, once again, looking to prove he was a man of the people, walked off stage and into the crowd, and he felt
guilty about it. He was flanked by a small entourage. The entourage was moving him through the audience, and ideally they move him right past the secret servicemen who would allow for a monumental face to face between Ronald Reagan and John Lennon. The press had been talking it up for weeks. Reagan and Lennon a summit of epic proportions. John was moving slowly because he was stopping so often
to shake hands, except hugs and take photos. With fans and the press, and no one noticed Mark David Chapman, Because Mark David Chapman was the kind of guy that never got noticed. There was no reason and to notice him. He shaved his hair into one of those mohawks, you know, kind of like the neros and taxi driver, that Travis Biggle character who inspired that lunatic Kinkley in the first place, but also the kind Joe Strummer war in the liner
notes of the Revolution eighty four album. So nobody even looked at Chapman twice. Chapman knew, just like the whole world knew where John Lennon was going to be that day, Washington, d C. The White House. Chapman knew where, and he knew where. He had flown into New York the day before, and now he was there, another anonymous face in the craft. Chapman began to cut a line for the sea of people right and make his way towards a stage, towards John.
As John's path been further from the stage and closer to the White House, so too did Chapman's path fear to follow. Chapman got closer, so close he could hear John's voice in conversation with the people around him, Chapman pulled down the zipper of his jacket to open it up. He kept walking, and his fat shoulders kept shoving into the backs and heads of people nearby. Then he slowly stuck his hand inside his jacket and felt the charter arms pistol nestled in a pocket. That's when people began
to notice him. One of the guys flanking Old John spotted Chapman with his hand in his jacket and knew what was about to happen. Next. He yelled out, watch that guy and pointed directly at Chapman. Another lunge for Chapman and tried to grab him by the shoulders. He's got a gunness, someone shouted. Chapman panicked. He began ranting out loud like a raving lunatic, which he was ranting
over and over that the phone he must die. The other Beatles had long since ducked for cover, hidden behind this person or that, and John was literally being whisked away at the very moment when Chapman wrenched the pistol from inside his jacket, pointed it into the team chaos, and fired four times. And that's all I'm gonna tell you about that. Actual don't even help myself. I could probably tell you what happened next in this particular version
of what could have been. You know, who was shot, who died, who lived, But I don't feel like it. I really don't. That stuff may interest you, but it certainly doesn't interest me too much right now. Look, I'm sorry that I talked so much about it. I'm sorry I told you all these things that didn't actually happen, the things that would have happened had John not been shot on that December evening in But the whole thing doesn't even turn out the way you think anyway. It
had just depressed the hell out of you. For Christ's sakes, trust me, I know. August two thousand, Alden, New York, Mark David Chapman sat before the parole board at the Wendy Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison located just east of Buffalo. At sixty five years old, Chapman's hair was thinner than it had been in years past. His leathery skin hung desperately to an elongated neck below his chin. It is forty years behind bars. He'd gone on hunger strikes,
shaved his head and violently destroyed property. These days, his tact was less deranged in stability, a more quiet acceptance. He said a little prayer to himself under his breath, shortly before the parole Board began its review. He knew it amount. It's a little more than hot air. People rarely listened to Mark David Chapman anymore, not even God. The parole board, on the other hand, they were legally
obligated to listen to Chapman every two years. It was the eleventh time Chapman had made a bid for freedom every two years since the year two thousand, when he first became eligible for parole. In the course of his twenty years to life sentence, Chapman had made the case that he was a changed man. He saw the error of his ways. He knew what he did was wrong. He was ashamed. He had accepted Jesus Christ as his lord, and safe here, he wanted to walk out beyond the
walls of the prison and spread a good word. He had a wife waiting for him out there, a wife who had stuck by him the entire hier time he was on the inside, first at Attica and then an upstate New York at Wendy, where he'd been ever since
two thousand twelve. But Chapman's wife would have to wait a little while longer, because waiting for him at his parole hearing was the same thing that was always waiting for him at all of his parole hearings, and this thing took precedence over any of Chapman's own personal wants and desires. A statement from John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, naturally, Yogo opposed the parole of her husband's killer. Yogo expressed concern for her safety and the safety of her family.
She was also concerned for the safety of the assassin himself, who may find himself at the mercy of grieving angry Beatles fans if he was ever released. But mostly Yoko didn't want that dirty rat fuck to ever taste another breath of freedom for as long as he lived, Enjoy the rest of your insignificant life, ship Bird, And so for the eleventh time Mark David Chapman asked for another chance in four The eleventh time Mark David Chapman was denied.
Just months later, in December of two thousand and twenty. Fans of John Lennon and the Beatles gathered in a two point five acre section of New York Central Park known as Strawberry Fields, named after one of John's most beloved Beatles songs. This section of Central Park is dedicated to John's memory as well as to the universal ideals of peace and love. The centerpiece of the area features a mosaic on the ground with one word written inside imagine.
It was December eight. The fans had gathered in the midst of the COVID nineteen pandemic to commemorate the forty anniversary of John's assassination. They wore face masks and socially distanced themselves at six ft apart. They placed flower as candles, photos and letters to John over the circular mosaic. While fighting back tears, they played guitars, sang songs, and did with the one word written inside the mosaic inspired them to do. Imagined. They imagined what it would have been
like had John Lennon lived. They imagined a world that gave peace a chance. They imagined a society that, to paraphrase Dave marsh and the Rolling Stone magazine, stopped seeing people as symbols and started seeing them as people. Admittedly, it was hard to imagine such things peace over war, love over hate, optimism as the default human condition. It all felt like fantasy, not attainable. John Lennon had shown the world that it was possible. It was all possible
if you wanted it. No one wanted it. The people at Strawberry Fields on that cold December day wanted it, though they kept imagining it, because without that ability to imagine, without hope, all that's left is fear, destruction and Blood on the Tracks. Kay, all right, everybody, thanks for listening to Blood on the Tracks. If you like what you hear, be sure to find and follow Blood on the Tracks on Apple podcast, I Heart Radio, app, Amazon Music, or
wherever you get your podcasts. On this season two of Blood on the Tracks, we'll be releasing ten episodes on the Incredible life of John Lennon, with a new episode every Thursday. You can also binge all ten episodes of season one on the insane story of the notorious record producer Phil Spector right now. It's available wherever you get
your podcasts. This episode of Blood on the Tracks was written by Zeth Lundie and hosted an executive produced by me Jake Brennan, also executive produced by Brady sad Story and copy editing by Pat Healy. This episode was mixed by Colin Fleming. Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spreaker. This episode featured Travis Dowdy is holding coffeeld Blood on the Tracks is produced by Double Elvis and partnership with
I Heart Radio. Sources for this episode are available at Double Elvis dot com on the Blood on the Track series page. If you want to chat about this show or hear more about the other shows, we're making a Double Elvis tap in on Instagram at double Elvis, on Twitter at Double Elvis FM, and now on Twitch, where we're streaming three days a week. At Twitch dot tv slash Double Elvis Podcasts. And finally, be sure to check out disgrace Land, the award winning music and true crime
podcast that I also host. Disgraceland is available only on the free Amazon Music agap. To hear tons of insane stories about your favorite musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly, go to Amazon dot com slash disgrace Land, or if you have an Echo device, just say Alexa play the disgrace Land podcast welcome M. Dip Grady or dand