The Rock Star Who (Almost) Helped Facilitate a John Lennon and Paul McCartney Reunion

Hanging out with two friends who haven’t been on speaking terms for a while can be awkward for everyone else in the room, and we have to imagine that the rock star who nearly helped facilitate a John Lennon and Paul McCartney must have felt the same way. (Although, we’re sure the c****** helped.)

The mid-1970s, 3 a.m. hangout sesh almost produced what would have been one of the most iconic and flamboyant rock ‘n’ roll supergroups the world had ever seen. While this never came to fruition, we did get a great 1975 hit out of the musical partnership between Lennon and his hangout host.

A John Lennon and Paul McCartney Reunion?

In the first few years of the 1970s, the world was still reeling from the then-recent breakup of The Beatles. The news was still fresh in everyone’s minds, even as each member pursued their solo musical endeavors. So, it must have been somewhat shocking for David Bowie, high on c******, to answer his hotel room door at 3 a.m. and see John Lennon and Paul McCartney, two men who were presumably not on speaking terms, standing outside of his suite at the Pierre Hotel.

“The two of them had been out on the town for the evening,” Bowie explained in a 2004 interview. “[John] said, ‘Can we come in? I’m sick.’” Naturally, Bowie welcomed the two ex-Beatles into his hotel suite, where he had been busy creating short films with his new Sony reel-to-reel videotape recorder.

“It was great,” Bowie said. “We spent the evening just rapping and talking. There was kind of a strange thing between [John and Paul]. There’s a little bit of distance every now and again. But that must have been the first time they’d been back together since the big bust-up.”

The Ziggy Stardust creator said Lennon and McCartney posed the idea of the three of them creating a rock ‘n’ roll supergroup as David Bowie and the Beatles, or DBB. “I think they wanted to call it DDB,” Bowie recalled. “But, you know, the next morning, it just never came to anything.”

David Bowie Did End up Working With One of the Beatles

Out of the two Beatles who visited his suite at the Pierre Hotel that fateful night in the mid-1970s, David Bowie undoubtedly connected with John Lennon more than Paul McCartney. Bowie was always cordial with the latter McCartney, and the pair seemed to share a pleasant rapport. However, Bowie wasn’t afraid to admit McCartney’s music wasn’t his style, even if he did think Macca was a nice guy. On the other hand, Bowie thought incredibly highly of Lennon as a person, socialist, musician, and fellow dry humorist.

Bowie and Lennon eventually collaborated, although it wasn’t the David Bowie and The Beatles supergroup that the trio imagined at 3 a.m. Lennon co-wrote and recorded Bowie’s 1975 track, “Fame”, during an impromptu writing session at the studio. “It was John who started riffing on ‘Fame’,” Bowie later remembered. “He was screaming. I was writing the lyrics. It all came together so quickly and so brilliantly. It was an incredibly intoxicating time, and I can’t quite believe that we didn’t try and write more things together because just being around him was breathtaking. He had all this energy.”

Bowie said he “dug” Lennon’s songwriting in particular, calling it “muscular.” In a different interview, Bowie said, “I don’t like much of [Paul’s] music. He’s a nice guy.” (Though, to be fair to McCartney, Bowie already seemed to be peeved at the interviewer when he offered his surprisingly curt answer.)

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