John Lennon

"Sad Michael", blue ink, 22 lines of text with one correction; with, on the verso, "The Moldy Moldy Man", blue ink, 10 lines of text in three numbered stanzas with one correction, including two lines of an incomplete and unpublished third stanza; altogether two pages, lined paper, folio (12 5/8 x 8 in.; 320 x 203 mm, [early 1964]; edges creased, some small stains at one edge.

Christie's, South Kensington, 1 July 2009, lot 174

"There was no reason for Michael to be sad that morning, the little wretch; everyone liked him, the scab. He'd had a hard days night that day for Michael was a Cocky Watchtower..."

John Lennon's autograph manuscript for two pieces in his first book, In His Own Write (1964). The prose piece, 'Sad Michael', which was published on p. 35 of the book, contains the first appearance of the phrase "a hard day's night", which was of course to become the name of the Beatles's first film, third studio album, and a song which Ian Macdonald has described as heralding "the group's middle period of peak creativity" (Revolution in the Head, p.90). Lennon later said that the phrase was a "Ringoism", a malapropism uttered after an exhausting day's filming, but, as so often with the Beatles, memories are hazy: In His Own Write was completed before filming began for A Hard Day's Night. The short poem 'The Moldy Moldy Man' was published on p. 61 of In His Own Write. Leonard Bernstein's daughter, Nina Bernstein Simmons, has recalled in an interview how the poem played an improbable role in a party at the Dakota: "Leonard Bernstein enjoyed Mr. Lennon’s poetry so much that at the annual potluck, he made his wife, two daughters and son approach Mr. Lennon and then sing an improvised round he had taught them of Mr. Lennon’s poem 'The Moldy Moldy Man'. It was one celebrated musician testing his work out on another musician." (New York Times, 7 December 2010, p.A29)

In His Own Write was published in March 1964. It was an enormous commercial and critical success: it sold more than 600,000 copies and was recommended by the Times Literary Supplement as "worth the attention of anyone who fears for the impoverishment of the English language and the British imagination". A highly important collection of manuscripts, typescripts, and artwork relating to the book and its successor, A Spaniard in the Works, given by Lennon to his publisher, Tom Maschler, was offered in these rooms on 4 June 2014. That collection included an authorial typescript of 'Sad Michael' (lot 14) that will have been produced from the current manuscript. Lennon rarely revised his work so these manuscripts are not substantially different from the published texts, however 'The Moldy Moldy Man' does include the first lines of an abandoned third stanza.