John Lennon 1980 footage -Insanely Uber Rare

just recently watched: Eric Clapton: Life In 12 Bars - my god, you ain't kidding...

 

Videos, or for want of a better word 'film clips', were pivotal to commercial music everywhere else in the world from much earlier on. This is one area where the States is not a great barometer. Although I think with regards to John you are probably right, however the fact he did seem to want to make some kind of clip re- I'm Losing You and then the Central Park footage, suggests a clip for Woman or something else in the near future was possibly on his mind.

 

OK, so I guess John Lennon and Geffen were really out of touch dunces to not have made a video for the first single to his long-awaited album. That's all I got.

 

I added a bit dk
He was John Lennon, he could do as he wished for his comeback session I guess Was the Central Park footage earmarked for an imminent promo clip, I remember when it was compiled for the Woman film clip, but not sure if that was what it was originally filmed for?

 

I think by 1980 he was clean.

 

I like how the big presents were sent to the Tavern - especially the pinball machine - now they have to move it to the house....it's good to have excess cash.

 

Thank you for sharing this. It made me sad to read that he told Aunt Mimi how much he missed Liverpool and was planning to visit around this point.

 

I read this in an interview with Jack Douglas in Goldmine years ago. It always stuck with me. I didn't read it as a health problem but more of a premonition of his fate. But, with no more information, who knows except for Jack? That info might be the single biggest actually-knowable Lennon tidbit out there that I'm still burning to hear about.

 

I believe that, per Douglas, he had recorded the conversation - and when he learned around midnight of the shooting, he returned to the studio and wiped the tapes. I agree that there was an implication that John had talked about his death.

 

It's Sean's party, but John has the crown.

 

Thanks for posting this. They all look great to me.

 

Jeez...
The comments about John’s physical appeareance....
He looked fine at forty.
Not “aged”... etc etc.

And we are really, really not used to THIN anymore...

 

That's how I've always interpreted it, too, based on what Douglas has said. For what it's worth (i.e., get your bag of salt out), this is something I do remember from Goldman's book. Goldman explicitly claims that John was talking to Douglas about what would happen to his fame and legend after he died--he would become even bigger; bigger than Elvis.

In this case, I wouldn't be particularly surprised if that's what Lennon was talking about. He certainly always had celebrity, the nature of fame, and Jesus and Elvis not far from the top of his mind, and who knows how a conversation might've wandered to that point. Even if it was just something he said in passing, it would be very disturbing for Douglas.

 

Exactly. We are used to seeing so many people overweight today, that looking back at pictures or videos from the 60's or 70's, they look so skinny. Look at pics of The Temptations from the 60's. They were all thin, but that was the norm. Who's scrawnier than Mick Jagger?!

 

That would make sense if true.

 

I completely disagree. If you look and Mick, he's ridiculously thin, but he's fit. He's muscular and toned. It's well known that he exercises like crazy and sticks to a diet optimized to help him stay in shape. And pictures of Mick from the Sixties show that he's always been skin and bones. John was never overweight, but there's no denying that he had more skin on his bones in the 50s, 60s, and early 70s than he did in the late 70s and in 1980. As others have said, that just doesn't happen. Normal-weight people don't naturally lose an additional 15 pounds as they approach forty, even if they're eating healthier food--assuming they're eating enough healthy food to satisfy their body's basic caloric requirements.

By any metric, John looks thinner at the end of his life than he did at any point before the Dakota Years, including 1967-68, when he was on so many drugs that he'd apparently forget to, or not feel like, eating.

 

Jagger. Muscular. Right.

 

Google Image Result for https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/02/03/09/006BBC4100000258-3429622-image-a-31_1454492033566.jpg
Are you saying Lennon looked like this?

 

Thankfully not.

 

So you concede that someone like Jagger is thin but relatively muscular, while Lennon in 1980 did not look like that?

 

I don't know about that. I was seeing lots of videos by then, including HBO's Video Jukebox. And Paul and George had been making videos for years by that point. As I said, Paul filmed one in 1989 for Coming Up. I do think its surprising John didn't do one for Starting Over. We'll have to agree to disagree

 

As I commented to another poster, I guess that the only conclusion was that John and the Geffen people were dummies who didn't understand the crucial importance of videos. I'd rather pitch my tent at "Videos just weren't actually essential yet", but YMMV.

 

Lennon’s release just barely predated the period when music videos became important in music promotion. MTV launched in August of 1981. It really was the game changer. HBO’s video Jukebox launched in December 1981, so you may be remembering incorrectly?

If you look at the Billboard top 10 singles of 1981, it’s probably difficult to remember the promotional videos for most of them. But, that same list in 1982? If you were around back then, chances are you have vivid memories of the videos for all of those songs, and many of those videos are so famous they are practically iconic.

1981

1 "Bette Davis Eyes" Kim Carnes
2 "Endless Love" Diana Ross & Lionel Richie
3 "Lady" Kenny Rogers
4 "(Just Like) Starting Over" John Lennon
5 "Jessie's Girl" Rick Springfield
6 "Celebration" Kool & the Gang
7 "Kiss on My List" Hall & Oates
8 "I Love a Rainy Night" Eddie Rabbitt
9 "9 To 5" Dolly Parton
10 "Keep on Loving You" REO Speedwagon

1982

1 "Physical" Olivia Newton-John
2 "Eye of the Tiger" Survivor
3 "I Love Rock 'n Roll" Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
4 "Ebony and Ivory" Paul McCartneyand Stevie Wonder
5 "Centerfold" The J. Geils Band
6 "Don't You Want Me" The Human League
7 "Jack & Diane" John Cougar
8 "Hurts So Good" John Cougar
9 "Abracadabra" Steve Miller Band
10 "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" Chicago

 

My memory of the era from my neck of the woods was basically any major hit that came out of the UK around late 70's and 1980-81 was accompanied by promo clips, often quite elaborate ones. The US hits as seen on Australian TV (and probably the UK as well), were often performance sourced clips from local US music shows. Although I do remember a lot of the US artists who were breaking through with first time hits were more likely to have tailor made clips, i.e. Rick Springfield, Kim Cannes, early Prince etc. Maybe the already established US stars relied on their guest slots on US TV before MTV?
Re the above list Endless Love and Nine To Five were concurrent hit title songs off hugely successful movies, otherwise...