More than two months ago I was listening to a rebroadcast of a Casey Kasem “American Top 40” program from March 5, 1984, and John Lennon’s “Nobody Told Me” was the number five single on the Billboard Hot 100 that week. Kasem announced that it was Lennon’s 61st appearance in the Top 40. Of course, it was his last solo entry onto the charts.

Lennon had originally written the song to give to Ringo for his 1981 Stop and Smell the Roses album, but in the wake of Lennon’s December 1980 murder, Starr opted not to record it. Lennon had made an incomplete recording of the song as a home demo, for which Yoko enlisted personnel to put the finishing touches on for the posthumous Lennon album Milk and Honey, which was released on January 27, 1984, and credited to John Lennon & Yoko Ono. It consisted of new Lennon material that had been recorded in the months after the sessions for the 1980 album Double Fantasy.

“Nobody Told Me” has the interesting lyric, “There’s UFO’s over New York/And I ain’t too surprised.” This lyric was inspired by Lennon claiming to have seen a UFO from the balcony of the penthouse apartment he was living at 434 E. 52nd Street in Manhattan. He was sharing a 17th floor penthouse apartment with his then-partner May Pang, during the 18 month period in which he was separated from Yoko Ono.

Lennon and May Pang claimed to have witnessed a silent glowing so-called UFO hovering over their penthouse apartment on August 23, 1974. The incident occurred at 9:00 pm over the East River.

Lennon later described the object as being a large, circular, or flattened cone-shaped craft. He said the craft was dark-colored and sported a bright, shining red light on top and pulsating white lights around the entire rim.

The ex-Beatle stated many times that the alleged UFO was totally silent and glided slowly over the East River, turning right at the United Nations before heading towards Brooklyn and disappearing into the distance.

Photos that Lennon hurriedly took came out blank or overexposed. In retelling the incident over the years, he stated that he screamed at the UFO to take him away.

At the time, he had just finished making his Walls and Bridges album, and he announced the incident in the album credits by writing: “On the 23rd Aug. 1974 at 9 o’clock I saw a U.F.O. – J.L.”

None of his neighbors in his apartment building or other area residents made claims of seeing the same alleged UFO.

It certainly must have had a lasting impact on John Lennon if six years later it was used in the lyrics of a song he wrote for Ringo Starr.

“Nobody Told Me” entered the Top 40 on January 21, 1984 and stayed there for eleven weeks. It marked the first example of a John Lennon song posthumously taken from a home demo that would be reworked to find a home in the Top 40 as The Beatles released “Free As a Bird” in 1995, “Real Love” in 1996, and “Now and Then” in 2023.

 

 

 

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