A handwritten letter by John Lennon is going up for sale for $35,000.
The note sees the Beatles legend accuse the EMI record label of blocking distribution on his 1968 experimental album ‘Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins’, because he appears nude on its cover with Yoko Ono, who became his wife in 1969.
In the letter, Lennon angrily writes: "EMI (who have the real control) wrote warning letters to all their puppets around the world telling them not to handle it in any way."
Lennon’s ambition was to ensure that he would avoid a repeat of his experiences with EMI, which also distributed The Beatles’ Apple Records releases.
Of the letter, Moments in Time dealer Gary Zimet told the New York Post newspaper’s Page Six column: "This is Lennon’s handwritten draft letter … The letter is angrily written, and this album was the very first non-Beatles album that Lennon made."
And ultimately, ‘Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins’ – which was released with brown paper-bag packaging – was distributed by another record label.
Meanwhile, John’s former Beatles bandmate, Sir Paul McCartney, recently revealed he relished the "competitive" nature of their relationship.
The iconic duo penned some of the most famous songs in history during their days with the group, and Sir Paul admitted that the late star’s determination to be the best helped to improve his own songwriting.
He shared: "It was quite competitive because if I wrote something he’d try and better it and then I’d try and better that, so it’s a good system.
"It means you’re going up a staircase and each time you’re trying to make it better, so if that works it can make the song very good … and in our case memorable.
"That was the trick because we couldn’t put it down, we couldn’t put it on a recording like today, you just had to remember it. So that was a good restriction too, it meant if you forgot it, too bad.
"So, it had to have a hook and nearly always, even if you forgot it in the evening, you’d go out for a drink and say, ‘what was that bloody song’. You’d wake up in the morning an go ‘oh yeah, I remember!’ It would just come back."
John Lennon letter goes up for auction
