Liam Gallagher has written a song on his album ‘As You Were’ which is inspired by his meeting with John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono.
The 45-year-old singer was invited by the Japanese artist-and-musician to visit her at The Dakota building in New York City at the apartment she shared with John from 1973 until he was tragically murdered outside the building’s entrance in 1980.
Yoko asked Liam to come and see her after being touched that he had named his son Lennon Francis Gallagher – who was born in September 1999 to his first wife Patsy Kensit – after his hero and her spouse.
Whilst he was at her home the ex-Oasis star was fascinated by a banner written in Japanese that she had in her kitchen and once Yoko had translated the words for him Liam wrote the saying down and he has included it in his upcoming song ‘I’ve All I Need’.
In an interview on ‘The Chris Moyles Show’ on Radio X on Wednesday morning (04.10.17), Liam revealed: "I’ll tell you an interesting fact. There’s a line in there (on ‘I’ve All I Need’) that says ‘I hibernate and sing, while gathering my wings.’ I was over in New York once and I got a call saying, ‘Yoko wants to meet you’, and I just called me kid Lennon. So anyway we go to Yoko’s house in the Dakota building. Cut a long story short, we go in there and in the kitchen – she invites us in and makes us a cup of tea – and she’s got this banner, massive banner round the kitchen, and I said, ‘Oh what does that mean?’ And she goes, ‘Oh John asked the same question when we went to Japan to meet my parents.’ Anyway it says ‘while I’ve been hibernating, I’ve been gathering my wings’, and it was when he stopped making music. So I thought, write that down. So anyway, years go by, I’ve been trying to get it in to a song, could never get it in, and then it happened on that."
After the birth of his and Yoko’s only child, son Sean, John took a hiatus from music from October 1975 until October 1980 when he released his comeback single ‘(Just Like) Starting Over’ followed by the album ‘Double Fantasy’, which came out in November the same year, just one month before he was killed at the age of 40.
Before Liam’s meeting with Yoko, the global icon had sent the ‘Wonderwall’ singer and Patsy a package of baby clothes and a card congratulating them on the arrival of their son, who is now making a name for himself as a model.
Previously revealing Yoko’s gift, Liam – who telephoned Yoko to thank her for the present – shared: "The card said, ‘To Lennon, welcome to the world, love, love, love Yoko 99’. I was freaked. Then a big box of baby clothes came from New York."
You can listen to ‘The Chris Moyles Show’ on Radio X (Radiox.co.uk) weekdays from 6.30am to 10am and Saturday 8am to 11am.
Liam Gallagher writes song inspired by Yoko Ono meeting
