Things quickly got weird for John Lennon on The Mike Douglas Show
As fans pause to remember John Lennon on the 35th anniversary of his death, there is one clip that summarizes his life and career with incredible efficiency. Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, famously co-hosted the daytime chatfest The Mike Douglas Show for a week in February 1972. One of Lennon’s guests that week was his idol, rock pioneer Chuck Berry, and the two performed a supremely memorable version of Berry’s 1959 composition, “Memphis, Tennessee.” What makes the performance stand out, apart from the chance to see John Lennon and Chuck Berry sharing not just a stage but a microphone, is the fact that the backing band includes Yoko Ono. A little over a minute into the number, while Lennon and Berry are singing about the Mississippi Bridge, Ono decides that what the song needs are some dolphin-like vocalizations, so she proceeds to add those to the mix. For Lennon, this is par for the course, but Berry is visibly shaken and gives the camera a startled, wide-eyed look. He recovers, though, and also performs his famous duck walk.
