Written for his girlfriend May Pang during the Lost Weekend, ‘Surprise, Surprise (Sweet Bird Of Paradox)’ was one of John Lennon’s most revealing and passionate songs.
He had begun a relationship around the time that Mind Games was recorded in the summer of 1973. The following year the couple decamped to Los Angeles, where Lennon lived some of his wildest times.
The couple’s relationship lasted a little over 18 months. While several of the songs on Walls And Bridges were inspired by Lennon’s feelings of loss over Yoko Ono, ‘Surprise, Surprise (Sweet Bird Of Paradox)’ showed how he was far from completely down and out.
Although he later dismissed the song as “Just a piece of garbage,” the song showed how deep his feelings for Pang were, describing his love and lust for her in unusually earthy phrases:
Sweet as the smell of success
Her body’s warm and wet
She gets me through this God awful loneliness
A natural high butterfly
Oh I need, need, need her
Lennon recorded a series of home demo of ‘Surprise, Surprise’ in the early summer of 1974, along with several other songs that later appeared on Walls And Bridges. The recordings show how the song began as a 1950s-style ballad; Lennon later cited The Diamonds’ ‘Little Darlin” as an influence.
Although the song eventually became an unashamed celebration of his love for Pang, the demo recordings were stark and blues-based. The change came when Lennon hit upon the middle eight, which became the emotional heart of the song:
I was wondering how long this could go on, on and on
I thought I could never be surprised
But could it be that I bit my own tongue
It’s so hard to swallow when you’re wrong.
An outtake from the Walls And Bridges sessions was included on the 1998 box set John Lennon Anthology, and shows how the production changed after overdubs were later added. Among these were harmony vocals by Elton John, who had duetted with Lennon on ‘Whatever Gets You Thru The Night’.
Elton spent over three hours recording his vocals, and had trouble matching Lennon’s phrasing. Shortly after the album was released he recalled the frustration, saying: “People were leaving the room. Razor blades were being passed out!”
One addition which appeared late in the sessions was the closing refrain “Sweet sweet, sweet sweet love”. An echo of The Beatles’ ‘Drive My Car’, it was one of two references to his former band on Walls And Bridges; the other was the line “Somebody please, please help me” on ‘Going Down On Love’, demonstrating the range of emotions Lennon bounced between during 1974.
John Lennon stated that he was miserable in California because he had no one there that loved him to be with him and look after him. This is on a DVD. Now if he was so in love with May why would he have said that after all she was there. Next she had sex with John long before Yoko suggested sh accompany John. So please stop the acting May you were not the vestil virgin you were already having a fling with John. John walked out on you as soon as Yoko would take him back and he told Bob Gruen the photographer of the iconic photo on the roof and many others that he wanted to “get rid of May” but he didn’t know how. I knew John for four years and Yoko knew about me the same way John knew about her “lover”. John hated when people in his life used their relationships in whatever Form to make money on that. He felt it was a betrayal. So I follow his wishes. I have many many pictures of us together and can name many friends of John’s that he introduced me to including staff members and the staff of the Dakota. But I guess May doesn’t care she wants the money for services rendered the hell with John.
I call BS on the comment by “anonymous” who I suspect is actually Yoko herself or one of her paid minions. I wrote a longer, fact base comment as to why I think Yoko had a harder time to get John to come back to her from May but my comment would not post. Here is a shorter version. John and May left together to go to LA in Oct.73, By Jan 74 Yoko contacted Paul to enlist his help in getting John to come back. Paul talked to John in spring,(March 74). John and May returned to NYC in and get an apartment together in NOV 74. Yoko calls John claiming she found a smoking cure through hypnosis that really worked (“I quit cold turkey!”, she lied.) Gullible John goes to check it out and gets “the treatment” drugs, sleep deprivation, suggestions drilled into his psyche, but he never stops chain smoking for the rest of his life. He does have a mantra though, “Yoko has allowed me to come back.” Feb 75 he begins a five year reclusing at the Dakota with the cover story he’s is blissfully happy and fulfilled being a house hubby, but others say the round the clock, live in maid, cook and nanny actually do all that while John pretty much drugs out in his bedroom all day and night. Yoko controls the spin and perception of the “JohnandYoko” narrative. So I call BS on “anonymous” comment.
I meant to add, from the time John and May left in Oct 73, to the time Yoko contacts Paul in Jan 74 because she can’t get John to come back to the time he actually goes back to her in Feb 75, he didn’t go running back to her as fast as anonymous implies, no matter what a manipulated Bob Gruens has said.
Others say John was quietly getting his ducks in a row to divorce Yoko until he was stopped by a mind controlled puppet who waited for and cooperated with police to arrest him, quickly confessed to acting alone (without being asked) which meant no trial with weeks or months of screaming headlines of MDC’s name being bandied about, (ala OJ Simpson) even as the public was spoon-fed that MDC wanted fame on the same level as John Lennon. I say something in the milk ain’t clean.
You are correct. Yoko controls the spin and the legacy. Those of us alive in the 70’s and 80’s saw what was going on, as every move by the X-Beatles was documented in the media. Unfortunately for May Pang, Yoko will reduce her existence to the smallest of insignificant footnotes .
YOU TELL ALL SIS, I’m with you
Another thing. John and May’s relationship was public. Anonymous claims to have had a relationship with John that was secret, as in “backstreet”, as in “dirty little”. It’s very possible to have happened really, because John had always cheated on Yoko as he did Cynthia. As a matter of fact, John humiliated Yoko publicly at a party by noisily having sex with a girl in a room where the gathered guests could hear everything going on. Since Yoko is all about appearances and perceptions (instead of truth and reality), she pretended to be unbothered by John’s blatant disrespect to her in front of others,(she would punish him later in private) so she asked one of the guest to “Tell John that I forgive him and give him this flower.” The guest refused to give involved
What goes around comes around. Like when Cyn came home to discover John and Yoko had defiled her home and marriage bed, and Yoko sadistically watching Cyn’s humiliation and heartbreaking realization of the end of her marriage. Well you reap what you sow. LOL! Gotta love how that not-so-instant-karma came back to bite Yoko, with a roomful of witnesses to her “cuckolding” by John.
All about appearances and perceptions, Yoko has etched HER likeness lip synching “John” in the Surprise Surprise Sweet Bird Of Paradox, when it was actually May Pang who whispers John’s name.
As for May getting paid, she wrote a couple of books about her life with John Lennon. Yoko and her paid minions tried to deny what she said was true. May provided pictures and has many more she had not shared. May is a good person and had not cashed in on John, but the professional widow Lennon sure has, by turning John Lennon, his memory and musical legacy into a corporate brand product to be bought and sold by anybody willing to fork over $$$ for anything she can slap his name on from tea cups to talking action figure dolls with pullstrings to make it say, “Power to the people” and “Give peace a chance”. I’ve seen it on ebay. Even after Paul tried to help Yoko and John get back together during the so-called Lost Weekend, Yoko still effectively kept John and Paul apart for the last few years of John’s life. May is a good person and became a good friend to both Paul and Linda after John’s death. She was invited to Linda McCartney’s memorial service and Yoko convened a press conference on that day to whine to the press “how hurt” she was that she was not invited as if it was all about her.
She is a piece of work!
may pang is not a good person, far from it, she didn’t even wait a year to tell his story with john and FIRST OF ALL she started a relationship with a married man, this is the most concrete proof that she is not a good person. person, you try at all costs to invalidate the love story of john and yoko it’s unbelievable go beyond the lie because of ship
Very mean spirited thread of comments here