Never before heard John Lennon recording up for auction

Virgin Radio

28 Sep 2021, 14:23

A one of a kind cassette tape recording of John Lennon and Yoko Ono is being auctioned today in Copenhagen.

The half-hour long recording was captured by a group of four Danish high school students in 1970 for their school newspaper. Karsten Hoejen, the owner of the tape, told the BBC they were mostly interested in the celebrity couple’s peace campaigns. He told them "We were a bunch of 16 year old hippies”.

The boys met John and Yoko when they were staying in a remote town in the north of Denmark, visiting Yoko’s daughter Kyoko who was living in the area with her father, Anthony Cox, and his new wife Melinda.

The Beatles singer and his wife gave a press conference during their stay, and Hoejen and his fellow students convinced their school to let them go. They arrived late and missed the main event due to a snowstorm, but John and Yoko invited them and a few other late journalists to come in anyways.

Mr. Hoejen brought along a borrowed tape recorder to document the interview, while his friend Jesper Jungersen took photos for their school newspaper. Hoejen recalls “John asked me, 'where do you come from? A radio station?'. 'No, from a school magazine,' I said”. 

He described the meeting as "very cosy" and "relaxed". John, Yoko, Kyoko, and Anthony and Melinda Cox sat together on a sofa. "[They] were sat with their feet on the table in their woollen socks." Mr Hoejen said.

When the Danish boys asked Lennon "but how do you think that people like me can help you with making peace around the world?", he told them to "Imitate what we do," and "Think what can I do locally?".

Perhaps most excitingly, the tape also features Yoko and John performing a short song called Radio Peace. It was written originally as a theme tune for a radio station that never came to fruition.

"The radio station was never opened and the song was never released," Hoejen says. "To our knowledge the only place where this song exists is on our tape."

Alexa Bruun Rasmussen, director of Copehagen’s main auction house Bruun Rasmussen, told the BBC that "A recording like this is indeed very rare," 

"We are not sure that there are any other recordings like this one, because it's an unofficial recording."

The tape is being auctioned alongside the photographs taken that day and a copy of the original school magazine. It is expected to sell for between £23,000 and £36,000.