In the early 1960s, John Lennon did not bother getting a driver’s license until he wrote ‘Ticket to Ride’ from Help! He rarely drove himself anywhere, and his aversion to wearing glasses probably contributed to his lack of motivation to learn. When he finally got his car, he gave it the characteristic Lennon touch. He made it look as colorful and vibrant as possible.
While Lennon was tinkering with his new car, his perceived adversaries, The Rolling Stones, were experiencing a change. After years of playing second fiddle to their Liverpool competitors, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had elevated the band to the point where they could compete head-to-head. They produced successes like “Paint It Black” and “Under My Thumb.”
Despite rumors of multiple feuds between the two bands, John Lennon and Brian Jones were friendly enough. Lennon saw Jones as a suitable subject for his renowned pranks. After painting his Rolls Royce to his taste, Lennon made many other physical alterations. These modifications allowed him to up the ante on his naughty activities.
He installed a record player and a special horn that blared ‘Lilli Marlene‘ when honked. Additionally, he installed a microphone connected to speakers in the front wheel wells. John Lennon may use these speakers to communicate with passers-by, conversing or playing train and plane sounds to startle or confuse them. Of course, he once ran into Jones while driving, which seemed the easiest of targets.
As Paul McCartney recalls in The Beatles Anthology, “We were in John’s Rolls, and we’d just arrived from his place in Weybridge. We suddenly drew up behind Brian Jones and sat quietly in the back of his Austin Princess. John was a pretty humorous person, and he shouted through the microphone, “Brian Jones, do not move!” “You have been under surveillance, and now you are being arrested.”
“Brian leaped up approximately eight feet and turned white as a sheet, saying, ‘Oh my God! “Oh my God!” McCartney continued. “Then he saw it was us: ‘You bunch of bastards!'” It almost killed him that day. “John sounded so official.”
The fact that Jones already had a lengthy record of past arrests added to the incident’s authenticity and credibility. His first arrest occurred in 1967 when officials discovered cocaine at his home. The next year, he was detained again for carrying marijuana. Lennon wasn’t completely clean either, given his incarceration for a similar reason the following year.
