Michael Putland/Getty ImagesA handwritten letter that John Lennon sent to a U.K. journalist in 1971, complaining about how Apple Records had handled his album Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, is up for bid via the RR Auction website.
Two Virgins is the experimental 1968 album Lennon made with Yoko Ono, which famously featured a full-length nude photo of the two on its cover. The letter, which Lennon wrote to Martin George of Rock Ink, maintains that Apple Records resisted releasing Two Virgins for months, and then claims that the label’s parent company, EMI, “wrote warning letters to all their puppets around the world telling them not handle it in any way.”
EMI ultimately declined to release Two Virgins. It eventually came out on Track Records in the U.K. and Tetragrammaton in the U.S., although both versions sold the album in a brown paper sleeve that covered up the naked photo.
Later in the missive, Lennon laments that after Two Virgins was released, it got poor distribution and sold very few copies. The rock legend also complains that while EMI released one of his solo albums on which he said the F-word, the label wouldn’t let him put the expletive on the record’s lyric sheet.
The letter, which Lennon signed “Love, J & Y,” also includes a couple of edits in red pen. The document will be sold with a typed transcript of the message that originally was attached to the note, as well as a letter of authenticity.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the high bid for the letter was $15,700. It’s estimated to sell for at least $20,000.
Bach in November, RR Auction sold an angry letter that Lennon wrote in the early 1970s to Paul and Linda McCartney for almost $30,000.
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