John Lennon Seemed ‘Supernaturally’ Aware of His Looming Death: ‘He Had a Feeling Something Was Coming’
Years before John Lennon’s death, a psychic warned him he would be shot while in America. His first wife, Cynthia Lennon, said this premonition hung over him while The Beatles toured. According to a friend, this continued to concern him in the final days of his life. Producer Jack Douglas said Lennon seemed to know that his life would end soon.
John Lennon seemed concerned about his death, said a friend
Douglas was one of the last people to see Lennon alive. He worked as a producer on Lennon’s final album, Double Fantasy, and they became friends. According to Douglas, Lennon occasionally brought up his impending death.
“He spoke about death every once in a while,” Douglas told People. “He would say things like, ‘I might be gone soon.’ He would say, ‘When I die, it’s going to be bigger than Elvis.’ And I’d say, ‘Stop talking like that.'”
Douglas said that Lennon wanted every moment recorded as if he was trying to preserve memories before his death.
“He insisted on journals being kept for every moment, everything being documented, me placing microphones all over the studio so that everything could be recorded,” he said. “It felt like he had a feeling something was coming, and he was very intuitive about things. Extremely. Almost supernaturally about things.”
The musician also seemed happy in the days before he died
Though Lennon had concerning premonitions, Douglas said he also seemed happy. Lennon had been in the studio with Douglas on the day of his death, and he appeared to be in good spirits.
“He was very positive,” Douglas said. “They were both just so happy.”
Douglas said that Lennon was “jovial” all through making Double Fantasy. He was happy with his family and excited to work on music again.
“During that whole period, he was just so excited to be back and so happy to be with his family and how much he loved Sean and how things with Yoko were pretty good,” he said. “It was a very different John, and that whole period was just lovely.”
A psychic warned John Lennon about his death years before it happened
Years before this, Lennon received a warning about his future murder from a psychic. In 1966, he received a letter from someone who told him he’d be shot in the United States.
“We were both upset by that: The Beatles were about to do their last tour of the States and, of course, we thought the warning referred to that trip,” Cynthia Lennon wrote in her book John. “He had just made his infamous remark about The Beatles being more popular than Christ and the world was in an uproar about it — cranky letters and warnings arrived by every post. But that one had stuck in his mind.”
Lennon returned home from tour unscathed, but Cynthia said the letter continued to loom over him.
“When he got home in one piece, we were both relieved,” Cynthia wrote. “But the psychic’s warning remained in his mind and from then on it seemed that he was looking over his shoulder, waiting for the gunman to appear. He often used to say, ‘I’ll be shot one day.’ Now, unbelievably, tragically, he had been.”
