View source for A Toot and a Snore in '74

{{Short description|1992 bootleg album with John Lennon and Paul McCartney}}
{{italic title}}
{{Infobox album|
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| name       = A Toot and a Snore in '74
| type       = [[Album]]
| longtype   = ([[Bootleg recording|bootleg]])
| artist     = [[John Lennon]] and [[Paul McCartney]]
| cover      = A_Toot_and_a_Snore_in_'74.jpg
| alt        =
| caption    = 
| released   = 1992
| recorded   = 28 March 1974, Burbank Studios, Los Angeles
| venue      =
| studio     =
| genre      = [[Rock and roll|Rock]]
| length     = 29:12
| label      = Mistral Music<br />MM 9225
| producer   =
| prev_title =
| prev_year  =
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}}

'''''A Toot and a Snore in '74''''' is a [[Bootleg recording|bootleg]] [[album]] consisting of the only known recording session in which [[John Lennon]] and [[Paul McCartney]] played together after the break-up of [[the Beatles]] in 1970.  First mentioned by Lennon in a 1975 interview,<ref>{{cite video
 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEf42C_M9IA
  |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211213/vEf42C_M9IA |archive-date=2021-12-13 |url-status=live|title=John Lennon "Lost Weekend" Interviews
 |time=1:45
 |access-date=2009-12-29
 |quote=I jammed with Paul, I did actually play with Paul, yeah. We did a lot of stuff in L.A., but there was 50 other people playing—they were all just watching me and Paul ...
}}{{cbignore}}</ref> more details were brought to light in [[May Pang]]'s 1983 book, ''Loving John'', and it gained wider prominence when McCartney made reference to the session in a 1997 interview. Talking with Australian writer Sean Sennett in his Soho office, McCartney said the "session was hazy... for a number of reasons".{{Citation needed|date=July 2024}} The rare bootleg first appeared in 1992, on the 'Mistral' label.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wright-McLeod |first1=Brian |title=The Encyclopedia of Native Music: More Than a Century of Recordings from Wax Cylinder to the Internet |date=2005 |publisher=University of Arizona Press |location=Tucson, Arizona |isbn=9780816524471 |page=91 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Wq8Ms0Cl32kC&dq=a+toot+and+a+snore+in+74+%221992%22&pg=PA91 |access-date=18 June 2025}}</ref>

==Recording history==
{{refimprovesect|date=February 2024}}
[[File:John Lennon "Walls and Bridges" 1974 press photo (color) (cropped).jpg|thumb|Lennon in a 1974 press kit photo]]
[[File:Paul and Linda McCartney (cropped).jpg|thumb|McCartney in April 1974]]
Lennon was producing [[Harry Nilsson]]'s album ''[[Pussy Cats]]'', when Paul and [[Linda McCartney]] dropped in after the first night of the sessions, a.k.a. "the [[Jim Keltner]] Fan Club Hour", at Burbank Studios on 28 March 1974. They were joined by Nilsson, [[Stevie Wonder]], [[Jesse Ed Davis]], [[May Pang]], [[Mal Evans]], [[Bobby Keys]] and producer Ed Freeman for an impromptu jam session.

Lennon was separated from [[Yoko Ono]] and living in [[Los Angeles]] with Pang in a period of his life popularly referred to as his "[[May Pang#"Lost Weekend"|lost weekend]]". Although he and McCartney had not seen each other in three years and had lashed out at each other in the press, according to Pang they resumed their friendship as if nothing had happened.  The jam session proved not very productive musically. Lennon sounds to be on [[cocaine]] and is heard offering Wonder a snort on the first track, then asking someone to give him a snort on the fifth. This is also the origin of the album title, where John Lennon clearly asks: "You wanna snort, Steve? A toot? It's goin' round". In addition, Lennon seems to be having trouble with his [[microphone]] and [[headphones]].

Lennon is on lead vocal and [[guitar]], and McCartney sings [[harmony]] and plays [[Ringo Starr]]'s [[drum kit|drum]]s (Starr, who was recording with Nilsson at the time but not present at the session, complained at the next day's recording session that "[McCartney] always messes up my drums!").<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite book |last=Pang |first=May |title=Loving John |publisher=Warner Books |year=1983}}</ref> Stevie Wonder sings and plays [[electric piano]], Linda McCartney is on [[organ (music)|organ]], Pang plays [[tambourine]], Nilsson provides vocals, Davis is on guitar, Freeman (who was producing [[Don McLean]] in the neighboring studio) fills in on bass, and Keys plays [[saxophone]].<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.bootlegzone.com/album.php?name=mm9225&section=2| title = John Lennon & Paul McCartney&nbsp;– A Toot And A Snore In 74| access-date = 2007-02-18| work = BootlegZone| publisher = BootlegZone & François Vander Linden| archive-date = 2007-09-28| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070928141313/http://www.bootlegzone.com/album.php?name=mm9225&section=2| url-status = dead}}</ref>  Keys was questioned a number of times about the session, but could not recall any of it.

It remains the only known instance of Lennon and McCartney playing together after 1970. Aside from informal, special occasions such as weddings, [[Collaborations between ex-Beatles|collaborations]] of more than two ex-Beatles had been rare since the band's 1969–70 split.

==Reception==
In 2015, ''[[Uncut (magazine)|Uncut]]'' ranked ''A Toot and a Snore in '74'' at number 40 in their list of the 50 best bootlegs.<ref name="Uncut">{{cite web |title=Uncut's 50 best bootlegs |url=https://www.uncut.co.uk/features/uncuts-50-best-bootlegs-68155/4/ |website=Uncut |access-date=18 June 2025 |page=4 |date=1 May 2015}}</ref> ''Uncut'' describe it as a recording of "unspectacular banter and similarly unlegendary music", while Wonder "attempts magnificently to paper over the cracks", and categorise its sound quality as "documentarily satisfactory/quiet/poor". They concluded: "An interesting encounter, but one maybe more romantically memorialised by the snapshot of a moustachioed Macca visiting Lennon at home in LA, taken by [[Keith Moon]]'s minder, [[Dougal Butler]]."<ref name="Uncut" />

''[[Q (magazine)|Q]]''{{'}}s Tom Doyle describes the bootleg as leaking the "shambolic results" of the session, writing that the musicians "proceeded to jam — and to get high."<ref name="Doyle">{{cite journal |last1=Doyle |first1=Tom |title=Going Under: John Lennon's Lost Weekend |journal=Q |date=June 2010 |url=https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/going-under-john-lennons-lost-weekend |access-date=18 June 2025}}</ref> [[Rock's Backpages]] similarly described the recording as a jam and commented that its title is "a pretty fair description of many of the other sessions on which the by-now very hard-living Keys also played during this time."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Campbell |first1=Tarquin |title=Bobby Keys: Sax Sideman Extraordinaire |journal=Rock's Backpages |date=May 2010 |url=https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/bobby-keys-sax-sideman-extraordinaire |access-date=18 June 2025}}</ref> Erik Himmelsbach of the same site writes that despite being notable as Lennon and McCartney's final recording together, "the title of a 30-minute bootleg of the jam – ''A Toot and a Snore'' – says it all. The music was a mess, but Lennon was apparently a gracious host with the blow: 'Do you want a snort, Stevie, a toot? It's going around,' he's heard on the ''Toot'' tape."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Himmelsbach |first1=Erik |title=A Roundhead in a Pointy-Head World: The Tragedy of Harry Nilsson |journal=Rock's Backpages |date=December 2007 }}</ref> Jayson Greene of ''[[Pitchfork (website)|Pitchfork]]'' writes that the bootleg title "came from cocaine, and it sounds that way", describing the session as "mythical, and yet the result was atrocious."<ref name="Greene">{{cite web |last1=Greene |first1=Jayson |title=Albums: Pussy Cats Harry Nilsson |url=https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/harry-nilsson-pussy-cats/ |website=Pitchfork |access-date=18 June 2025 |date=30 August 2020}}</ref>

Lennon biographer James A. Mitchell notes that despite its later issue as a bootleg, the impromptu performance was not something that would have been officially released, as it consists of "scattered bits and pieces of songs pulled from strained memories amid the unspoken expectations. It was fun, but the time and place weren't feted for anything further."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mitchell |first1=James A. |title=The Walrus and the Elephants: John Lennon's Years of Revolution |date=2013 |publisher=Seven Stories Press |location=Liverpool |isbn=9781609804671 |pages=208–209 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nb5vDwAAQBAJ&dq=a+toot+and+a+snore+in+74&pg=PA208 |access-date=18 June 2025}}</ref> [[Jimmy Iovine]], a witness to the session, commented that McCartney chose to play drums "because he was alert enough to say, 'This is not how the Beatles are getting back together'. He was the one in the room who you could see got it."<ref name="Doyle" /> McCartney reflected in 2007: "I'm afraid it was a rather ''heady'' session, shall we say. I don't think it was very good. I mean, that is kinda proof really that [a Beatles reunion] wouldn't necessarily have been great."<ref name="Doyle" />

==Track listing==
#"A Toot and a Snore" – 0:27
#"Bluesy Jam" – 2:33
#"Studio Talk" – 2:40 
#* The group plays a few bars of "[[Little Bitty Pretty One]]" by [[Thurston Harris]], and John sings the first line but says he can't remember any more
#"[[Lucille (Little Richard song)|Lucille]]" – 5:59
#"Nightmares" – 2:38
#* The group is actually playing "[[Sleep Walk]]", the 1959 [[Santo & Johnny]] instrumental hit.<ref name="Engelhardt">{{cite book |last1=Engelhardt |first1=Kristofer |title=Beatles Deeper Undercover |date=1 March 2010 |publisher=Collectors Guide Publishing |isbn=9781926592091 |page=234 |edition=Updated version |quote=The historic evening ended with a jam of "Lucille", "Sleepwalk" (sic), "Stand By Me", "Cupid", "Chain Gang", "Take This Hammer".}}</ref>
#"[[Stand by Me (Ben E. King song)|Stand by Me]]" – 2:18 
#* Mostly Lennon complaining about the sound in his headphones and reminiscing about how it was better half an hour ago.
#"Stand by Me" – 3:41 
#* Lennon complains about the sound again, saying that it was better two hours ago.
#"Stand by Me" – 6:04 
#*Because of Lennon's complaints, the studio has changed the microphone levels on the recording itself (rather than the performers' headphones), and most of his lead vocals can no longer be heard. 
#Medley – 3:10
#*After the general chaos of the Lennon-led session, Stevie Wonder tries steering the group into the following medley. 
#:"[[Cupid (Sam Cooke song)|Cupid]]"
#:"[[Chain Gang (Sam Cooke song)|Chain Gang]]"
#:"[[Take This Hammer]]"

==Personnel==
:in alphabetical order:
*[[Jesse Ed Davis]] – guitar
*[[Mal Evans]] – tambourine
*Ed Freeman – bass
*[[Bobby Keys]] – saxophone
*[[John Lennon]] – guitar, vocals
*[[Linda McCartney]] – organ
*[[Paul McCartney]] – drums, vocals
*[[Harry Nilsson]] – vocals
*[[May Pang]] – tambourine
*[[Stevie Wonder]] – electric piano, vocals (mostly on "Cupid")

Linda McCartney and Freeman are not credited on the bootleg's back cover. After the musicians, Mal Evans is credited with "Tea" and Pang with "Sympathy."<ref name="back cover">{{Cite web |title=A Toot and a Snore in '74 |url=https://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/album/a-toot-and-a-snore-in-74/ |access-date=2022-01-02 |website=The Paul McCartney Project}}</ref>

==Artwork==
The album's front cover is based on ''[[Revolver (Beatles album)|Revolver]]'', the back cover of ''[[Imagine (John Lennon album)|Imagine]]'', and the 1979 compilation album ''[[The Songs Lennon and McCartney Gave Away]]''.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{John Lennon}}
{{Paul McCartney main}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Toot And A Snore In '74}}
[[Category:1992 albums]]
[[Category:Bootleg recordings]]
[[Category:John Lennon albums]]
[[Category:Paul McCartney albums]]
[[Category:Stevie Wonder]]
[[Category:Harry Nilsson]]
[[Category:Jam sessions]]
[[Category:Field recording]]