Whatever Gets You Thru the Night

"Whatever Gets You Thru The Night" is a song on John Lennon's 1974 album Walls and Bridges. It was Lennon's only American solo number one song until the posthumous hit "(Just Like) Starting Over" in 1981. The recording featured Elton John on backing vocals and piano alongside the Muscle Shoals Horns. While in the studio, Elton bet Lennon that the song would top the charts, and such was Lennon's skepticism that Elton secured from him a promise to appear on stage at one of his performances should the record indeed hit number one. When the record did achieve that feat, Lennon appeared at Elton John's Thanksgiving performance at Madison Square Garden on November 28, 1974. It would be his last appearance before a rock audience. Yoko Ono was in the audience, and saw Lennon backstage after the performance. It was the first time in nearly a year and a half that Yoko had seen John in person. Lennon's former bandmates Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr had all enjoyed multiple number one hits in the US prior to this song.

In December, 2005, May Pang told Radio Times: "At night he (John Lennon) loved to channel-surf, and he would pick up phrases from all the shows. One time, he was watching Reverend Ike, a famous black evangelist, who was saying, "Let me tell you guys, it doesn't matter, it's whatever gets you through the night." John loved it and said, "I've got to write it down or I'll forget it." He always kept a pad and pen by the bed. That was the beginning of Whatever Gets You Thru The Night."

In 2007, Yoko Ono granted Amnesty International the opportunity to have a number of bands cover John Lennon's solo songbook, which includes this song. Los Lonely Boys and Les Trois Accords performed it as the second single from the Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur album.

[edit] External links

John Lennon - Whatever Gets You Thru The Night at Graham Calkin's Beatles Pages.

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Preceded by "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" by Bachman-Turner Overdrive	Billboard Hot 100 number one single November 16, 1974	Succeeded by "I Can Help" by Billy Swan