John Lennon Thanked His Best Man in This Beatles Song
The Beatles’ songs contain references to their lives and the people they knew. For example, John Lennon used one of The Beatles’ later songs to say “hi” to his best man and thank him. Here’s how another celebrity inspired him to do that.
The Ballad of John and Yoko” is an intriguingly honest song from The Beatles’ catalogue. In the book Lennon Remembers, John revealed songs like “Help!” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” are autobiographical, however, this might not be clear to listeners. In contrast, “The Ballad of John and Yoko” is obviously about John’s relationship with Yoko Ono from its title alone.
The song includes the lyric “Peter Brown called to say/We can make it okay/You can get married in Gibraltar near Spain.” Considering The Beatles’ songs include many named fictional characters like Eleanor Rigby and Molly Jones, one might assume Peter Brown is a character. In fact, Rolling Stone reports he was the assistant of Brian Epstein, The Beatles’ manager. He was even the best man at John and Yoko’s wedding. In Lennon Remembers, John explained why he mentioned Brown in the lyrics of the song.
Source: cheatsheet.com