Bed Peace - Amsterdam - March 1969

Bed Peace – Amsterdam 50th ANNIVERSARY!

March 24, 1969

© Madeline Bocaro, 2019. No part of this site may be reproduced in whole or in part in any manner without permission of the copyright owner.

Newlyweds John & Yoko arrive in rainy Amsterdam to begin their Bed-In for peace staying in bed for a week in Room 902 at The Amsterdam Hilton from March 25-31 1969.

Drove from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton
Talking in our beds for a week
The newspapers said / Say what’re you doing in bed
I said we’re only trying to get us some peace

– “The Ballad of John & Yoko”

Photo: Ruud Hoff

Day One – March 25 1969:

“Bed-ins are something that everyone can do and they’re so simple. We’re willing to be the world’s clowns to make people realize it”.

– John Lennon (to Richie York 1969)

Reporters questioned why Yoko was not wearing a wedding ring.

Yoko: It was too big, so it had to go to be altered. It fell off my finger so he drew this ring on instead. I thought it was a lovely thing for him to do.

John: “It’s unlucky not to wear a ring but it wasn’t because of superstition that I drew it. It was just a romantic thing to do.”

Photo: Cor Jaring

Day Two – March 26 1969:

“There we were like two angels in bed, with flowers all around us

and peace and love in our heads.”

– John Lennon

Intermission. The linens must be changed!

Day Three – March 27 1969:

John & Yoko were made honorary members of

The Butterfly Club orchestra who performed for them on this day, 50 years ago.

They were given butterfly necklaces.

Photo: Cor Jaring

Day Four – March, 28, 1969

Hello. This is Yoko.

https://madelinex.com/2014/10/15/hello-this-is-yoko/

The Lennons dined on macrobiotic food and Campbell’s Soup!

Day Five – March, 29, 1969

Back to the Future!

Yoko: So let’s go back to the future, you know. So that’s why we’re here. We want to talk mainly to the young people all over the world because those are the people who are going to be the next generation. They’re going to be the next world, you know, and we just want to say we are with them. We are not preaching or anything like that. We want to be with them and we’re with them and in our way, we’re just announcing that we’re open to all invitations or suggestions or anything to work for the world peace, you see, and we’re doing it in our own way, which we think is the best for us and also the young people have to realise that this is just as bad as before the Second World War or right in the middle of it, you know, that everything, all the violence that is happening in the world now are our responsibility and if we don’t really realise it and immediately start something, action, you know, it’s going to be bad, you know. And it will be exactly like you said; One morning, we find in the newspaper, that the whole world is going to disappear, you know. – “Amsterdam 1969”

Day Six – March 30, 1969

The highlight of our 1969 Bed in for Peace?

When John and I were looking at the moon one night from our bed.

– Yoko, Twitter 11/14/17

“I feel that, these days, there are more activists in the world. I mean, most people are activists now! Isn’t that amazing? That didn’t happen when John and I were doing it. We just didn’t feel like there were that many people with us. But now the whole world is activism! It’s great!”

– Yoko, USA Today 2015

The Hilton Amsterdam is now an iconic attraction in the city. John & Yoko occupied the presidential suite – Room 902 at the time. The room number has since been changed to 702. It is now called The John and Yoko Suite, for €1,991 per night, including breakfast.

Leaving Amsterdam – March 31, 1969

Photos: Eric Koch

Here is a sweet postcard that Yoko sent me in 1991. It’s John’s drawing based on this Amsterdam Bed-in photograph. She wrote on it, “Give Peace a Chance (again!?) Love, Yoko Feb. ‘91.