Lennon lyrics: “worth something one day”

The New York Times ran a short piece about the then 16 year-old Gail Renard who snuck into the bed-in organised John Lennon and Yoko Ono in Montreal in 1969. At one stage, she witnessed some 50 people sing “Give Peace a Chance”. Choirboys included Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg as well as Petula Clark. Lennon handed Renard a lyric sheet of the song when leaving, saying “one day they will be worth something”. At an upcoming auction, Sotheby’s has estimated the something to be in the region of $400-600,000. This is a hefty chunk. But it must be pointed out that at most auctions of this kind, lyrics only rarely meet the estimates. It’s the actual authors’ rights that bring in the money.