John Lennon ‘Nearly Killed’ The Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones With a Prank
The Beatles and The Rolling Stones waved off rumors of a feud between the bands, but John Lennon once terrified Brian Jones for his own amusement. Lennon and Jones were friendly, with the former considering Jones an incredible musician. Their relationship meant that Jones was fair game for Lennon’s pranks. Once, Lennon convinced a terrified Jones that the police were going to arrest him.
John Lennon made Brian Jones think the police were after him
When Lennon bought a car, he made a number of modifications, adding a record player, a custom horn that played “Lilli Marlene” when honked, and a microphone attached to speaker systems in the front wheel wells. With the speakers, Lennon could communicate with the outside world, talking to pedestrians or playing the sound of trains and airplanes to confuse people.
He also used the microphone to terrify his friends and acquaintances. If he happened across someone he knew while driving, he used the speaker system to talk directly to them. Once, while driving, he came across Jones and decided to have a little fun at his expense.
“Once we were going through Regent’s Park on our way to North London to do a session,” Paul McCartney said in The Beatles Anthology. “We were in John’s Rolls and we’d just come from his house in Weybridge. Suddenly we pulled up behind Brian Jones, who was sitting quietly in the back of his Austin Princess. John was a very funny guy, and he shouted through the microphone: ‘Brian Jones, do not move! You have been under surveillance — you are under arrest!'”
Jones didn’t find the joke nearly as funny as McCartney and Lennon did.
“Brian leapt up about eight feet and went as white as a sheet, going, ‘Oh my God! Oh my God!'” McCartney recalled. “Then he saw it was us — ‘You bunch of bastards!’ It nearly killed him that day, John was so official-sounding.”
Brian Jones’ arrest record made John Lennon’s prank more believable
Lennon’s prank likely struck a nerve with Jones because he had several run-ins with the law. He was arrested for the first time in 1967 when police found drugs in his home. He was arrested for cannabis possession in 1968. While he faced jail time for his second arrest, a judge sympathized with him and only fined him.
Given his drug use and arrest record, Jones likely had no trouble believing that the police were there for him.
The Beatles felt particularly close to The Rolling Stones’ guitarist
Jones’ relationship with his Rolling Stones bandmates grew increasingly fraught, but he remained on good terms with the members of The Beatles.
“Brian was a nervous sort of guy, very shy, quite serious, and I think maybe into drugs a little more than he should have been because he used to shake a little bit,” McCartney said in the book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles. “He was lovely though.”
McCartney acknowledged that others found Jones annoying, but The Beatles always liked his company.
“I think a lot of people used to get a bit annoyed with him but he was smashing,” he said. “I never really knew his particular tastes, because we’d just meet people on one level: the musician and friend level with a bit of soft drugs generally, and we tended to see the nice side of people.”
