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John Lennon October 1974

Title: Whatever Gets You Thru The Night Promo Filming
Type: Promo Video Raw Footage
Filming Location: Various Locations, New York, USA
Filming Date: October 17th 1974
Broadcast Date: February 1975 (excerpts)
Country Of Broadcast: UK/USA
Duration: 23:56 Minutes
Quality: C (Raw Footage); A- ("Mind Games" Promo 2003)
Source: "John Lennon - Holy Grails, Upgrades & Reconstructions Vol 2" (HMC)
Other Sources: "Mind Games" ("Lennon Legend" DVD 2003) (4:11)
Notes: A BBC film crew filmed John today in various locations in New York for potential use for a promo video
of John`s new single "Whatever Gets You Through The Night" to be shown exclusively on "Top of The Pops".
For whatever reason the video never eventuated but some of the footage was used in a short edited version of "#9 Dream" which was shown on "Top of The Pops" in early 1975.
Yoko also used some of that same footage for a 1992 promo of "Mind Games" but the majority of the raw footage was still seemingly lost but out of the blue it all turned up again in the early 2000`s
and was soon acquired by Yoko who then used 4 minutes of the reported 40 minutes of footage in a new version of the song "Mind Games" in 2003.
Recently in 2018 over 23:56 minutes of the raw footage came to light on bootleg DVD but only in average quality.

Title: #9 Dream Promo
Type: Promo Video
Filming Location: Various Locations, New York, USA
Filming Date: October 17th 1974
Broadcast Date: February 27th 1975
Country Of Broadcast: UK
Duration: 01:50 Minutes
Quality: B
Source: John Lennon - Holy Grails, Upgrades & Reconstructions Vol 2" (HMC)
Other Sources: "John Lennon 1974" (FFD Productions)
Notes: So the footage that the BBC film crew had filmed back in October 1974 in New York, for whatever reason, was not used to promote "Whatever Gets You Thru The Night"
but in February 1975 John released another single - "#9 Dream" and the powers that be decided to use the "Whatever.." footage to make a promo video for "#9 Dream" instead.
Now seeing as the song is almost 5 minutes long, for some strange reason they reportedly edited (well faded out) the song at 1:50 mins along with the accompanying video footage.
Whether a 5 minute edit was actually made for "#9 Dream" is unknown but 1:50 mins is all that was broadcast.
What seems to be the original edited promo appears on the FFD DVD "John Lennon 70's Collection Vol 3" but with the actual song "Whatever Gets You Thru The Night"
overdubbed as the soundtrack which confuses the situation even more (this might have been a bootleggers decision to swap the soundtrack song).
Otherwise we don't think the original broadcast promo has ever been bootlegged assuming the FFD version is the original (sans #9 Dream as it's soundtrack).
We will update this entry when and if further information comes to light.

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