Thursday marks the 48th anniversary of one of the most iconic anti-war anthems ever, “Give Peace a Chance.”
Although it wasn’t released until July 1969, the song was recorded on June 1, 1969 in room 1742 of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in downtown Montreal.
It was the culmination of a week-long “Bed-In For Peace” staged by the Beatles' John Lennon and his new wife Yoko Ono, who arrived in Montreal on May 26, 1969, a month after having a “bed-in” in Amsterdam (pictured above).
On June 1, Lennon and Ono invited a group of people — including drug advocate Timothy Leary, activist comedians Tommy Smothers and Dick Gregory, singer Petula Clark, and poet Allen Ginsberg — to join them in their suite to record “Give Peace a Chance.”
Montreal recording engineer André Perry set up four microphones and a four-track tape recorder to capture the song, which featured Lennon and Smothers on acoustic guitars and Perry doing percussion.
The Fairmont Queen Elizabeth, which re-opens at the end of June following a $140-million renovation, has promised that the Lennon-Ono suite will be “full of surprises.”
Relive this Canadian moment in music history: