A first draft of Beatles song I’m Only Sleeping leads a flurry of pop memorabilia up for grabs at Christie’s in London next week, the auction house said on Thursday.
Christie’s is auctioning more than 230 lots of rare recordings, instruments and clothes on Wednesday, with John Lennon’s draft lyrics for I’m Only Sleeping expected to fetch in excess of £200 000.
The late ex-Beatle’s song was sketched out mostly in blue felt pen in 1966 before ending up on the Revolver album.
The draft is briefer than the final recorded version and shows deletions, alterations and variations to the text as Lennon worked out the song’s wording and title.
Beatles fanatics can also bid for the only known recording of the Beatles performing in Hong Kong, estimated to make between £30 000 and £40 000.
The group played at the Princess Theatre in Kowloon on June 9, 1964 and the reel-to-reel recording made by a journalist in the audience contains 10 full songs.
A previously unheard and undocumented interview with Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono in May 1969, at their famous ”Bed-In For Peace” protest in Montreal is expected to fetch £15 000 to £20 000.
The hour-long tape was never broadcast and has been locked away in a trunk ever since.
The auction also includes a 1963 Gibson acoustic guitar given by Sony Music to Noel Gallagher in 1995 to mark the success of his band Oasis’s second album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?.
Gallagher played the instrument at numerous concerts and recordings. It is expected to fetch between £4 000 and £6 000.
Other items in the pop memorabilia auction include guitars once belonging to Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend of The Who, and a catsuit worn by flamboyant Queen singer Freddie Mercury.