Peace Sells: When John Lennon's Handwritten Lyrics for "Give Peace a Chance" Sold for Almost $800,000

In 2008, a piece of paper with the handwritten lyrics for the John Lennon-penned "Give Peace a Chance" sold for $790,000 at auction after being estimated to be worth about $400,000 or so.

Credit: Christie's/The Canadian Press

The owner, author Gail Renard was given the lyrics when she was sixteen years old by Lennon during he and Yoko Ono's bed-in against the Vietnam War at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Canada. Renard was with them for all eight days, helping to keep fans and press controlled and looking after Ono's five-year-old daughter, Kyoko. She also had a hand in the first recording for the song, among many other guests, including Timothy Leary, Tommy Smothers, Petula Clark, and Alan Ginsberg. 

She credits Lennon for kicking off her career, with one of her first paid submissions being an interview they had set up. 

If you are interested in learning more about her eight day experience, she talks in-depth about it in her book, titled John Lennon: Give Me a Chance. Click here to read the summary and purchase the book.

Hey there! I'm Olive, and I'm a part-time blog writer hoping to share my love of older music and countercultural history. I started this blog during my freshman year of college as a means to get a head start doing what I love most - writing. I've always loved writing and music, and wanted to do something that would involve doing both. Now, I've got this cool (totally not biased) blog page!

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