Late Beatles legend John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono were never ones to follow convention, especially when it came to romance.
When the iconic couple were at the height of their joint fame in the 1960s, the controversial Vietnam War was raging in South East Asia.
After they married in 1969, instead of whisking away to a tropical island for a honeymoon, Ono and Lennon decided to spend the first few weeks of their newlywed life engaged in a “Bed-In For Peace”.
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‘Bed-ins’ were a common form of protest in the 1960s, a non-violent way to promote peace and call for the end of the Vietnam War.
Ono and Lennon were pioneers for the Bed-Ins for Peace, strategically using the publicity around their marriage to protest the war.
The pair spent a week in bed at the presidential suite at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel in March 1969, inviting reporters and journalists inside their room for 12-hour blocks between 9am and 9pm.
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At first, Lennon and Ono didn’t explain what they were ushering press into a hotel room for.
As The Washington Post reported in 2019, some showed up believing they would witness the Beatles megastar and his wife having sex.
Of course, it was a classic act of misdirection. “There we were like two angels in bed, with flowers all around us, and peace and love on our heads,” Lennon said of the bed-in later.
The music icons didn’t leave the comfort of their king bed for an entire week during their first famous sit-in.
Years later, Lennon explained there was a reason they chose their honeymoon as the backdrop of an anti-war protest.
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“We knew whatever we did was going to be in the papers. We decided to utilise the space we would occupy anyway, by getting married, with a commercial for peace,” Lennon said in The Beatles Anthology.
He also told reporters after the protest that he expected the press wouldn’t take the couple seriously – but that was all part of the plan.
“It’s part of our policy not to be taken seriously,” he explained.
“Our opposition, whoever they may be, in all manifest forms, don’t know how to handle humour. And we are humorous.”
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One bed-in wasn’t enough for Ono and Lennon. Two months later, the pair staged yet another hotel protest in Montreal. They stayed in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel and remained in bed for another seven days.
It was during this protest that Lennon wrote and recorded one of his most famous songs, Give Peace a Chance.
After the bed-ins, Lennon and Ono pushed on with their protest for world peace by purchasing huge billboards around major cities and newspaper ads which read: “If You Want It – Happy Christmas From John and Yoko.”
In 1971, Lennon also released the iconic war song Happy Xmas (War Is Over).
Over 50 years on from their first bed-in, the Amsterdam Hilton room where Lennon and Ono stayed for a week in 1969 is permanently memorialised with graphics on the window and a design on the sheets.
You can even stay at the hotel for around $1800 to $2000 (approx. $3510) per night.
