LONDON - A previously unheard John Lennon song completed shortly before his death disclosed a chilling pointer to his tragic fate as it was released for the first time yesterday.
The song, Help Me To Help Myself, refers to "the angel of destruction" hounding him - and was written only a short time before crazed fan Mark Chapman shot him. Chapman last week sought parole for Lennon's murder but was refused.
The track is on a reissued version of Lennon's final album, Double Fantasy, released to mark what would have been his 60th birthday.
The lyric he penned for the track includes the lines:
"Well, I tried so hard to stay alive,
"But the angel of destruction keeps on hounding me, all around,
"But I know in my heart that we never really parted."
A spokesman for his record label, Parlophone, said it was "spooky" that his words could be interpreted as such a pointed reference to his impending death.
The reissued album includes the last track Lennon completed on the night he died: December 8, 1980. He and his wife Yoko Ono were working on the song Walking On Thin Ice shortly before they left their New York apartment and Lennon was killed by Chapman.
Hitting the shops again is another of his best-known releases, his first post-Beatles solo album, John Lennon Plastic Ono Band from 1970, also with extra tracks.
- NZPA
Lennon's last lines released
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