Lennon's most intense feelings were reserved for McCartney. In addition to attacking him through the lyrics of "How Do You Sleep?",Lennon argued with him through the press for three years after thegroup split. The two later began to reestablish something of the closefriendship they had once known, and in 1974 even played music togetheragain for what would be the one and only time (see A Toot and a Snore in '74), before growing apart once more. Lennon said that during McCartney's final visit, in April 1976, they watched the episode of Saturday Night Live in which Lorne Michaels made a $3,000 cash offer to get The Beatles to reunite on the show.[146]The pair considered going to the studio to make a joke appearance,attempting to claim their share of the money, but were too tired.[10] The event was fictionalised in the 2000 television film, Two of Us.[146]
Despite his estrangement from McCartney, Lennon always felt amusical competitiveness with him and kept an ear on his music. Duringhis five-year career break he was content to sit back so long asMcCartney was producing what Lennon saw as garbage. When McCartneyreleased "Coming Up"in 1980, the year Lennon returned to the studio and the last year ofhis life, he took notice. Asked the same year whether the group weredreaded enemies or the best of friends, he replied that they wereneither, and that he had not seen any of them in a long time. But healso said, "I still love those guys. The Beatles are over, but John,Paul, George and Ringo go on."[10]
When Lennon and Ono moved to New York City in August 1971, they befriended two of the Chicago Seven, Yippie anti-war activists Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman.[149] Another anti-war activist, John Sinclair, poet and co-founder of the White Panther Party, was serving ten years in the state prison for selling two joints of marijuana after a series of previous convictions for possession of the drug.[150] At the "Free John Sinclair" concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan on 10 December 1971, Lennon and Ono appeared on stage with David Peel, Phil Ochs, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger and other musicians, as well as Rubin and Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party.[151]John Sinclair",called on the authorities to "Let him be, set him free, let him be likeyou and me." Some 20,000 people were present at the rally, and threedays later the State of Michigan released Sinclair from prison.[152] The performance was recorded, and later appeared on John Lennon Anthology (1998) and Acoustic (2004). Lennon, through his newly written song "
Following the Bloody Sunday massacre in 1972, in which 27 civil rights protestors were shot by the British Army during a Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association march, Lennon said that given the choice between the army and the IRAhe would side with the latter, and in 2000, Britain's domestic securityservice MI5 said that Lennon had given money to the IRA.[153] Biographer Bill Harry records that following Bloody Sunday, Lennon and Ono financially supported the production of the film The Irish Tapes, a political documentary with a pro-IRA slant.[154]
On 23 March 1973, Lennon was ordered to leave the US within 60 days.[159]Ono, meanwhile, was granted permanent residence. In response, Lennonand Ono held a press conference on 1 April 1973 at the New York chapterof the American Bar Association, where they announced the formation ofthe state of Nutopia; a place with "no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people".[