Allusions in "The Ballad of John and Yoko"

The many allusions in the song “The Ballad of John and Yoko” recount the activities of John Lennon and Yoko Ono during March and April 1969. The song begins by describing the difficulty the couple had getting from London to Gibraltar where the two were to get married. In the third verse of the song, John alludes to his and Yoko’s famous Bed-in for Peace; “Drove from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton, / Talking in our beds for a week. / The newspapers said, "Say what you doing in bed?" / I said, ‘We're only trying to get us some peace’.” While at the Amsterdam Hilton the two invited reporters into their room at the Hilton Hotel as they promoted world Peace.

After their Bed-in for Peace, John and Yoko departed for Vienna where they continued their peace campaign by holding a bagism conference; “Made a lightning trip to Vienna, / eating chocolate cake in a bag.” Bagism involved wearing a large bag over your body to conceal a person’s physical features; the idea was to satirize and prejudice and stereotypes.