I've always felt that splitting up was a mistake in many ways," John Lennon has said, and he believes a Beatles revival "would undoubtedly produce some great music." The rift with the McCartneys has mellowed, and even John's wife, Yoko (who thinks society blames her for the breakup), is said to favor a reunion. But for now, after three LPs released during 1974-75, Lennon, 34, has awarded himself a year-long sabbatical. (Last fall, London's Old Vic staged a production based on his poetry and other writing which won surprisingly good reviews.)

The reason is that Yoko gave birth to their first child, Sean Ono, last October, and since then, according to one close Lennon associate, "John's been spending 99 percent of his time playing Frank Family Man, immensely enjoying his son, shopping, dining and walking in Central Park with Yoko and the baby." John and Yoko live in the elegant old Dakota apartment, the scene of the film Rosemary's Baby. And Lennon has grown deeply attached to New York and to the natives who are too blasé to hassle him.

When Lennon isn't spending time en famille he is most likely to be in court these days. He has become by his own description (in Rolling Stone) a "professional witness." His long and costly resistance against Nixon administration-inspired deportation threats (for a marijuana bust) has been successful, and he is awaiting only his "green card" which will allow him to work in the States. He was also victorious in a $42 million suit against him by contending record labels. The transcript of the case ran more than 2,200 pages, and Lennon is now countersuing for $50,000 damages and lost revenues—a move he hopes will discourage what he believes to be nuisance litigation. Sadly, though, he and Yoko have still not located her daughter by her first marriage. Now 12, she is believed to be with her father.

Her pregnancy also gave John an anxious year. Yoko, 43, had suffered a number of miscarriages, required an operation and spent most of the pregnancy in their apartment. John withdrew from public life to be by her side. Now he reports, "Yoko's fine and the father's pretty good, too."