JOHN LENNON: Oh, you got notes and all that. 
JANN WENNER: Yeah. 
Well, we have to get it right, don't we? Gives me the paper to doodle 
on. When you get through the first one, I'll have it. Where to start? 
Don't be shy. 
No, I'm not shy Are you pleased with your new album?' 
Yes. I'm very pleased. There's lots of things I would have liked to 
improve. 
Like what? 
I learned a lot on this album, technically, that I didn't have to learn 
so much before [because] there'd be George, Paul and I all listening to 
it and I wouldn't have to think so much about each individual sound. 
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, released by Apple/Capitol in I970, was Lennon's first album after the Beatles' official break-up. 
 


 
So there's a few things I learned about bass on one track or the other. 
Some technical things irritated me, but as a concept and as a whole 
thing, I'm pleased. If I get down to the nitty gritty it'd drive me mad. 
But I like it. Otherwise I wouldn't have put it out. 
When you record, do you go for feeling or for perfection of the SOI~~? 
Well, I like both. I go for feeling. Most takes are right off and most 
times I sang it and played it at the same time. I can't stand- 
Overdubbing? 
Putting the backing [first], which is what we used to do a lot in the 
old days. But [those tracks are] always dead. They'd gotten to that sort 
of dead Beatles sound or dead recording sound. Some of them are the 
second take or something, right off. 
It starts out with bells. Why? 
Well, I was watching TV as usual in California, and there was this 
old horror movie on. I just heard the bells, which sounded like that to 
me. But they were probably different cause those that I used on the 
album were actually other bells slowed down. I just thought, "That's how to start 'Mother.'" Iknew "Mother" was going to be the first track. 
You said you wrote most of the album in California? 
Well, a lot of it. Actually I wrote "Mother" and "Isolation" in 
England. I finished them off in California. You have to push me if you 
want more detail-cause otherwise I'll just forget. "Look at Me" was 
written around the Beatles' double album time, but I just never got it 
done. There are a few like that lying round. 
You said that this would be the first primal album.2 
John and Yoko Ono began primal scream therapy with its originator Dr. 
Arthur Janov in April I970. 
 
When did I say that? 
In California. Have you gone (ff that? 
No, no, I haven't gone off it, it's just like primal is like another 
mirror, you know, and I just. .. 
YOKO ONO: Because he, like any artist, really wants to be honest with himself and the albums. What he does is- instead of just patching up something 
that's sort of interesting-he really puts himself in it, his life in it. Like 
when he went to India and he was influenced by Maharishi and so forth.3 
JOHN: It's like [how] writers take themselves to Singapore to get the 
atmosphere. So wherever I am .. .in that way it's a primal album, but 
is George's [All Things Must Pass] the first Gita album?4 So it's that relevant. 
YOKO:
The primal scream is like a mirror, and he was looking at the 
mirror. 
Let's talk about Arthur janov for a second.' When you came out to San 
Francisco yoII wanted to do that advertisement [promoting primal scream 
therapy]. You wanted to say, "This is it." 
Well, I think that's something people go through at the beginning of 
that therapy cause you're so astounded at what you find out about 
yourself, you think, surely this is something. Because it happens to you, 
' 
Lennon and the other Beatles were adherents of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi 
guru from I967 to I968, and spent time on Maharishi's ashram in India in 
I968, studying transcendental meditation. 
George Harrison continued to study Indian spirituality, including the 
Bhngnvad-Gita. 
The psychologist who created primal scream therapy, which helped patients 
overcome problems by reliving childhood pain, then releasing pain with 
crying and screaming. 
 


 
you think, well this must be the first time it's happened. So I was just 
full of it, like that. Also, I need to have a reason for going somewhere, 
otherwise I'm too nervous. So I conned meself, and that was a good 
way of coming to San Francisco [laugh]to see you. Then I have an 
objective: I'm going to do an advert . .. Then we settle down, we just 
talk. So it's really like that But I still think the therapy's great, but I just 
don't want to make it into a big Maharishi thing. You were right to tell 
me, "Forget the advert." And that's why I don't even want to talk too 
much about it. If people know what I've been through there, and if they 
want to find out, they can find out. Otherwise it turns into that again. 
Yeah. So you no longer feel that this is the single thing to do, but just one 
of a number of therapies- I don't know, because I've no idea about any other therapy I don't 
think anything else would work on me so well. But then of course I'm 
not through with it. It's a process that's going on-we primal almost daily And the only difference-I don't really want to get this big primal 
thing going because it gets so embarrassing. And in a nutshell, primal 
therapy allowed us to feel feelings continually, and those feelings usually make you cry That's all. Before I wasn't feeling things-I was 
having blocks to the feelings, and the feelings come through, you cry. 
It's as simple as that really. 
Do you think the experience of therapy helped you become a better 
singer? 
Oh no. 
Do you think your-singing is better- on this album? 
Well, it's probably better because I've got the whole time to meself. 
I'm pretty good at home with me tapes [argh].But this time it was my album~. It used to get a bit embarrassing in front of George and Paul 
 
cause we know each other so well: "Oh, he's trying to be Elvis, oh he's 
doing this now," you know. We're a bit supercritical of each other. SO 
we inhibited each other a lot. And now I had Yoko there and Phil 
[Spector]~there, alternatively and together, who sort of love me, okay, 
so I can perform better. And I relaxed. I've got a studio at home now 
and I think it'll be better next time cause that's even less inhibiting than 
going to EMI [Studios]. It's like that The looseness of the singing was 
developing on "Cold Turkey" from the experience of Yoko's singing- 
she does not inhibit her throat.~ 
It says on the album that Yoko does "wind." 
Yeah. Well, she plays wind. She played the atmosphere. 
vow: I was around. 
JOHU: No, she wasn't around, she has a musical ear and she can produce 
rock 6T roll. She can produce me, which she did for some of the tracks 
when Phil couldn't come at first. I'm not going to start saying that she 
did this and he did that. You don't have to have been born and bred in 
rock. She knows when a bass sounds right and when the guy's playing 
out of rhythm and when the engineer . , .She has a bit of trouble, the 
engineer thinks, 'Well, who the hell this-what does she know about 
it?" 
Working Class Hero" sounds like an early Dylan song. 
Well, anybody that sings with a guitar and just sings about some- 
thing heavy will tend to sound like Dylan I'm bound to be influenced 
The legendary producer responsible for the "Wall of Sound style of 
production that he pioneered with girl groups beginning in I96I. Spector 
co-produced Plastic Ono Band with John and Yoko. 

"Cold Turkey" was a single that Plastic Ono Band released in October I969 
 


 
by [those] because that's the only kind of really folk music I ever listened to. I never liked the fruity Judy Collins and Joan] Baez and all 
that stuff. So the only folk music I know is those [sings] about miners 
up in Newcastle. Or Dylan. So in that way I've been influenced, but it 
doesn't sound like Dylan to me. Does it sound like Dylan to you? 
Only in the instrumentation .. .the acoustic guitar strumming. 
But that's the only way to play you know, you go jing-jing-a-jing-a-
jing-jing-a-I never listened that hard to him, you know? 
What\ November 5th?8 
In England it's the day they blew up the Houses of Parliament. We 
celebrate it by having bonfires every November the 5th. It was just an 
ad lib. It was about the third take, and it begins to sound like Frankie 
Laine-when you're singing [sings] "remember, remember, the 5th of 
November." And Ijust broke and it went on for about another seven or 
eight minutes. I was just ad libbing and goofing about. But then I cut it 
there and it just exploded cause it was a good joke. Haven't you ever 
heard of Guy Fawkes? 
Guy Fawkes, that Guy Fawkes Day? 
That's Guy Fawkes Day, yeah. And I thought it was just poignant 
that we should blow up the Houses of Parliament [laugh]. 
Do you get embarrassed sometimes when you hear the album, when you 
think about how personal it is? 
No-sometimes I can hear it and be embarrassed, just by the performance or by the music or by the statements. And sometimes I don't. 
' A reference in .'Working Class Hero" to the date in I605when conspirators 
plotted to blow up England's Houses of Parliament. 
 
I change daily Just before it's coming out, I can't bear to hear it in the 
house, or play it anywhere. But a few months before that I can play it 
to everyone. It just changes all the time. Sometimes I used to listen to 
something, I don't know, Buddy Holly or anything, one day the record 
would sound twice as fast as the next day Did you ever experience that 
on a single? I used to have that, like "Hound Dog" or something, one 
day it'd sound very slow and one day it would sound very fast. And it 
was just the mood, just my feeling towards it. The way I heard it. So it 
can do that. But that's where you've got to make your artistic judgment 
to say, "Well this is the take and this isn't." That's where you have to 
make the decision when it sounds reasonable. 
What is you!- concept of pain? 
I don't know what you mean really. 
The song "God" starts out by saying "God is a concept by which we 
measure our pain." 
Our pain is the pain we go through all the time. You're born in 
pain, and pain is what we're in most of the time. And I think that the 
bigger the pain, the more gods we need. 
There's a tremendous body of philosophic literature about God as a measurement of pain. 
Oh, I never heard about it. See, it was my own revelation. I don't 
know who wrote about it or what anybody else said. I just know that's 
what I know. Amazing. 
YOKO: You just felt it. 
JOHN: Yeah, Ifelt it, you see. So when I felt it, it's like I was crucified. SO 
I know what they're talking about now. 
 


 
What's the difference between the producing styles of George Martin and 
Phil Spector?" 
Well, George Martin-I don't know. You see, for quite a few of our 
albums, like the Beatles' double album, George Martin didn't really 
produce it. I don't know whether this is standard but he didn't, I can't 
remember. In the early days I can remember what George Martin did. 
What did he do? 
He would translate. If Paul wanted to use violins and that, he would 
translate it for him. Like in "In My Life," there's an Elizabethan piano 
solo in it. So he would do things like that. I would say, "Play it like Bach 
or something, could you put twelve bars in there?" And he helped us 
develop a language a little, to talk to musicians. Because I'm very shy 
and [for] many, many reasons, I didn't very much go for musicians. I 
didn't like to have to go and see twenty guys sitting there and try to tell 
them what to do. Because they were always so lousy anyway. So apart 
from the early days, I didn't have much to do with it. I did it meself. 
Why do you use Phil now instead of George? 
Well, it's not instead of George Martin. I would not use anybody. 
That's nothing personal against George Martin, he just doesn't-he's 
more Paul's style of music than mine. 
Did Phil make any special contributions? 
Phil-yes, yes. You can hear Spector here and there. There's no 
specifics, you can just hear him. Because Phil is, I believe, a great artist. 
But like all great artists, he's very neurotic. But we've done quite a few 
tracks together, Yoko and I, and she'd be encouraging me in the other 
George Marlin signed the Beatles to Parlophone/EMI in I962 and became 
their longtime producer. 
 
room and all that. And we were just lagging, and Phil moved in and brought in a new life to it because we were getting heavy We'd done a 
few things, and the thrill of recording had worn off a little. 
What do you think of the album overall? 
I think it's the best thing I've ever done. I think it's realistic and it's 
true to the me that has been developing over the years from "In My 
Life," "I'm a Loser," "Help!," "Strawberry Fields." They were all personal records. I always wrote about me and didn't really enjoy writing 
third-person songs about people who lived in concrete flats and things. 
I like first-person music. But because of hangups and many other 
things, I would only now and then specifically write about me. And 
now I wrote all about me, and that's why I like it. It's me, and nobody else. So I like it. 
There's an honesty to it. . . 
It's real, you know. It's about me, and I don't know about anything 
else really The only true songs I ever wrote were "Help!" and 
"Strawberry Fields." And I can name a few, I can't think of them off- 
hand, that I always considered my best songs. They were the ones that 
I really wrote from experience and not projecting myself into a situation and writing a nice story about it, which I always found phony. But 
I'd find occasion to do it because I've had to produce so much work or 
because I'd be so hung up I couldn't even think about myself. 
On this album there's practically no imagery at all. .. 
No. Because there was none in my head. There were no hallucinations. 
There's no "newspaper taxi" . . . 
NO,I was consciously writing poetry then, and that's self-conscious 
poetry. But the poetry on this album is superior to anything I've done 
 


 
because it's not self-conscious in that way. I had least trouble writing the 
songs of all time. 
YOKO:
There's no bullshit. 
JOHN: Yeah, no bullshit. 
The music is very simple and very sparse. .. 
Well, I always liked simple rock. There's a great one in England 
now, "I Hear You Knocking."'~ 
And I liked "Spirit in the Sky" a few 
months back." I always liked simple rock and nothing else. I was 
influenced by acid and got psychedelic, like the whole generation, but 
really, I like rock and roll. I express myself best in rock, and I had a few 
ideas to do this with "Mother" and that with "Mother," but the piano 
does it all for you. Your mind can do the rest of it. I think the backings 
on [my record] are as complicated as the backings on any record you've 
ever heard. If you've got an ear, you can hear. Any musician will tell 
you, just play a note on a piano, it's got a lot of harmonics in it. So it got 
to that. What the hell, it didn't need anything else. 
How did you put together that litany in "God"? 
What's litany? 
The "I don't believe in magic," how the song starts off. 
Well, like a lot of the words, they just came out of me mouth. It 
started off like that. "God" was stuck together from three songs almost. 
I had the idea, "God is the concept by which we measure our pain." So 
when you have a [phrase] like that, you just sit down and sing the first 
tune that comes into your head. And the tune is the simple [sings] 
lo Dave Edmunds' I970 hit remake of Smiley Lewis' I955 song. 
lI Norman Greenbaum's one and only hit, which rose to Number Three on the 
U.S. charts in I969. 
 
"God is the concept-bomp-bomp-bomp-bomp" cause I like that kind of 
music. And then I just rolled into it. [Sings]"I don't believe in magic- 
and it was just going on in me head. And "I Ching" and "the Bible," the 
first three or four just came out, whatever came out. 
When did you know that you were going to be working toward the line 
"I don't believe in Beatles"? 
I don't know when I realized I was putting down all these things I 
didn't believe in. I could have gone on, it was like a Christmas card 
list-where do I end? Churchill, and who have I missed out? It got like 
that and I thought I had to stop. .. . I was going to leave a gap and say, 
just fill in your own, for whoever you don't believe in. It just got out of 
hand. But Beatles was the final thing because it's like I no longer believe 
in myth, and Beatles is another myth. I don't believe in it. The dream's 
over. I'm not just talking about the Beatles is over, I'm talking about the 
generation thing. The dream's over, and I have personally got to get 
down to so-called reality. 
When did you become aware that "God" would be the song played the 
most on the radio? 
Well, I didn't know that. They started off playing "Look at Me" 
because it was easy and they probably thought it was the Beatles or 
something. So I don't know, if that is the one, well that's the one. "God" 
and "Working Class Hero" probably are the best sort of ideas or feelings 
on the record. 
In "God," why did you choose to refer to Dylan as Zimmerman rather 
than Dylan? 
Because Dylan is bullshit. Zimmerman is his name. I don't believe in 
Dylan-I don't believe in Tom Jones, either, in that way. Zimmerman is 
his name. My name isn't John Beatle, it's John Lennon. Just like that. 
 


 
Why did you tag "My Mummy's Dead" at the end? 
Because that's what's happened. All these songs just came out of 
me. I didn't sit down to think, "I'm going to write about my mother" or 
I didn't sit down to think, "I'm going to write about this, that or the 
other." They all came out, like all the best work of anybody's ever does. 
All these came out because I had the time. If you're on holiday or in 
therapy and you spend the time-like in India, where I could write a 
lot, I wrote the last batch of my best songs. "I'm So Tired" and "Yer 
Blues" were pretty sort of realistic.I2 They were about me, and they 
always struck me as-not, what's the word? Funny . . .ironic?-that I 
was writing supposedly in the presence of [a] guru and meditating so 
many hours a day, writing, "I'm So Tired" . . . 
Songs of pain. 
Songs of such pain as "Yer Blues," which I meant. I was trying to 
express it in blues idiom cause . . . 
YOKO:
"Cold Turkey" too. 
JOHN: "Cold Turkey." I was in Maharishi's camp writing "I want to 
die.. ." 
Was "Yer Blues" also deliberately meant to be a parody of the English 
blues thing? 
No-well a bit, because I'm a bit-we all are self-conscious. And the 
Beatles are super self-conscious people about parodying Americans, 
which we do and have done. I know we developed our own style, but we 
still in a way parody American music. This is interesting because in the 
early days in England all the groups were like Elvis and a backing group. 
'' Both songs are on the Beatles' I968 self-titled double album, known as the "White Album." 
 
And the Beatles deliberately didn't move like Elvis. That was our policy 
because we found it stupid and bullshit. And then Mick Jagger came out 
and resurrected bullshit movement, wiggling your ass and that. So then 
people began to say, "The Beatles are passe because they don't move." But 
we did it as an intellectual-when we were younger, we used to move, 
we used to jump around. do all the things they're doing now, like going 
onstage with toilet seats and shitting and pissing, that's what we were 
doing in Hamburg. And smashing things up. It wasn't a thing that Pete 
Townshend sort of worked out, it's something that you do when you play 
six or seven hours. There's nothing else to do, you smash the place up, 
you insult everybody But we were groomed, and we dropped all that, 
and whatever it was we started off talking about-which was what? 
About singing-what was it? What was the beginning of that? 
That "Yer Blues" was deliberately parodying. .. 
Yeah, yeah, so there's a self-consciousness about suddenly singing 
blues. We were all listening to Sleepy John Estes and all that in art 
school, like everybody else. But to sing it was something else. And so I 
was self-conscious about doing it. I think Dylan does it a lot. In case 
he's not sure of himself, he makes it a double entendre, so therefore 
you're secure in your hipness. But Paul was saying, "Don't call it 'Yer 
Blues,' just say it straight." But I was self-conscious and I went for "Yer 
Blues." But I think all that is past now, because we've all got over it, that 
self-consciousness. 
~C~KO:
I think John being John is a bit unfair to his music in a way I'd 
like to just add a few things. He can go on for an hour or something, 
but I mean one thing is, like about Arthur Janov. Say if John fell in love, 
you know, he's always falling in love with all sorts of things-
Maharishi, whatnot. . . I just think that he just goes on falling in love 
 


 
with all sorts of things. But, say, he fell in love with some girl or some- 
thing and he wrote a song; who he fell in love with is not very 
important, it's the outcome of it, the song itself is important. 
You would have to say that a song like "Well, Well, Well" is connected 
with primal therapy. 
JOHN: Why? 
YOKO: Why? 
The screams. 
JOHN:NO, no, but listen to "Cold Turkey." 
YOKO:
Well, he's screaming already there. 
JOHN: Listen to "Twist and Shout." I couldn't sing the damn thing, I was 
just screaming. Listen to ''A-wop-bop-a-loo-wop-a-wop-bam-boom."'3 
Don't get the therapy confused with the music. 
YOKO: I was screaming. 
JOHN:
And Yoko's whole thing was that scream. Listen to "Don't Worry 
Kyoko." It's one of the fuckin' best rock &roll records ever made. Listen 
to it and play "Tutti Frutti." Listen to "Don't Worry Kyoko," the other 
side of "Cold Turkey." I'm digressing for a moment, but if somebody 
with a rock-oriented mind can possibly listen to her stuff, you'll see what 
she's doing. It's fantastic. It's as important as anything we ever did and as 
important as anything the Stones or Townshend ever did. Listen to it, 
and you'll hear what she's puttin' down. And on "Cold Turkey," I'm get- 
ting towards it. I'm influenced by her music one thousand percent more 
than I ever was by Dylan. She makes music like you've never heard on 
earth. And when the musicians play with it, they're inspired out of their 
I3 A line from Little Richard's first hit, "Tutti Frutti." which was released in late 
I955. 
 
skulls. I don't know how much they play it later . . . We've got a cut of 
her from the Lyceum in London with thirty-fifteen or twenty musicians playing with her, from Bonnie and Delaney and the fuckin' lot. We 
played the tracks the other night, and it's the most fantastic music I've 
ever heard. They've probably gone away and forgotten all about it. We're 
gonna put it out. It's fantastic! It's twenty years ahead of its time. There's 
a track with Ornette Coleman from the past that we put on [the record] 
to show people that Yoko wasn't discovered by the Beatles, that she's been around a few years. We've got stuff of her with [John] Cage, Ornette Coleman that we're putting out. We're going to put Oldies but 
Goldies out next for Yoko. Anyway, back to mine. 
When you talked about "Cold Turkey," you said, "That's not a song, 
that's a diary." 
JOHN: Yeah, well so is this. 
YOKO:
Everything. 
JOHN:SO is this. And I announced "Cold Turkey" at the Lyceum, saying, 
"I'm gonna sing a song about pain." So pain and screaming was before 
Janov. I went through therapy, like I told you, with him. And I'm probably looser all over. 
Are you less paranoid now? 
No, but I can feel my own fear, I can feel my own pain. Therefore, I 
can handle it better than I could before. That's all. I'm the same. Only 
there's a channel. It doesn't just remain in me. It goes round, and I can 
move a little easier. 
What was your experience with heroin? 
Heroin. it just was not too much fun. I never injected it. We sniffed 
 


 
a little when we were in real pain. I mean we just couldn't-people 
were giving us such a hard time- 
YOKO: We didn't get into it so much. 
IOHN:
No. But we got such a hard time from everyone. And I've had 
so much shit thrown at me and especially at Yoko. People like Peter 
Brown in our office, he comes down and shakes my hand and doesn't 
even say hello to her.I4 Now that's going on all the time. And we get 
in so much pain that we have to do something about it. And that's 
what happened to us. We took H because of what the Beatles and 
their pals were doing to us. And we got out of it. They didn't set 
down to do it, but things came out of that period. And I don't 
forget. 
YOKO: Let's go back to what he was saying about Phil Spector. I mean John 
really produced his own stuff. Like Phil is, as you know, well known as a 
very skillful sort of technician in electronics and engineering and all that. 
JOHN:
But let's not take away from what he did do, which was bring a lot 
of energy and taught me a lot. And I would use him again. 
YOKO:
Yes, but he's so definite about things. 
JOHN:
I know what I want, you see. When I say to Phil, "I want this," he 
gets it for me like that [snaps fingers]. 
YOKO:
There's a lot of Spector sound in it ... 
JOHN:YOU can hear Spector on the album. 
You can hear the voices the way Spector- ... 
JOHN: No, he-no, no, that was me. I did that before Phil came. I did 
quite-quite a lot of it before he came. 
I' Peter Brown was the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein's assistant, who later 
served as Director of Apple Corps. 
 
YOKO:
And also that "Mother" bell, he was saying, "It's a church bell and 
it's connected with his childhood." He was always saying, "Sundays I 
heard church bells." 
JOHN: Yeah, I read an article on some new Southern country singer 
who wrote something like "Sunday's a lonely day."" Okay. 
On your past records, like "Sgt. Pepper's," it's "Come and see the show" 
and this record's so personal ... 
Paul said, "Come and see the show." I didn't. I said, "I read the 
news today, oh boy," that's what I said. I'm "Mr. Kite," mind you. 
You're "Mr. Kite"? 
No, no. I wrote that as a pure poetic job, to write a song sitting there. 
I had to write because it was time to write. And I had to write it quick 
because otherwise I wouldn't have been on the album [laugh]. So I had 
to knock off a few songs. I knocked off "A Day in the Life," or my section of it, and whatever we were talking about, "Mr. Kite," or something 
like that. I was very paranoid in those days, I could hardly move. 
I read that little interview done at the time when you went to the Rock 
&Roll Revival in Toronto and you said you were throwing up before you 
went onstage. .. 
Yeah, I was. We were full of junk too. Ijust threw up for hours till I 
went on. I nearly threw up in "Cold Turkey-I had a review in 
ROLLINGSTONE about the film of it-which I haven't seen yet, and they're saying, "I was this and that." And I was throwing up nearly in 
the number, I could hardly sing any of them, I was full of shit. 
Would you still be that nervous if you appeared in public? 
" Lennon is possibly referring to Kris Kristofferson, who wrote "Sunday Morning Coming Down" in I969. 
 


 
Always that nervous, but with one thing and another [laugh], it just 
had to come out some way. I don't think I'll do much appearing. It's not 
worth the strain. I don't want to perform too much for people. 
What do you think of George's album? 
I don't know, I think it's alright. [pause] At home, I wouldn't play 
that kind of music, but I don't want to hurt George's feelings. I mean I 
don't know how to say about it. I think it's better than Paul's. 
What do you think of Paul's? 
I thought Paul's was rubbish. I think he'll make a better one when 
he's frightened into it. But I thought that first one was light and what- 
ever. But when I listen to the radio and I hear George's stuff coming 
over, well then it's pretty goody-good. It's like that. But my personal 
tastes are very strange. 
What do your personal tastes run to? 
"Wop bop a loo bop." You know? I mean I like rock & roll, man, I- 
I don't like much else. 
Why rock G roll? 
That's the music that inspired me to play music. There's nothing 
conceptually better than rock & roll. No group, be it Beatles, Dylan or 
Stones, has ever improved on "Whole Lotta Shakin' [Goin' On]" for my 
money.I6 Maybe I'm like our parents, that's my period. I dig it and I'll 
never leave it. 
What do you think of the rock G roll scene today? 
I don't know what it is. You'd have to name it. 
Do you get any pleasure out of the Top Ten? Do you listen to the Top 
Ten? 
I6 Jerry Lee Lewis' signature song from I957 
 
No, I never listen, only when I'm recording or about to bring some- 
thing out. And I'll listen, just before I record, to a few albums to see 
what people are doing, if they improved any or if anything has happened. And nothing's really happened. There's a lot of great guitarists 
and musicians around, but nothing's happening. I mean I don't like the 
Blood, Sweat and Tears shit-I think all that is bullshit. Rock & roll is 
doing like jazz, as far as I can see. And the bullshitters are going off into 
that excellentness, which I never believed in. I consider myself in the 
avant garde of rock & roll, because Yoko taught me a lot and I taught 
her a lot. And I think on her album, you can hear it. If I can get away 
from her album for a minute. 
What did you think of Dylan's album?'' 
I thought it wasn't much, because I expect more. Maybe I expect 
too much from people, but I expect more. I haven't been a Dylan follower since he stopped rocking. I like "Rolling Stone" and the few 
things he did then. I like a few things he did in the early days, but the 
rest of it's just like McCartney or something. It's no different-it's a 
myth. 
You don't think then that it's a legitimate "new morning"? 
No, it's a lot of bullshit. It might be a new morning for him 
because he's stopped singing on the top of his-[demonstrates] high 
up there. And he's singing down there [demonstrates]. I mean it's 
alright, but it's nothing. It doesn't mean a fucking thing. I'd sooner 
have "I Hear You Knocking" by Dave Edmunds that's top [of the 
charts] in England now. [Sings] "You went away and left me a long 
time ago-all that. 
" New Morning, released in I970. 
 


 
It's strange that George comes out with this Hare Krishna Gita LP And 
you come out with the opposite. How do you think George will react to 
that? 
Well. I don't know. I can't imagine what George thinks. But I sup- 
pose he thinks I've lost the way, or something like that. But to me I'm 
home. I'll never change much from this. 
Let's reapproach that. The Beatles were talked about as being four parts 
of the same person. What's happened to those four parts? 
They remembered that they were four individuals. You see, we 
believed the Beatles myth, too. I don't know whether the others still 
believe it, but we were four guys that-I met Paul and said, "Do you 
want to join me band?" and then George joined and then Ringo joined. 
We were just a band who made it very very big-that's all. Our best 
work was never recorded. 
Why? 
Because we were performers in spite of what Mick [Jagger] says 
about us, in Liverpool, Hamburg and around the dance halls. What we 
generated was fantastic when we played straight rock, and there was 
nobody to touch us in Britain. But as soon as we made it, the edges 
were knocked off. Brian Epstein put us in suits and all that, and we 
made it very very big. We sold out. The music was dead before we even 
went on the theater tour of Britain. We were feeling shit already, 
because we had to reduce an hour or two hours' play-and which we 
were glad [to do] in one way-to twenty minutes, and go on and repeat 
the same twenty minutes every night. The Beatles' music died then, as 
musicians. That's why we never improved as musicians. We killed our- 
selves then to make it-and that was the end of it. George and I are 
more inclined to say that. We always missed the club dates cause that's 
when we were playing music. Then later on we became technically 
efficient recording artists, which was another thing. Because we were 
competent people, whatever media you put us in, we can produce 
something worthwhile. 
How do you rate yourself as a guitarist? As a musician? 
Well, it depends what kind of guitarist .. . 
Rock G. roll. 
I'm okay, I'm not technically very good, but I can make it fucking 
howl and move. I was rhythm guitarist, and it's an important job. I can 
make a band drive. 
How do you rate George? 
He's pretty good. I prefer meself-l have to be honest. I'm really very 
embarrassed about my guitar playing in one way because it's very poor. 
I can never move. But I can make a guitar speak. I think there's a guy 
called Ritchie Valens-no, Richie Havens? Did he play very strange 
guitar? He's a black guy that was on at the Isle of Wight concert, sang 
"Strawberry Fields" or something. 
Oh, Richie Havens. 
Yeah, he plays like one chord all the time-pretty funky guitar. He 
doesn't seem to be able to play in the real sense. I'm like that. But 
Yoko's made me get cocky about me guitar cause she keeps saying- 
Okay, see, one part of me says, "Yes, of course I can play because I can 
make a rock move." But the other part of me says, "Well, I wish I 
could just do it like B.B. King." If you put me with B.B., I'll feel silly. 
But I'm an artist and if you give me a tuba, I'll bring you something 
out of it. 
You said that you can make the guitar speak. In which songs do you feel 
you've done that? 
 


 
"I Found Out," I think it's nice. It drives along. I don't know, ask Eric 
Clapton, he thinks I can play [laugh]. A lot of you people want the 
technical thing, then you think, oh, well that's like wanting technical 
films. Most critics of rock Q roll and guitarists are in the stage of the 
Fifties where they wanted a technically perfect film finished for them 
and then they would feel happy. I'm a cinema-verite guitarist-musician. 
You have to break down your barriers to be able to hear what I'm playing. There's a nice little bit I played on Abbey Road. Paul gave us each 
a piece, a little break where Paul plays. George plays and I play. When 
you listen to it you know. . . 
Which is that? 
There's one bit, one of those where it stops, on "Carry That Weight," 
then suddenly it goes boom-boom-boom on the drums and we all take it 
in turns to play. I'm the third one on it. I have a definite style of playing, always had. But I was overshadowed. They call George the invisible 
singer, I'm the invisible guitarist. 
You said you played the obbligato on "Get Back"? 
I played the solo on that, yeah. When Paul was feeling kind, he'd 
give me a solo. Maybe if he was feeling guilty that he'd had most of the 
A sides or something, he'd give me a solo. And I played the solo on 
that. I think George produces some beautiful guitar playing, but I think 
he's too hung up to really let go. But so is Eric, really. Maybe he's 
changed. They're all so hung up. Well, we all are, that's the problem. 
But I really like B.B. King. 
Do you like Ringo's record? His country one? 
I think it's a good record. I wouldn't buy any of it. I think it's a good 
record and I was pleasantly surprised to hear "Beaucoups of Blues," 
that song. I felt good. I was glad and Ididn't feel as embarrassed as I 
 
did about his first record. But it's hard for you to ask me-it's like 
asking me what do Ithink of. . . ask me about other people. Because 
it looks so awful when I say, "I don't like this and I don't like that." It's 
just that, I don't like many of the Beatles records either. My own taste 
is different from that which I've played sometimes. which is called 
.'cop-out," to make money or whatever. Or because I didn't know any 
better. 
I'd like to ask you more questions about Paul and go through that. 
We saw 'Let It Be' in San Francisco.
What were your feelings about 
that? 
I felt sad. That film was set up by Paul, for Paul. That's one of the 
main reasons the Beatles ended, cause . . .I can't speak for George, but 
I pretty damn well know, we got fed up with being sidemen for Paul. 
After Brian died, that's what began to happen to us. And the camera 
work was set up to show Paul and not to show anybody else. That's 
how I felt about it. And on top of that, the people that cut it, cut it as 
"Paul is God" and we're just lying around there. And that's what I felt. 
I knew there was some shots of Yoko and me that had been just 
chopped out of the film for no other reason than the people were oriented towards Engelbert Humperdinck. I felt sick. 
How would you trace the breakup of the Beatles? 
Let It Be was a film documenting the Beatles' I969 recording sessions and 
their final live performance. 
l9 Brian Epstein died in August I967 from an overdose of prescription medication. 
 


 
After Brian died, we collapsed. Paul took over and supposedly led 
us, you know. But what is leading us when we went round in circles? 
We broke up then. That was the disintegration. 
When did you first feel that the Beatles had broken up? 
I don't remember. I was in my own pain. I wasn't noticing really. I 
just did it like a job. The Beatles broke up after Brian died. We made the 
double album, the set. It's like if you took each track off and put all 
mine and all George's. It's just like I told you many times, me and a 
backing group, Paul and a backing group. And I enjoyed it. But we 
broke up then. 
Where were you when you heard Brian died? 
We were in Wales with Maharishi. We'd just gone down after seeing 
his lecture the first night. And we went down to Wales and we heard it 
then. And then we went right off into the Maharishi thing. 
Where were you? 
A place called Bangor in Wales .. . 
In a hotel? 
No, we were just outside a lecture hall with Maharishi. It just sort of 
came over. Somebody came up to us-the press were there cause we'd 
gone down with this strange Indian. And they said, "Brian's dead." I 
was stunned. We all were. And the Maharishi-we went into him, 
"He's dead," and all that. And he was sort of saying, "Oh, forget it, be 
happy." Fucking idiot. Like parents: "Smile." That's what Maharishi 
said. So we did. And we went along with the Maharishi trip. 
What was your feeling when Brian died? Do you remember? 
The feeling that anybody has when somebody close to them dies. 
There's a sort of little hysterical sort of "hee-hee, I'm glad it's not me," 
or something in it, that funny feeling when somebody dies. I don't 
 
know whether you've had it. I've had a lot of people die on me. And the 
other feeling is, "What the fuck? What can I do?" I knew that we were 
in trouble then. I didn't really have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music. And I was scared. I thought, 
"We've fuckin' had it." 
What were the events that immediately happened after Brian died? 
Well, we went with Maharishi. I remember being in Wales and then 
I can't remember. I'll probably have to have a bloody [primal] session to 
remember it. I can't remember. It just all happened. 
Then you went to India. 
Yeah, I think so. 
What about the funeral? 
Oh, that was bullshit. I was offended enough that I've forgotten. 
Funerals are . . . 
And how did Paul ... 
I don't know how the others took it. I can never tell how, it's no good 
asking me. It's like me asking how you took it-I don't know. I'm in my 
own head, I can't be in anybody else's. I don't know what George, Paul 
and Ringo think any more than I do about. ..I know them pretty well, 
but I don't know anybody that well. Yoko I know about the best. I 
don't know how they felt. I was in my own thing. We were all just like 
dazed. 
So Brian died and then what happened is Paul started to take over? 
I don't know how much of this I want to put out, I'll tell you. I think 
Paul had an impression-he has it now, like a parent, that we should be 
thankful for what he did, for keeping the Beatles going. But when you 
look upon it objectively, he kept it going for his own sake. Not for my 
sake did Paul struggle. But Paul made an attempt to carry on as if Brian 
 


 
hadn't died. By saying, "Now, now, boys, we're going to make a record." 
And being the kind of person I am, I thought, "Well, you know, we're 
going to make a record, alright." So I went along, we went and made a 
record. And I suppose we made Pepper, I'm not sure. 
That was before. 
That was before Brian. Oh, I see. Well, we made the double album 
then. But it was like that, you know. Was Magical Mystery Tour after 
Brian? Paul had a tendency to just come along and say, "Well, [I've] 
written ten songs, let's record now." And I said, "Give us a few days and 
I'll knock a few off." Or something like that. He came and showed me 
what his idea was for Magical Mystery Tour and this is how it went, it 
went round like this, the story and production, and he said, "Here's the 
segment, you write a little piece for that." And I thought, "Fuckin' 
hell, I've never made a film, what's he mean?" He said, "Write a script." 
So I ran off and wrote the dream sequence for the fat woman and all the 
things-the spaghetti and all that. So it was like that. George and I were 
sort of grumbling, "Fuckin' movie, well we better do it." A feeling that 
we owed the public to do these things. So we made it. 
When did your songwriting partnership with Paul end? 
That ended, I don't know, around I962 or something. If you give me 
the albums, I can tell you exactly who wrote what, and which line. We 
sometimes wrote together and sometimes didn't. But all our best 
work-apart from the early days, like "I Want to Hold Your Hand," we 
wrote together, and things like that-we wrote apart always. Even 
"One After 909" on the whatsit LP, it's one I wrote when I was seven- 
teen or eighteen in Liverpool separately from Paul. "The Sun Is Fading 
Away" and things like that Paul wrote. We always wrote separately. But 
we wrote together because we enjoyed it a lot sometimes and also 
 
because they'd say, "You're going to make an album." We'd get together 
and knock off a few songs. Just like a job. 
Whose idea was it to go to India? 
I don't know. Probably George's, I have no idea. We [John and Yoko] 
met around then. I was going to take [Yoko], but I lost me nerve 
because I was going to take me wife and Yoko and I didn't know how to 
work it [laugh]. So, I didn't do it. I didn't quite do it. 
You wrote "Sexy Sadie" about the Maharishi. 
That's about Maharishi, yeah. I copped out and wouldn't write 
"Maharishi, what have you done, you made a fool of everyone." [leaning 
into mike of tape recorder] But now it can be told, fab listeners. 
When did you realize that he was making a fool of you? 
I don't know, I just sort of saw. 
While in India, or when you got back? 
Yeah, there was a big hullabaloo about him trying to rape Mia 
Farrow or trying to get off with Mia Farrow and a few other women, 
things like that. And we went down to him and we'd stayed up all night 
discussing, was it true or not true. And when George started thinking 
it might be true, I thought, "Well it must be true, cause if George is 
doubting it, there must be something in it." So we went to see 
Maharishi, the whole gang of us the next day charged down to his hut, 
his very rich-looking bungalow in the mountains. And I was the 
spokesman-as usual, when the dirty work came, I actually had to be 
leader, whatever the scene was, when it came to the nitty gritty I had to 
do the speaking. And I said, "We're leaving." 
"Why?" Hee-hee, all that shit. And I said, "Well if you're so cosmic, 
you'll know why." He was always intimating, and there were all his 
right hand men intimating that he did miracles. He said, "I don't know 
 


 
why, you must tell me." And I just kept saying "You know why-and 
he gave me a look like, "I'II kill you, bastard." He gave me such a look, 
and I knew then when he looked at me, because I'd called his bluff. 
And I was a bit rough to him. 
YOKO: YOU were expecting too much from him. 
JOHN: I always do. I always expect too much. I'm always expecting my 
mother and don't get her, that's what it is. Or some parents. I know that 
much. 
But when did you decide you had to come to NEW York and denounce the 
Maharishi? 
Denounce him? 
Well, you came to New York and had that press conference. 
The Apple thing, that was to announce Apple.2o 
Right. But also at the same time- 
I don't remember that. Well, what did I say? I don't know. We all say 
a lot of things that we don't know what we're talking about. I'm probably doing it now. I don't know what I said. See, everybody takes you 
up on the words you said the night before. I'm just a guy who people 
ask %hat about" things. I blab off, and some of it makes sense, some 
of it's bullshit. And some of it's lies and some of it's God knows what I'm 
saying. I don't know what I said about Maharishi. All I know is what we 
said about Apple, which is worse. 
Let's talk about Apple. 
'O In I967 the Beatles started their own company, Apple Corps. with five creative divisions, including the Apple record label. They publicly offered to 
assist aspiring artists, and according lo Derek Taylor, the Beatles' publicist, 
"the promise was that all sincere supplicants would be given encouragement, succor, a contract and maybe an envelope full of money." 
Alright. 
How did that start? 
Clive Epstein or some other such business freak came up to us and 
said, "You got to spend so much money or the tax'll take it.2I We're 
thinking of opening a chain of retail clothes," or some barmy thing like 
that. And we were all muttering about, "Well, if we're going to have to 
open a shop, let's open something we're interested in." We went 
through all these different ideas about this, that and the other. Paul had 
a nice idea about opening up white houses where it would sell white 
china and things like that, everything white because you can never get 
anything white, which is pretty groovy. It didn't end up with that, it 
ended up with Apple, with all this junk and The Fool and all the stupid 
clothes and all that.22 
When did you decide to close that down? 
I don't know, I was controlling the scene at the time; I mean I was 
the one going in the office and shouting. Paul had done it for six 
months, I walked in and changed everything. But there were all the 
Peter Browns reporting behind me back to Paul saying, "John's doing 
this and he's doing that," and "John's crazy." I was always the one that 
must be crazy because I wouldn't let him have status quo. And I came 
up [to Yoko-was it my idea or yours? Well, we came up with the idea 
to give it all away and stop fucking about with a psychedelic clothes 
shop. So we gave it all away 
" Clive Epstein, Brian's brother, worked with the financial 
administration of 
NEMS Enterprises, the Beatles' management company 
" The Fool was a fashion designer who designed and manufactured clothing 
for Apple. 
 


30  
Were you there for the giveaway? 
No, we read it in the paper. That was when we started events. I 
learned events from Yoko. We made everything into an event from 
then on. 
When you gave away your MBE23. . . 
Yeah. Yeah. I'd been planning on it for over a year and a bit. I was 
waiting for the time to do it. 
You said then that you were waiting to tag it to some event, and then you 
realized that it was an event in itself. 
Yeah. Yeah. That's the truth. 
You also said at that time that you had another thing you were going to 
do. 
I don't know what it was. 
Do you remember? 
Yeah, I do. We always kept them on their toes during our events 
period. We said, "Well we got some other surprise for them later." I 
can't remember what it was. Maybe we were getting married. No, we 
were married. I don't know. 
YOKO:
You mean after the baby died.24 
JOHN: After the MBE, we probably intimated that we had another surprise event coming up shortly. 
YOKO:
Well, probably that was "War Is Over." 
JOHN: Probably the "War Is Over" poster event, maybe. 
23 "Member of the British Empire" medal awarded to each of the Beatles by the 
Queen of England in October I965. 
24 Yoko Ono miscarried with the couple's first child in November I968. 
 
To go back to Apple and the breakup of the Beatles, Brian died .. . 
I didn't really want to do all this. Go on. 
You don't? 
Well, we're halfway through it now, so let's do it. 
You said you quit the Beatles first. How? 
Well, I said to Paul, "I'm leaving." We were in Apple and I knew 
before I went to Toronto, I told Allen I was leaving.25 I told Eric 
Clapton and Klaus that I was leaving and I'd like to probably use them 
as a I hadn't decided how to do it, to have a permanent new 
group or what. And then later on I thought, "Fuck it, I'm not going to 
get stuck with another set of people, whoever they are." So I announced 
it to myself and to the people around me on the way to Toronto the few 
days before. On the plane Allen came with me, and I told him, "It's 
over." When I got back [to London], there were a few meetings 
and Allen said, "Cool it," cause there was a lot to do [with the Beatles] 
business-wise, and it wouldn't have been suitable at the time [to 
announce my departure]. Then we were discussing something in the 
office with Paul and Paul was saying to do something, and I kept 
saying, "No, no, no" to everything he said. So it came to a point that I 
had to say something. So I said, "The group's over, I'm leaving." Allen 
was there, and he was saying, "Don't tell." He didn't want me to tell 
Paul even. But I couldn't help it, I couldn't stop it, it came out. And Paul 
25 
Allen Klein had been the business manager for the Rolling Stones and had 
become the manager of John, George and Ringo after Brian Epstein died. 
2h Klaus Voormann was a bassist and artist whom the Beatles first met in 
Hamburg before they became famous. He later designed the Revolver album 
cover. 
 


 
and Allen said they were glad that I wasn't going to announce it, like I 
was going to make an event out of it. I don't know whether Paul said, 
"Don't tell anybody," but he was damn pleased that I wasn't. He said, 
"Oh well, that means nothing really happened if you're not going to say 
anything." So that's what happened. 
How did Paul react when you said you were quitting? 
Well, like when you say "divorce," the face goes all sorts of colors. 
It's like he knew really that this was the final thing. And then six 
months later Paul comes out with whatever [his announcement of 
leaving the band for a solo career]. A lot of people knew I'd left, but I 
was a fool not to do what Paul did, which is use it to sell a record. 
You were really angry with Paul. 
No, I wasn't angry. 
Well, when he came out with his "I'm leaving." 
I wasn't angry, I was just- "shit!" He's a good PR man, Paul. I mean 
he's about the best in the world, probably. He really does a job. I wasn't 
angry. We were all hurt that he didn't tell us wh2.t he was going to do. 
I think he claims that he didn't mean that to happen, but that's bullshit. 
He called me in the afternoon of that day and said, "I'm doing what you 
and Yoko were doing." 
YOKO: Last year. 
JOHN: Last year. And I said, "Good." Because that time last year, 
they were all looking at us as if it was strange trying to make a life 
together and doing all the things and being fab, fat myths. So he rang 
me up on that day and said, "I'm doing what you and Yoko are doing 
and putting out an album. And I'm leaving the group too," he said. I 
said "Good." I was feeling a little strange, because he was saying it this 
time-a year later. I said "good," cause he was the one that wanted the 
 
Beatles most. And then the midnight papers came out [announcing 
Paul had left the band]. 
How did you feel then? 
I was cursing because I hadn't done it. 
IOKO:[Laugh] He sold a record [McCartney] that virtually didn't have 
any message in it . . . 
IOHN: Well, you don't have to have a message in a record. But he just 
did a great hype. I wanted to do it and I should have done it. I 
think, Damn, shit, what a fool I was. But there were many pressures 
at that time with [the Beatles' publisher] Northern Songs and all that 
was going, and it would have upset the whole thing if I'd have said 
that. 
How did you feel when you found out that Dick James had sold his 
shares in Northern song^?^' 
I was pissed off. 
Did you feel betrayed? 
Sure I do, you know. I mean he's another one of them people, a bit 
like George Martin, who think they made us. And they didn't. I'd like 
to hear Dick James's music, I'd like to hear George Martin's music 
please, just play me some. And Dick James actually has said that . . . 
What? 
That he made us. People are under a delusion that they made us. 
How did Dick James tell you about the sale? 
He didn't tell us. He did it. It was just a fait accompli. He went and 
sold to Lew Grade, that's all we knew. We read it in the paper, I think. 
27 
Dick James was a London music publisher who established Northern Songs 
with Brian Epstein. James had 55 percent ownership of Northern Songs. 
 


 
What was that part about Lew Grade?28 
It was fantastic. It was like this room full of old men smoking and 
fighting. People seem to think businessmen like Allen or Grade or any 
of them are a race apart. They play the game the way we play music, 
and it$ something to see. They have ritual and they create-like Allen 
is a very creative guy. He creates situations which create positions for 
them to move in. They all do it. It was a sight to see. We played our 
part, we both did. 
What did you do? 
With the bankers and things like that. Allen will tell you better 
because you can't say anything about anybody cause you get sued or 
something. So check Allen with that, he'll tell you what we did. I did a 
job on this banker that we were all using. And a few other people. And 
on the Beatles. 
What kind of '3obn? 
Well how do you describe the job? I maneuver people. That's what 
leaders do. I sit and make situations in which it's a benefit to me with 
other people. It's as simple as that. 
YOKO:
Oh, I think we should cut that out. 
JOHN: Why? 
YOKO: That's the way you always feel, but afterward you can never . . . 
JOHN:I maneuvered too. I had to do a job to get Allen in Apple. 
YOKO: Exactly. 
JOHK I did a job. So did Yoko. 
YOKO: You do it-you do it with instinct, not by cunning . . . 
2X Sir Lew Grade's entertainment company ATV bought Northern Songs in 
I969. 
 
Johnson, God, Yoko, don't say that. Maneuvering is what it is, let's not 
be coy about it. It's a deliberate and thought-out maneuver of how to 
get a situation how we want it. That's how life's about, isn't it? Is it not? 
Is it? 
YOKO:
Well, you're a pretty instinctive guy- 
JOHN:SO is Allen, so is Dick James, so is Grade, they're all instinctive. SO 
is he Uann], I mean it's instinctive, but it's maneuvering. There's nothing ashamed about it, we all do it, it's just owning up, not going around 
saying, "God bless you brother, Hare fucking Krishna," and doing it, 
pretending there's no interest. 
YOKC):
NO, the difference is that you don't go to Allen and bullshit and 
get him. You just instinctively suss [out] that Allen is the guy-you 
jump into it and you just get him. 
JOHN:
But that's not the point. What I'm talking about is creating a situation around Apple and the Beatles in which Allen could come in. He 
wouldn't have got in unless I'd done it- 
YOKO: Right. That's true. 
JOHN:
-and he wouldn't have got in unless you'd done it. You made the 
decision too. 
How did you get Allen? 
The same as I get anything I want-the same as you get what you 
want. I'm not telling you. 
Just work at it hard. 
Just work at it and get on the phone and a little word here and a 
little word there and do it. 
What was Paul's reaction? 
See, a lot of people-Dick James and the Derek Taylors and Peter 
Brown, all of them, you know, they think they're the Beatles and 
 


 
Neil
and all of them. Well I say, fuck 'em. After working with genius 
for ten, fifteen years. they begin to think they're it. They're not. 
Do you think you're a genius? 
Yes. If there's such a thing as one, I am one. 
When did you first realize it? 
When I was about twelve. I used to think, I must be a genius, but 
nobody's noticed [laugh]. Either I'm a genius or I'm mad, which is it? 
"No," I said, "I can't be mad because nobody's put me away; there- 
fore, I'm a genius." Genius is a form of madness and we're all that 
way. But I used to be a bit coy about it, like me guitar playing. If 
there's such a thing as genius-which is just what? What the fuck is 
it-I am one. And if there isn't, I don't care. But I used to think, when 
I was a kid, writing me poetry and doing me paintings-I didn't 
become something when the Beatles made it or when you heard 
about me, I've been like this all me life. Genius is pain too. It's just 
pain. 
How do you feel toward Apple? You talk about MaI30 and Derek . . . 
I didn't mention Mal. I said Neil, Peter Brown arid Derek. They live 
in a dream of Beatle past and everything they do is oriented to that. 
They also have a warped view of what was happening. 
They must feel now that their- lives are just inextricably bound up in 
yours. 
Well, they have to grow up then-because they've only had half 
their life. They've got another whole half to go and they can't go on 
Neil
Aspinall was hired as he Beatles' road manager in I96I and Later was 
the head of Apple Corps. 
'"Mal Evans was the Beatles' roadie and bodyguard. 
 
pretending to be Beatles. That's where it's at. They don't know. When 
they read it, they'll think, "It's cracked John," if it's in the article. But 
that's where it's at. They live in the past. 
You traveled to Toronto with Derek, right? And also did a Bed Peace up 
there. 
That was the same thing, yeah. Well, I was living in the past too 
then. See, I presumed I would just be able to carry on and just bring 
Yoko into our life, but it seemed that I either had to be married to them 
or Yoko. I chose Yoko. You know? And I was right. 
How did you meet Yoko? 
I'm sure I've told you this many times. How did I meet Yoko? 
There was a sort of underground clique in London: John Dunbar, 
who was married to Marianne Faithfull, had an art gallery in London 
called Indica and I'd been going around to galleries a bit on my off 
days in between records. I'd been to see a Takis exhibition-I don't 
know if you know what that means-he does multiple electro- 
magnetic sculptures, and a few exhibitions in different galleries who 
showed these sort of unknown artists or underground artists. I got the 
word that this amazing woman was putting on a show next week and 
there was going to be something about people in bags, in black bags, 
and it was going to be a bit of a happening and all that. So I went 
down to a preview of the show. I got there the night before it opened. 
I went in-she didn't know who I was or anything-I was wandering 
around, there was a couple of artsy type students that had been helping lying around there in the gallery, and I was looking at it and I was 
astounded. There was an apple on sale there for two hundred quid, I 
 


 
thought it was fantastic-I got the humor in her work immediately. I 
didn't have to have much knowledge about avant-garde or under- 
ground art, but the humor got me straightaway. There was a fresh 
apple on a stand-this was before Apple-and it was two hundred 
quid to watch the apple decompose. But there was another piece 
which really decided me for-or-against the artist: a ladder which led to 
a painting which was hung on the ceiling. It looked like a black 
canvas with a chain with a spyglass hanging on the end of it. This was 
near the door when you went in. I climbed the ladder, you look 
through the spyglass and in tiny little letters it says "yes." So it was 
positive. I felt relieved. It's a great relief when you get up the ladder 
and you look through the spyglass and it doesn't say "no" or "fuck 
you" or something, it said "yes." 
I was very impressed and John Dunbar introduced us-neither of us 
knew who the hell we were, she didn't know who I was, she'd only 
heard of Ringo, I think, it means apple in Japanese. And John Dunbar 
had been sort of hustling her saying, "That's a good patron, you must 
go and talk to him or do something," because I was looking for action, 
I was expecting a happening and things like that. John Dunbar insisted 
she say hello to the millionaire. And she came up and handed me a card 
which said "breathe" on it, one of her instructions, so I just went 
[pant]. This was our meeting. 
Then I went away, and the second time I met her at a gallery opening of Claes Oldenburg in London. We were very shy, we nodded at 
each other and we didn't know-she was standing behind me, I looked 
away because I'm very shy with people, especially chicks. We just 
smiled and stood frozen together in this cocktail party thing. 
The next thing was she came to me to get some backing-like all 
 
the bastard underground do-for a show she was doing. She gave me 
her Grapefruit book and I used to read it and sometimes I'd get very 
annoyed by it; it would say things like "paint until you drop dead'' or 
"bleed" and then sometimes I'd be very enlightened by it and I went 
through all the changes that people go through with her work-some- 
times I'd have it by the bed and I'd open it and it would say something 
nice and it would be alright and then it would say something heavy 
and I wouldn't like it. There was all that, and then she came to me to 
get some backing for a show and it was half a wind show. I gave her 
the money to back it and the show was-this was in a place called 
Lisson Gallery, another one of those underground places. For this 
whole show everything was in half: There was half a bed, half a room, 
half of everything, all beautifully cut in half and all painted white. And 
I said to her, "Why don't you sell the other half in bottles?" having 
caught on by then what the game was and she did that-this is still 
before we'd had any nuptials-and we still have the bottles from the 
show, it's my first. It was presented as "Yoko Plus Men-that was our 
first public appearance. I didn't even go to see the show, I was too 
uptight. 
When did you realize that you were in love with her? 
It was beginning to happen; I would start looking at her book and 
that, but I wasn't quite aware what was happening to me, and then she 
did a thing called Dance Event, where different cards kept coming 
through the door every day saying "Breathe" and "Dance" and .'Watch 
all the lights until dawn," and they upset me or made me happy 
depending on how I felt. 
I'd get very upset about it being intellectual or all fucking avant 
garde, then I'd like it and then I wouldn't. Then I went to India with the 
 


 
Maharishi and we were corresponding. The letters were still formal, but 
they just had a little side to them. I nearly took her to India as I said, 
but I still wasn't sure for what reason, I was still sort of kidding myself, 
with sort of artistic reasons, and all that. 
When we got back from India, we were talking to each other on the 
phone. I called her over, it was the middle of the night and Cyn was 
away, and I thought, "Well, now's the time if I'm gonna get to know her 
anymore." She came to the house and I didn't know what to do; so we 
went upstairs to my studio and I played her all the tapes that I'd made, 
all this far-out stuff, some comedy stuff, and some electronic music. 
There were very few people I could play those tapes to. She was suit- 
ably impressed, and then she said, "Well, let's make one ourselves," so 
we made Two virgin^.^' It was midnight when we started Two Virgins, it 
was dawn when we finished, and then we made love at dawn. It was 
very beautiful. 
What was Cynthia like then? 
I don't remember. She was away on holiday, both our respective 
spouses were on holiday when we got together. And that was it. I don't 
know. I didn't communicate with her. 
What was your and Yoko's wedding like? Did you enjoy it? 
It was very romantic. It's all in the song, "The Ballad of John and 
Yoko." If you want to know how it happened, it's in there. Gibraltar was 
like a little sunny dream. I couldn't find a white suit-I had off-white 
corduroy trousers and a white jacket. Yoko had all white on. 
What was your first peace event? 
"John and Yoko's first album together. Unfinished Music-No. I: Two Virgins, 
was released by Apple in I968.. 
 
The first peace event was the Amsterdam Bed Peace when we got 
married. 
What was that like? That was your first re-exposure to the public. 
It was a nice high. We were on the seventh floor of the Hilton looking over Amsterdam. It was very crazy, the press came expecting to see 
us fucking in bed-they all heard John and Yoko were going to fuck in 
front of the press for peace. So when they all walked in-about fifty or 
sixty reporters flew over from London all sort of very edgy, and we were 
just sitting in pajamas saying, "Peace, brother" and that was it. On the 
peace thing there's lots of heavy discussion with intellectuals about 
how you should do it and how you shouldn't. 
When you got alone, did you feel satisfied with the Bed Peace . . .? 
That was beautiful. It was like the wedding album, and it was a 
move for peace. I mean it's no question about it. They were great events 
when you think that the world newspaper headlines were the fact that 
we were a married couple in bed talking about peace. It was one of our 
greater episodes. It was like being on tour without moving, sort of a big 
promotional thing. I think we did a good job for what we were doing, 
which was trying to get people to own up. 
You chose the word "peace" and not "love," or another word that means 
the same thing. What did you like about the word "peace"? 
Yoko and I were discussing our different lives and careers when 
we first got together. What we had in common in a way was that 
she'd done things for peace like standing in Trafalgar Square in a 
black bag and things like that-we were just trying to work out what 
we could do-and the Beatles had been singing about "love" and 
things. So we pooled our resources and came out with the Bed 
Peace-it was some way of doing something together that wouldn't 
 


 
involve me standing in Trafalgar Square in a black bag because I was 
too nervous to do that. Yoko didn't want to do anything that wasn't 
for peace. 
Did you ever get any reaction from political leaders? 
I don't know about the Bed-In. We got reaction to sending acorns- 
different heads of state actually planted their acorns, lots of them wrote 
to us answering about the acorns. We sent acorns to practically every- 
body in the world. 
Who answered? 
Well, I believe Golda Meir said, "I don't know who they are but if it's 
for peace, we're for it" or something like that. Scandinavia, somebody 
or other planted it. I think Hailer Selassie planted his, I'm not sure. 
Some queen somewhere. There was quite a few people that under- 
stood the idea. 
Did you send one to Queen Elizabeth? 
We sent one to Harold Wilson, I don't think we got a reply from 
Harold, did we? 
What was it like meeting [Canadian] Prime Minister Trudeau? What 
was his response to you? 
He was interested in us because he thought we might represent 
some sort of youth faction-he wants to know, like everybody does, 
really I think he was very nervous-he was more nervous than we were 
when we met. We talked about everything-just anything you can 
think of. We spent about forty minutes-it was five minutes longer 
than he'd spent with heads of state, which was the great glory of the 
time. He'd read In His Own Write, my book, and things like that. He 
liked the poetry side of it. We just wanted to see what they did, how 
they worked. 
 


 
things we were doing-that inspired them to do something. We had a 
lot of response from other than pop fans, which was interesting, from 
all walks of life and age. If I walk down the street now I'm more liable 
to get talked to about peace than anything I've done. The first thing that 
happened in New York was just walking down the street and a woman 
just came to me and said, "Good luck with the peace thing." That's 
what goes on mainly-it's not about "I Want to Hold Your Hand." And 
that was interesting-it bridged a lot of gaps. 
What were the Beatles' reactions when you first brought Yoko by? 
They despised her. 
From the very beginning? 
They insulted her and they still do. Yeah, they don't even know I can 
see it. And even when it's written down, it'll look like I'm just paranoid 
or she's paranoid. But I know just by the way the publicity on us was 
handled by Apple, all of the two years we were together, and the attitude of people to us and the bits we hear from the office girls. So they 
can go stuff themselves. 
YOKO:
In the beginning we were too much in love to notice anything 
else. 
JOHN:
Yeah. We were in our own dream. They're the kind of idiots that 
really think that Yoko split the Beatles, or Allen, it's the same joke. 
They're that insane about Allen, too. 
How would you characterize George, Paul and Ringo's reaction to her? 
It's the same. You can quote Paul, you can look it up in the papers. 
He's said many times, at first he hated Yoko and then he got to like her. 
It's too late for me. And for Yoko. Why should she take that kind of shit 
 
from those people? They're writing about her looking miserable in Let It 
Be. You sit through sixty sessions with the most big-headed, uptight 
people on earth and see what it's fuckin' like. And be insulted just 
because you love someone. George insulted her right to her face in the 
Apple office at the beginning, just being straightforward, that game of, 
"Well, I'm going to be upfront because this is what I've heard and Dylan 
and a few people said you've got a lousy name in New York and you give 
off bad vibes." That's what George said to her, and we both sat through 
it. And I didn't hit him, I don't know why But I was always hoping that 
they'd come round. I couldn't believe it! They all sat there with their 
wives like a fucking jury and judged us. The only thing I did was write 
that piece about "some of our beast friends-in my usual way, cause I 
was never honest. I always had to write in that gobbledy-gook. And 
that's what they did to us. Ringo was alright. So was Maureen.34 
But the other two really gave it to us. I'll never forgive them. I don't 
care what fuckin' shit about Hare Krishna and God and Paul-well, I've 
changed me mind. I don't forgive 'em for that. 
Some people said that when Paul's album came out with a baby on the 
cover that it was done as a deliberate insult to you and Yoko because you'd 
lost your baby .. . 
No, I don't think he did that. I think he was just imitating us as they 
usually do, by putting out a family album. You watch-they do exactly 
what I do a year or two later. [To Yoko] This [article] is gonna be some 
fuckin' thing-it's the end of it. They're imitators, you know. 
What do you think people will do with your new album, in terms of imitating it? 
'' Ringo's then-wife, Maureen Cox Starkey 
 

46  
Well I've [got] no idea. 
row: It's a fantastic strong album. So one way or other, people are 
going to either hate it or love it passionately . . . 
JOHN:I personally will probably come out next with "wop-bop-aloo- 
bop" or something. I mean, I've said it for a bit. 
YOKO:
You've said it enough for ten years . . . 
When did you realize that you were just not going to be able to reconcile 
Paul and George to Yoko? 
I don't know when it was-when I decided to leave the group. 
Did Yoko's avant-garde music background clash with the music the Beatles made? 
Yoko played me tapes that I understood. I know it was very strange, 
and avant-garde music is a tough thing to assimilate and all that. But 
I've heard the Beatles playing avant-garde music when nobody was 
looking for years. But they're artists, and all artists have fuckin' big 
egos. Whether they like to admit it or not. And when a new artist 
came into the group, they were never allowed. Sometimes George and 
I would like to bring someone in, like Billy Preston. We would have 
had him in the group. We were fed up with the same old shit. But it 
wasn't wanted. I would have expanded the Beatles, gotten their pants 
off, stopped being God. But it didn't work. 
YOKO:
It's very difficult. 
JOHN: It didn't work and Yoko was naive, she came in and would expect 
to perform with them, like you would with any group. She was 
jammin'. But they'd [have] a sort of coldness about it. When I decided 
to leave the group, I decided that I could no longer artistically get any- 
thing out of the Beatles. And here was somebody that could turn me on 
to a million things. 
 


 
How did you choose the musicians you use on this album? 
I'm a very nervous person, really. I'm not as big-headed as this tape 
sounds. This is me projecting through the fear. So I chose people that 
I know rather than strangers. 
Like you used Ringo. Why do you get along with Ringo? 
Because in spite of all the things . . . the Beatles really could play 
music together when they weren't uptight. And if I get a thing going, 
Ringo knows where to go. Like that. We've played together so long 
that it fits. That's the only thing Isometimes miss is, is being able to 
just sort of blink or make a certain noise and I know they'll all 
know where we're going on an ad lib thing. But I don't miss it that 
much. 
You always said the Beatles wanted to be bigger than Elvis. Why? 
Because Elvis was the biggest. We wanted to be the biggest. Doesn't 
everybody? 
When did you decide that? 
Well, first of all, Paul and I wanted to be the Goffin and King of 
This is an old story. Because Goffin and King were writing 
this great stuff at that time. And then we decided, well. we're better 
than them, so we want to be this, we want to be the next thing, we want 
to be president or whatever. It goes on and on and on. But we always 
wanted to be bigger than Elvis, cause Elvis was the thing. Whatever we 
say, he was it. 
At what moment did you realize that you were bigger than Elvis? 
'j Gerry Goffin and Carole King were the songwriting duo responsible for 
numerous hit singles beginning in the early Sixties. King would become a 
very successful singer songwriter in the Seventies. 



 
I don't know. It's different when it happens. you've forgotten about 
[your desire for] it. It's like when you actually get the Number One or 
whatever it is, it's different. It's the going for it which is the fun. 
So at some point you just never thought about it again. 
Yeah, yeah, we were just like jelly, we sat in a mold and we floated 
about like that. 
In "God," you say, "the dream is over" and part of the dream was "the 
Beatles were God". .. 
Yeah, if there is a God, we're all it. 
WhoI did you first start getting the spiritual reactions from people who 
had listened to Beatles records? 
There's a guy in England called William Mann who writes in The 
Times who wrote the first intellectual review of the Beatles, which got 
people talking about us in that intellectual way He wrote about Aeolian 
cadences and all sort of musical terms. He's a bullshitter, but he wrote 
about Paul's album as if it was written by Beethoven, this last one. He's 
just voted it the album of the year and all that shit. He's still writing the 
same shit. But it did us a lot of good in that way, cause people-all the 
middle classes and intellectuals-are going, "Ooh, aren't they clever." 
YOKO: When did they start the message thing? 
JOHN: The message thing? About love and that? 
When did somebody first come up to you with 'john Lennon is God"? 
"What to do" and all that? Like, "You tell us, guru." That bit? 
Yeah. 
Probably after acid. Rubber Soul? Well, I don't know, I can't quite 
remember. I can't remember it exactly happening. We just took that 
position. I mean we started putting out messages-like "the word" 
and "the word is love" and things like that. I like messages. 
 
YOKO:
Well, "Strawberry Fields" is a message . . . 
JOHN: That's later on, this is earlier on, you see. When you start putting 
out messages, people start coming and asking you, "What's the message?" 
How did you first get involved with LSD? 
A dentist in London. 
YOKO:
[laugh] A dentist. 
JOHN: He laid it on George, me and our wives without telling us at a 
dinner party at his house. He was a friend of George's, and our dentist 
at the time. He just put it in our coffee or something. He didn't know 
what it was, it was just, "It's all the thing," with the middle-class 
London swingers. They had all heard about it and didn't know it was 
different from pot or pills. And they gave it to us, and he was saying, "I 
advise you not to leave," and we thought he was trying to keep us for 
an orgy in his house and we didn't want to know. We went out to the 
Ad Lib [nightclub] and these discotheques and there was incredible 
things going on. This guy came with us, he was nervous, he didn't 
know what was going on. We were going crackers. It was insane going 
around London on it. When we entered the club, we thought it was on 
fire. And then we thought it was a premiere, but it was just an ordinary 
light outside. We thought, "Shit, what's going on here?" And we were 
cackling in the street, and then people were shouting, "Let's break a 
window." We were just insane. We were just out of our heads. We 
finally got in the lift and we all thought there was a fire in the lift. It was 
just a little red light, and we were all screaming-it was hysterical. We 
all arrived on the floor, cause this was a discotheque that was up a 
 


 
building. The lift stops and the door opens and we're all going, 
"Aaahhhhh" [loud scream], and we just see that it's the club, and then 
we walk in, sit down, and the table's elongating. I think we went to eat 
before that, where the table went this long, just like I'd read some- 
body-who is it, Blake, is it?-somebody describing the effects of the 
opium in the old days. And I thought, "Fuck, it's happening." And 
then we went to the Ad Lib and all that. And then some singer came up 
to me and said, "Can I sit next to you?" And I was going, [loudly], 
"Only if you don't talk," [laugh], cause I just couldn't think. 
When you came down, what did you think? 
I was pretty stunned for a month or two. 
Whew did you go after that? . 
It seemed to go on all night. I can't remember the details, it just went 
on like that. And then George somehow or another managed to drive 
us home in his mini. We were going about ten miles an hour, but it 
seemed like a thousand. And Pattie was saying, "Let's jump out and 
play football, there's these big rugby poles" and things like that.36 I was 
getting all this sort of hysterical jokes coming out, like with speed, 
because I was always on that, too. 
George was going, "Don't make me laugh!" Oh God! It was just terrifying. But it was fantastic. I did some drawings at the time-I've got 
them somewhere-of four faces and "we all agree with you," things like 
that. I gave them to Ringo, I've lost the originals. I did a lot of drawing 
that night-[sound to imitate fast sketching]-just like that. And then 
George's house seemed to be just like a big submarine. I was driving 
it-they all went to bed and I was carrying on on me own-it seemed 
'"Pattie Boyd Harrison, George's then-wife 
 
to float above his wall, which was eighteen foot, and I was driving it. 
And the second time, we had [acid] in L.A., which was different. 
What happened then? 
Well, then we took it deliberately. 
To backtrack a second, afterwards everybody slept? 
Oh, I don't remember. We were all just a bit down after it. Wow, you 
know, I don't remember that kind of thing, Ionly remember the high- 
lights. And then, well, we just decided to take it again in California. 
Where were you when you took it the second time? 
We were on tour, in one of those houses, like Doris Day's house or 
wherever it was we used to stay. And the three of us took it. Ringo. 
George and I. I think, maybe Neil. And a couple of the Byrds, you 
know, that what's-his-name, the one in the Stills and Nash thing." You 
know the Byrds? B-Y-R-D-Crosby and the other guy, who used to be 
the leader. 
McGuinn 
McGuinn. I think they came round, I'm not sure, on a few trips. But 
there were so many reporters, there was like Don Short and that.39 We 
were in the garden, it was only the second one. We still didn't know any- 
thing about doing it in a nice place and cool it and all that, we just took 
it. And all of a sudden we saw the reporter and we're thinking. "How do 
we act normal?" Because we imagined we were acting extraordinary, 
which we weren't. We thought, "Surely somebody can see." We were 
3' Crosby, Stills and Nash had just formed and consisted of ex-Byrd David 
Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. 
'' Roger McGuinn was the founder of the Byrds. 
'' Don Short was a journalist who traveled extensively with the Beatles 
between I963 and I970. 
 


 
terrified waiting for him to go, and he wondered why he couldn't come 
over, and Neil, who had never had it either, had taken it, and he still had 
to play road manager. We said, "Go and get rid of Don Short," and he 
didn't know what to do, he just sort of sat with it. And Peter Fonda 
came, that was another thing, and he kept on saying [whispering],"I 
know what it's like to be dead." We said, "What?" And he kept saying it, 
and we were saying, "For chrissake, shut up, we don't care. We don't 
want to know." But he kept going on about it.40 That's how I wrote "She 
Said She Said." [halfsinging] "I know what it's like to be dead." 
What else entered into that song? 
Well, it was a sad song. It was just an acid-y song, it was. "And when 
I was a little boy, he said."4I Oh, a lot of, early childhood was coming 
out anyway. 
So how long did LSD go on? 
It went on for years. I must have had a thousand trips. 
Literally a thousand or- 
Yeah. 
A couple hundred? 
No, lots. I used to just eat it all the time. I never took it in the 
studio. Once I did accidentally I thought I was taking some uppers, and 
I was not in a state of handling it. I can't remember what album it was, 
but I took it and then [whispers] I just noticed all of a sudden I got so 
scared on the mike. I said, "What was it?" I thought I felt ill. I thought 
I was going cracked. Then I said, "I must get some air." They all took 
'"When he was Len, Peter Fonda shot himself, and he has said, "For forty 
seconds it seemed like I was dying." 
" Song lyric is "When Iwas a boy everything was right." 
 
me upstairs on the roof, and George Martin was looking at me funny. 
And then it dawned on me, I must have taken acid. And I said, "Well, 
I can't go on, I have to go," So I just said, "You'll have to do it and I'll 
just stay and watch." I just [became] very nervous and [was] lust 
watching all of a sudden. "Is it alright?" And they were saying, "Yeah." 
They were all being very kind They said, "Yes, it's alright." And I said, 
"Are you sure it's alright?" They carried on making the record. 
The other Beatles didn't get into LSD as much as you did. 
George did .., in L.A. Paul felt very out of it cause we were all a bit 
cruel. It's like, "We're taking it and you're not." We couldn't eat our 
food, I just couldn't manage it. Picking it up with the hands, and there's 
all these people serving us in the house, and we're just knocking it on 
the floor-oh!-like that. It was a long time before Paul took it. And 
then there was the big announcement.~' I think George was pretty 
heavy on it. We were probably both the most cracked. I think Paul's a 
bit more stable than George and I. 
He's more straight . . . 
I don't know about straight. Stable. I think LSD profoundly shocked 
him. 
Did you ever start getting bad trips? 
Oh yeah, I had many. Jesus Christ I stopped taking it cause of that. 
I mean I just-
YOKO: Couldn't stand it. 
JOHN: -couldn't stand it. I dropped it for I don't know how long. 
Then I started taking it just before I met Yoko. I got a message on acid 
that you should destroy your ego, and I did. I was reading that stupid 
" In I967, Paul publicly admitted taking LSD. 
 


54  
book of Leary's and all that hit.^^ We were going through a whole 
game that everybody went through. And I destroyed meself. I was 
slowly putting meself together after Maharishi, bit by bit, over a two- 
year period. And then I destroyed me ego and I didn't believe I could 
do anything. I let Paul do what he wanted and say, them all just do 
what they wanted. And Ijust was nothing, I was shit. And then Derek 
[Taylor] tripped me out at his house after he'd got back from L.A. He 
said, "You're alright." And he pointed out which songs I'd written, and 
said, "You wrote this, and you said this, and you are intelligent, don't 
be frightened." The next week I went down with Yoko and we tripped 
out again, and she freed me completely, to realize that I was me and it's 
alright. And that was it. I started fighting again and being a loud- 
mouth again and saying, "Well, I can do this," and "Fuck you, and this 
is what I want," and "Don't put me down. I did this." So that's where I 
am now. 
There5 a lot of obvious references to LSD in your music. "Tomorrow 
Never Knows" . . . 
Yeah. 
How do you think acid affected your conception of music In general? 
Well, it was only another mirror-it wasn't another miracle. It was 
more of a visual thing, and the therapy, that "looking at yourself' bit, it 
did all that. I don't quite remember. You hear the music, but it didn't 
write the music, neither did Janov or Maharishi on the same terms .. . 
''Published in I964, The Psychedelic Experience was written by Timothy Leary 
in collaboration with Ralph Metzer and Richard Alpert, and was intended as 
a manual for using LSD. Its instructions included the recitation of such concepts as "that which is called ego death is coming to you." 
 
I write the music in the circumstances in which I'm in, whether it's on 
acid or in the water. 
YOKO: And in all those trips you just didn't lose yourself. 
"She Said She Said" was the first song you wrote that had something 
connected with it, an influential drug experience? 
No, not really There's nothing Ican pinpoint. Rubber Soul was pot, 
or the one before with the drawing on it [Revolver]. Pills influenced 
[the music] in Hamburg, and drink influenced us and so and so. 
There's no specific things. I only wrote ["She Said She Said"] cause the 
guy said, ''I know what it's like to be dead." If I'd read it in the paper, I 
would have written a song about it. And to write a mood song-if I'm 
sad, I would just write sort of sad things, just remember sad things. 
"When I was a boy, everything was right" and all that, which is a 
dream. I would put myself in a sad mood and write a sad song. Or be 
in a sad mood and write a song, is more like it. 
What did you think when you saw 'Hard Day's Night'? 
I thought it wasn't bad. It could have been better. There's another illusion that we were just puppets and that these great people like Brian 
Epstein and Dick Lester created this situation and made this whole 
fuckin' thing, precisely because we were what we were and realistic." 
We didn't want to make a fuckin' shitty pop movie. We didn't even want 
to make a movie that was going to be bad. And we insisted on having a 
44 Richard Lester directed the Beatles films A Hard Day5 Night and Help!, as 
well as the film HOM'IWon the War, in which John Lennon had an acting 
role. 
 


56  
real writer and Brian came up with Alun Owen, from Liverpool, who'd 
written a play for TV called No Trams to Lime Street, which I knew and 
maybe they all knew. Lime Street's a famous street in Liverpool where the 
whores used to be in the old days. And he was famous for writing 
Liverpool dialogue. We auditioned people to write for us. They came up 
with this guy, and we knew his work, and we said, "Alright." But then he 
had to come round with us to see what we were like. He was a phony-
like a professional Liverpool man, or like professional Americans, like 
that. And he stayed with us two days and wrote the whole thing based on 
our characters: me, witty; Ringo, dumb, cute; George, this; Paul, that. We 
were a bit infuriated by the glibness of it, and the shininess of the dialogue. We were always trying to get it more realistic, even with Dick 
[Lester] and all that, and make the camera work more realistic. But they 
wouldn't have it. They made that movie and so that's how it happened. 
And the next one was just bullshit. I just hate this illusion about George 
Martin, Brian Epstein, Dick Lester and all these people making some- 
thing out of us. We're the ones that are still creating. 
My impression from the movie was that it was you and it wasn't any- 
body else. 
It was a good projection of one facade of us, which was on tour, 
once in London and once in Dublin. Of us in that situation together. In 
a hotel having to perform before people. We were like that. Alun Owen 
saw the press conferences. He recreated it pretty well, but we thought 
it was phony then even. It wasn't realistic enough. 
Were you aware of the impact that 'Hard Day ?Night' had in the States? 
I mean other than being tremendously popular-? 
I don't remember. All we knew was "big hit or no hit." If it was a big 
hit or not. 
 
You see, 'Hard Day? Night' was sort of the period when the Byrds 
started, and all the American musicians went and saw 'Hard Day's Night' 
and realized rock 6 r-0II was okay. 
I see. Isee. No, I wasn't ever aware of those impacts. I was aware of 
musical impacts more, listening to-"I know he got that from us and 
we got that from [him]"-that kind of thing. 
What had you heard? 
Oh, I don't know, I can just tell where the groups came from, any of 
them now I can tell-like [Led] Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac, you can 
hear where everything came from. Same as you can with anybody 
I remember this single coming out, "Day Tripper-/We Can Work It Out." 
Yeah, that was a drug song. 
"Day Tripper"? 
Um. 
Why? 
Cause it was a day tripper. I just liked the word. 
At some point, right in there between 'Help!' and 'Hard Day? Night,' you 
got into drugs? 
Yeah, but in Hard Day's Night, I was on pills. That's drugs, you 
know, that's bigger drugs than pot. I've been on pills since I was fifteen-no, since I was seventeen. Since I became a musician. The only 
way to survive in Hamburg, to play eight hours a night, was to take 
pills. The waiters gave you the pills and drink. I was fuckin' drop- 
down drunk in art school. I was a pill addict until Help!, just before 
Help! where we were turned onto pot and we dropped drink. Simple as 
that. I've always needed a drug to survive. The others too, but I always 
had mow, I always took more pills and more of everything, cause I'm 
more crazy. 
 


 
With "Day Tripper," is that when you first started writing message 
songs? Serious songs? 
Probably after Dylan. I don't know. "Day Tripper" wasn't a serious 
message song, was it? 
I don't mean a serious message song in that sense. I mean there was a big 
change in your music from "Can't Buy Me Love" to "We Can Work It Out," 
'Rubber Soul.' 
I suppose it was pot then. I don't really know. I can't . .. "We Can 
Work It Out" Paul wrote that chorus, and I wrote the middle bit about, 
"Life is very short and there's no time for fussin' and fightin'," all that 
bit. I don't remember any changeover, other than when you take pot 
you're a little less aggressive than when you take alcohol. When you're 
[on] alcohol and pills-it's not anything. 
Alright, then let's say 'Rubber Soul' . . . 
Can you tell me if that white album4' with the drawing by Klaus 
Voormann on it, was that before Rubber Soul or after? 
After. 
Oh, I see, okay, Rubber Soul is the one then. 
You really don't remember which . . . 
No. 
Hmmm . . . 
Maybe the others do. I don't remember those kind of things, because 
it doesn't mean anything, it's all gone. 
Well 'Rubber Soul' seemed like the first attempt at serious . . . 
No, we just were getting better technically and musically, that's all. 
We finally took over the studio. In the early days we had to take what 
i5 Revolver, I966 
 
we were given. We had to make it in two hours or whatever it was. And 
three takes was enough, and we didn't know about "you can get more 
bass," and we were learning the technique. With Rubber Soul, we were 
more precise about making the album-that's all. We took over the 
cover and everything. 
What was "Rubber Soul"? That was just a simple play on . . . 
Oh, that was Paul's title, it was like "Yer Blues," I suppose, meaning 
English soul. "Rubber Soul" is just a pun. There's no great mysterious 
meanings behind all of this. It was just four boys working out what to 
call their new album. 
Shall we stop for a while? 
I don't mind. No, we better go on, because Yoko's got your pal, 
Jonathan Cott,46 
to do the same trick with next, how she formed the 
Beatles in I929 [laugh]. And we like to be together, cause it's nicer. 
Why can't you be alone without Yoko? 
I can be, but I don't wish to be. There is no reason on earth why I 
should be without her. There is nothing more important than our relationship, nothing. And we dig being together all the time. And both of 
us could survive apart, but what for? I'm not going to sacrifice love, real 
love, for any fuckin' whore or any friend, or any business, because in 
the end you're alone at night. Neither of us want to be and you can't fill 
the bed with groupies, that doesn't work. I don't want to be a swinger. 
Like I said in the song, I've been through it all and nothing works 
better than to have somebody you love hold you. 
46 A ROLLING contributing editor since the magazine's inception in I967. 
STONE 
 


60  
There was a while in which you hid out in Weybridge where you sat 
home all the time and did nothing. . . 
Well, that's what they say, but I wrote a lot of songs and made some 
what would be termed "far out" tapes, which I still have. And I made a 
lot of movies on 8mm. But at the time I used to think that was not 
doing anything; I thought if I wasn't doing Beatle work, it wasn't work. 
You said at one point you have to write songs that can justify your existence. 
I said a lot of things. I write songs because that's the thing I choose 
to do, and I can't help writing them, that's a fact. And sometimes I feel 
as though you work-I felt as though you worked to justify your existence, but you don't. You work to exist and vice versa, and that's it, 
really. 
You say you write songs because you can't help it. 
Yeah, creating is a result of pain, too. I have to put it somewhere and 
I write songs. But that hiding in Weybridge, I used to think I wasn't 
working there. I made twenty or thirty movies, on just 8mm stuff, but 
they are still movies. And many, many hours of tape of different sounds, 
just not rocking, I suppose you would call them avant garde. 
Why did Derek (Taylor] and Brian [Epstein] fall out? 
Because Derek is another egomaniac and Brian was very hard to live 
with, to take. He had a lot of tantrums and things like that. Like most 
fags do. They're very insecure. Something happened, which I don't 
remember, maybe Paul or somebody [would], but you'd have to ask 
them. They had many arguments and Derek would walk off cause he 
was too proud to do certain jobs. It's the same now. And I don't blame 
 
him, but don't get paid for it. Heh-heh. So that's what happened, they 
had a big row, and Derek was hired by Brian, so was Peter Brown. They 
really were not hired by us. We hired Neil in Liverpool and MaI in 
Liverpool. Those were the only people we ever hired. 
The Hunter Davies book says that . . . 
Well, it was really bullshit. It was written in the sort of Sunday Times 
[style], "the Fab Four." No truth was written. and my auntie knocked 
all the truth bits about my childhood and me mother and I allowed her, 
which is my cop-out, etc. etc. There was nothing about the orgies and 
the shit that happened on tour and all that. And I wanted a real book to 
come out, but we all had wives and didn't want to hurt their feelings. 
End of that one, cause they still have. You know, I mean the Beatles' 
tours were like Fellini's Satyricon. 
YOKO: [laugh] 
JOHN: We had that image, but man, our tours were like something else, 
if you could get on our tours you were in. Just think of Satyricon, with 
four musicians going through it. 
5 
Would you go to a town, a hotel ... 
Wherever we went, there was always a whole scene going. We had 
our four bedrooms separate from-tried to keep 'em out of our room, 
and Derek and Neil's rooms were always full of junk and whores and 
fuck knows what. And policemen, everything. Satyricon, you know. We 
really . . .well, we had to do something. And what do you do if the pill 
doesn't wear off-when it's time to go. You just go. I used to be up all 
night with Derek, whether there was anybody there or not. I just could 
never sleep. Such a heavy scene it was. They didn't call them groupies 

 


 
then, they called it something else. But if we couldn't have groupies, 
we'd have whores and everything, whatever. Whatever was going. 
Who would arrange for all that stuff? 
Derek and Neil, that was their job, and Mal, but I'm not going into 
all that. 
It's like businessmen on a convention. 
Oh, sure it was. When we hit town, we hit it. We're not pissin' 
about. There's photographs of me crawling about in Amsterdam on 
me knees, coming out of whorehouses and things like that. And people 
saying [cheerily], "Good morning, John." The police escorting me to 
the places because they never wanted a big scandal, you see. I don't 
really want to talk about it, cause it hurt Yoko. And it's not fair. But suffice to say, just put it like, "They were Satyricon on tour," and that's it. 
Cause I don't want to hurt the other people's girls either, it's just not fair. 
I'm sorry. 
YOKO:
I was surprised! I didn't know things like that. I thought, "Well, 
John is an artist and probably he had two or three affairs before getting 
married." That is the concept you have in the old school New York 
artists' group, you know, that kind. 
Generation gap. 
YOKO:
Right. Right. Exactly [laugh]. 
Certainly George has told Pattie by this time, and. . . 
I don't think so. I don't think they have. You'd have to ask them . . . 
Let me ask you about something else that was in the Hunter Davies 
book. At one point you and Brian went off to Spain. 
Yes. 
Did you . . .you must have. . . 
We didn't have an affair. 
You never had an affair with Brian? 
No, not an affair. 
YOKO:
[laugh] 
What were the pressures from Brian? 
Cyn was having a baby and the holiday was planned, but I wasn't 
going to break the holiday for a baby and that's what a bastard I was.48 
And I just went on holiday. I watched Brian picking up the boys. I like 
playing a big faggy, all that. 
YOKO:
[laugh] 
JOHN:
It was enjoyable, but there [were] big rumors in Liverpool, it was 
terrible. Very embarrassing. 
Rumors about you and Brian? 
Oh, fuck knows-yes, yes. I was pretty close to Brian because if 
somebody's going to manage me, I want to know them inside out. And 
there was a period when he told me he was a fag and all that. I introduced him to pills, which gives me a guilt association for his death. I 
mean they go that way anyway. And to make him talk-to find out 
what he's like. And I remember him saying, "Don't ever throw it back 
in me face, that I'm a fag." Which I didn't. But his mother's still hiding 
that. But what I hate is the way they're all attacking Allen. And Brian 
was a nice guy, but he knew what he was doing, he robbed us. He 
fucking took all the money and looked after himself and his family, and 
all that. And it's just a myth. I hate the way that Allen is attacked and 
Brian is made like an angel, just cause he's dead. He wasn't, he was just 
a guy. Allen will go berserk when he hears all this. 
What else about that Hunter Davies book? 
''John's first son, John Charles Julian Lennon, was born on April 8, I963. 
 


64  
Well, that . . . I don't knob: I can't remember it. Love Me Do was a 
better book, by Michael Braun, on the Beatles.'~ 
That was a true book. 
He wrote how we were, which was bastards. You can't be anything else 
in a situation of such pressurized-and we took it out on people like 
Neil, Derek and Mal. That's why underneath the facade they resent us 
but could never show it. And they won't believe it when they read it if it's 
in print, etc. But they took a lot of shit from us because we were in such 
a shitty position. It was hard work and somebody had to take it. Those 
things are left out, about what bastards we were. Fuckin' big bastards, 
that's what the Beatles were. You have to be a bastard to make it, man. 
That's a fact. and the Beatles were the biggest bastards on earth. Like 
Allen's Christmas card says. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the 
shadow of death, I will fear no evil, cause I'm the biggest bastard in the 
valley," or something. There's no kidding, if you make it, you're a bastard. 
YOKO:
But how did you manage to keep that clean image? It's amazing. 
JOHN:
Because everybody wants the image to carry on. The press around 
you want to carry on because they want the free drinks and the free 
whores and the fun. Everybody wants to keep on the bandwagon, it's 
Satyricon. We were the Caesar. Who was going to knock us when 
there's a million pounds to be made, all the handouts, the briberies, the 
police, all the fucking hype, you know? Everybody wanted in. That's 
why some of them are still trying to cling on to this. "Don't take it away 
from us. Don't take Rome from us. Not a portable Rome. We all have 
our houses and our cars and our lovers and our wives and office girls 
and parties and drink and drugs, don't take it from us." Otherwise, 
"You're mad, John, you're crazy silly John wants to take all this away." 
"'Love Me Do was published by Penguin Books In I964 
 
What do you say to Beatle people today? 
You mean Beatle fans? 
Yeah. 
It depends who they are. If they ask me something about Hard Day's 
or Help!, I'm just straight with them and say, "Oh, it was good fun," or 
.'It was like this." I'm giving you the dirt, but a lot of it was great fun. 
I don't know, I don't meet any Beatle people, do I [laugh]? 
YOKO: NO. 
JOHN:I don't know where they are. In fact, I don't really know how 
to answer that. There's Apple scruffs, or whatever-I don't know 
what they are, Beatle people or not. I was referring back to what 
we were saying about the Beatles' influence around the time of 
Revolver. I'm saying like Dylan said it, "Don't follow leaders." He 
said it once. 
What was it like in the early days in London? 
When we came down, we were treated like provincials by the 
Cockneys. 
What was it like, say, running around to discotheques with the Stones? 
Oh, that was a great period. We were like King of the Jungle then. 
And we were very close to the Stones. I spent a lot of time with Brian 
Jones] and Mick  [Jagger], and I admired 'em, you know. I dug 'em the 
first time I saw 'em in whatever that place is they came from, Richmond 
Club. And spent a lot of time with 'em. It was great. We were kings, and 
we were all just at the prime, and we all used to just go around London 
in our cars and meet each other and talk about music with the Animals, 
Eric [Burdon], all that. It was really a good time. That was the best 
 


 
period fame-wise. Where we were just-we  didn't get mobbed so  
much, it was-I  don't know, it was like-like  a men's smoking club.  
Just a very good scene.  
What was Brian like?  
Brian Jones?  
Yeah.  

Well, he was different over the years as he disintegrated. He ended 
up the kind of guy that you dread he'd come on the phone, because you 
knew it was trouble. Or like that. He was really in a lot of pain. But in 
the early days he was alright, because he was young and good looking. 
But he's one of them guys that disintegrated in front of you. He wasn't 
sort of brilliant or anything, he was just a nice guy. 
What did you feel when he died?50 
By then I didn't feel anything, really. I just thought, "Another victim 
of the drugs." Like that. 
What do you think of the Stones today? 
I think it's a lot of hype. I like "Honky Tonk Women," and I think 
Mick's a joke, with all that fag dancing. I always did. I enjoy him, I mean 
I'm going to see his films and all that, like everybody else. But, really, 
I think it's a joke. 
Do you see him much now? 
No, I never do see him. We saw a bit of each other round when 
Allen was first coming in. I think Mick got jealous. I always was very 
respectful about Mick of the Stones, but he said a lot of sort of tarty 
things about the Beatles, which I am hurt by, because I can knock the 
50 Jones was found dead in his swimming pool on July 3, I969; the coroner's 
report cited "death by misadventure." 
 
Beatles, but don't let Mick Jagger knock them. Because I'd like to just 
list what we did and what the Stones did two months after, on every 
fuckin' album and every fuckin' thing we did, Mick does exactly the 
same. He imitates us. And I'd like one of you fuckin' underground 
people to point it out. Let It Bleed 
YOKO:
[laugh] 
JOHN: Satanic Majesties is Pepper. "She's a ~rainbow"~~-it's 
the most 
fuckin' bullshit-that's "AII You Need Is Love." I resent the implication 
that the Stones are like revolutionaries and that the Beatles weren't, you 
know? If the Stones were, or are, [then] the Beatles really were. They're 
not in the same class, music-wise or power-wise. Never were. And 
Mick always resented it. I never said anything, I always admired them 
because I like their funky music and I like their style. I always regretted cutting me hairs, a bit like that- 
YOKO:
YOU like rock & roll. 
JOHN:
Yeah, I like rock & roll, and I like the direction they took, after 
they got over trying to imitate us. But [Mick] is even going to do Apple 
now.53 He's going to do the same thing. If it happens, he'll do exactly 
what we did and lose all his money. He's obviously so upset by how big 
the Beatles are compared to him, and he never got over it. He's now in 
his old age, and he's beginning to knock us. And he keeps knocking 
because now the Beatles are . . . like everybody jumped in on the band- 
wagon to knock Beatles when we split. And from Apple, the Apple 
facade, whatever was going on those days, that everybody's been 
" The Stones' sardonic reply to Let It Be. 
52 The single from Their Satanic Majesties Request. 
j3 At the time, the Stones were starting their own label, Rolling Stones Records. 
 


 
knocking us. And I resent it, because even his first-second fuckin' 
record, we wrote for him [laugh].You know? 
YOKO: And "Peace" made money and all that.j4 
JOHN: Which? Oh, he said "Peace" made money. We didn't make any 
money from "Peace." 
YOKO:
No. We lost money. 
When 'Sgt. Pepper' came out did you know after you had put it together 
that it was a great album? Did you feel that while you were making it? 
Yeah, yeah. And Rubber Soul, too. And Revolver. Yeah. 
What did you think of the review in the 'New York Times' of 'Sgt. 
Pepper'? 
I don't remember it. Did it pan it? 
Yeah. 
I don't remember. Those days, reviews weren't that important 
because we had it made, whatever happened. Nowadays, I'm sensitive 
as shit, and every review counts. But those days, we were too big to 
touch. I don't remember the reviews at all. I never read them, and we 
were so blase we never even read the news clippings. I didn't bother 
with them or read anything about us. It was a bore to read about us. 
Maybe Brian told us or somebody told us about it, that it was great or 
lousy. I don't even remember ever hearing about it. 
That was the first real anti-Beatles sentiment in the United States. 
Yeah. Well, they have been trying to knock us down since we began, 
including the British press, always saying . . . The big joke, in crowd 
with us was, "What are you going to do when the bubble bursts?" And 
we told them, privately, that we'd go when we decided, not when some 
''The I969 Plastic Ono Band single, "Give Peace 3 Chance." 
 
fickle public decided. Because we're not a manufactured group. That we 
are what we are because we know what we're doing. Of course we 
made many mistakes and etc., etc. But we knew instinctively that it 
would end when we decided and not when the ATV decides to take off 
our series, or anything like that.5' There were very few things that 
happened to Beatles that weren't really well thought out by us: whether 
to do it or not, what reaction, and would it last forever. We had an 
instinct for it. like somebody wrote. 
We were talking about the tour 'Satyricon' and all, and then somehow 
the protection stopped. Like there's a story about George being at the party 
at which Mick and Keith were busted but they let George out. 
I don't believe it, he wasn't there. I don't think he was there. Or it 
wasn't that they let him out, we were never protected like that. Only on 
the tours we were protected, because everybody was paid off. Then, I 
vaguely remember that George had left [the party]. There was a myth 
around that we were protected by the MBE. I don't know whether it 
was true, cause I still had it when they got me. Had I? When they 
busted 
YOKO:
Um hum. Yes, you did. 
'' 
ATV was Lew Grades entertainment company 
'h In October I968,John and Yoko were charged with possession of cannabis 
resin and obstructing police in the execution of a search warrant. The 
cannabis was discovered in a police raid on Ring05 London apartment, 
where John and Yoko were living temporarily. John later pled guilty to 
cannabis possession, but he and Yoko were found not guilty of obstruction. 
 

 
70  
JOHN: There's two ways of thinking, that they're out to get us, or it just 
happened that way. After I started Two Virgins and doing those kind of 
things, it was like, well, it seemed like I was fair game for the police.57 
There was some myth about us being protected because we had MBEs. 
I don't think it was true, it's just that we never did anything. I mean the 
way Paul said the acid thing-he never got attacked for it. I don't know 
if that was protected, because he was sort of openly admitting that we 
had drugs. I don't really know about that. I don't think we were ever 
protected in England. I just think nobody really bothered about us. I 
think George probably left that party hours before or the day before or 
something. 
Whatever happened to Magic Alex?58 
I don't know. He's still in London. 
Did you all really think that he had these inventions? 
I think some of his stuff actually has come true. I'll check it with 
Allen, but they just haven't manufactured a saleable object. He was just 
another guy that comes and goes round people like us. He's alright but 
he's cracked. He means well. 
You say in the record that 'freaks on the phone won't leave mc alone." Yeah. 
"Don't gimme that blother, brothel:" 
Right. Because I'm sick of all these aggressive hippies or whatever i 
57 This I968 album featured a controversial nude cover photo of John and 
Yoko. 
5H "Magic Alex" Mardas was a friend of the Beatles who worked for Apple, 
planning several far-fetched inventions, including an electronic device that 
would transmit the Maharishii message around the world. 
 

 
they are-the now generation-sort of being very uptight with me. Just 
either on the street or anywhere, on the phone or demanding my attention, as if I owe them something. I'm not their fucking parents. That's 
what it is. They come to the door with a fucking peace symbol and 
expect to just sort of march round the house or something, like an old 
Beatle fan. They're under a delusion of awareness by having long hair. 
And that's what I'm sick of. They frighten me. There's a lot of uptight 
maniacs going round wearing fuckin' peace symbols. 
What did you think of [Charles] Manson when that thing happened?59 I don't know what I thought when it happened. I just think a lot of 
the things he says are true, that he's a child of the state made by us. And 
he took their children in when nobody else would, is what he did. But 
of course he's cracked, alright. 
What were your feelings when he quoted "Helter Skelter"? 
Well he's barmy. He's like any other Beatle kind of fan who reads 
mysticism into it. I mean we used to have a laugh-put in this, that or 
the other in a light-hearted way, that some intellectual would read as 
some symbolic youth generation whatsit. Rut we also took seriously 
some parts of the role. But I don't know what's "Helter Skelter" got to 
do with knifin' somebody, you know? I've never listened to the words 
properly, "helter skelter," which is sort of a noise. 
Everybody was talking about the playing backwards thing on 'Abbey Road.' 
j9 Charles Manson's "family" murdered seven people in August I969. Manson 
had developed an apocalyptic theory that he claimed was based on the 
Beatles' I968 "White Album." Manson claimed that the song "Helter 
Skelter" was a prophecy about an impending race war. 
 



 
Well, that's bullshit. I've just read one about Dylan, too, that if you- 
that he sings . . .I don't believe it, it's bullshit. 
That rumor about Paul being dead . . . 
I don't know where that started, that was barmy I don't know, you 
know as much about it as me. 
Were any of those things on the album that they said were on the album? 
Name a few. 
A whole list of clues or. . . 
No, that was bullshit, the whole thing was made up. We never went 
for anything like that. We put tit-tit-tit in "Girl." It would be things like 
a beat missing or something like that, see if anybody noticed-I know 
we used to have a few things, but nothing that could be interpreted like 
that. 
Why do you think something like that whole death thing would happen? 
Just people have got nothing better to do than study Bibles and 
make nits about it and study rocks and make stories about how people 
used to live and all that. It's just something to do for them. They live 
vicariously 
There's a point in which you decided that you'd give up your private life 
and Yoko would give up her private life. 
No, we never decided to give up our private life, but we decided if 
we're going to do anything like get married or like this film that we're 
going to make now,"" that we would dedicate it to peace, though on the 
ho At the time, John and Yoko were In New York making their avant-garde film 
Up Your Legs Forever
 
concept that peace-and during that period-because we are what we 
are. It evolved that somehow we ended up being responsible to produce 
peace. I mean even in our own heads we would get that way. But that's 
how it is. But peace is still important. 
YOKO: Yes. 
JOHN: But my life is dedicated to living, surviving is what it's about 
really, from day to day 
YOKO:
We don't want to be hypocrites. Like most people start to destroy 
their own private life and just become like a big billboard saying 
"Peace," or something. But we want to try to be human as well, to try 
to hold on to our lives as well. 
JOHN: We take on too much, that's the problem . . . I just won't get 
involved in too many things. I think [laugh]. I'll just do whatever hap- 
pens. It's silly to feel guilty that I'm not working, I'm not doing this-it's 
just stupid. I'm just going to do what I want for meself. I mean for both 
of us. 
What do you think the effects of events like the Bed-in were? 
I don't know. I can't measure it. 
YOKO:
We don't know. You have to tell us. 
JOHK:YOU tell us, you're reacting, we're acting. Somebody else has to tell 
us what the reaction is. 
You recently visited Yoko's ex-husband, Tony Cox,(" in Denmark, where 
you met a magician . . . 
" 
Filmmaker Anthony Cox, Yoko's second husband, with whom she had a 
daughter, Kyoko, who lived with Cox. 
 


74  
Hamrick was brought over by Tony because he said this was a 
great doctor [who] was going to hypnotize us and we would stop 
smoking.62 
YOKO: We thought that would be very practical. 
JOHN: SO We thought, great. 
YOKO: Fantastic. 
JOHN:
SO Tony said, "It really works cause it worked on us," and he said 
it was easy. So he was brought over and this guy comes in who seemed 
to be primaling all the time. He was always crying and that. And talking. And then we tried it, and it didn't work. We wanted a ciggie. He 
talked like crackers and then he said things like, well, he'd pull us 
back into our past lives. And we were game for anything then, you 
know? So I mean it's like going to a fortune teller. So we said, "Alright, 
do it." And he was mumbling, pretending to hypnotize us, and we're 
lying there, and he's making up all these Walt Disney stories about past 
lives, which we didn't believe. But he was such a nice guy in a way that 
we didn't want to say, "It seems a bit strange." And I was more into it 
than Yoko. She's not quite as silly as I am. But I was thinking, "Well, 
you never know, do you?" I had this thing, believe everything until it's 
disproved. And it turned from giving up ciggies into . . . and he was 
going on about he'd been on a spaceship. I said, "Well go on, tell us 
more." 
YOKO:
But YOU were a bit suspicious . . . 
JOHN:I was suspicious, sure I was. But I wouldn't stop the stories 
h2 Hamrick was a member of the ..cosmic commune," the Harbingers (and a 
friend of Anthony Cox), who tried to hypnotize John and Yoko so that they 
could quit smoking cigarettes. 
 
coming out, "Tell us how it was." And then he'd be saying how they all 
think they're. . . There was this Harbinger. . . But they were obviously 
all insane people. And then these other two came with him-I don't 
know what they wanted-one in purple and the other a magician. He 
said he was going to put spells on everybody and all that-just really 
crazy. And we were getting worried by then, it was gettin' out of hand. 
All of them think they're higher beings, I mean they're still traveling 
around Europe and everywhere thinking they've got messages. It's a 
shame [laugh].And Hamrick said he'd been on a flying saucer, but we 
always suspected with somebody so spiritual or whatever the shit, why 
is he so fat, why can't he get that together? That was the thing. And he'd 
say, "Well, because I have to get myself in a certain state of being by 
eating all these ice cream buns to communicate with the Martians." The 
poor old dear and his wife are probably up in Canada now. So actually 
we went [to Denmark] to talk to-to see Kyoko. 
You once said that talking is a bad form of communication. Music is a 
better form. 
When did I say that? I don't know if it's true or not. It's true one 
minute and not true the next. 
What do you think the future of rock 6 roll is? 
Whatever we make it. I mean, if we want to go bullshitting off into 
intellectualism with rock & roll, we're going to get bullshitting rock 
intellectualism. If we want real rock & roll, it's up to all of us to create 
it. And stop being hyped by revolutionary image and long hair. We've 
got to get over that bit. That's what cutting hair's about. Let's own up 
now and see who's who and who's doing something about what. And 
 


 
who's making music and who's laying down bullshit. Rock &roll will 
be whatever we make it. 
Why do you think it means so much to people? 
Rock &roll? Because it's primitive enough and it has no bullshit- 
the best stuff. And it gets through to you. It's beat. Go to the jungle and 
they have the rhythm, throughout the world. It's as simple as that. You 
get the rhythm going, everybody gets into it. I read that Malcolm X or 
Eldridge Cleaver or somebody said that, with rock, the blacks gave the 
middle-class whites back their bodies, put their minds and bodies to it. 
It's something like that. It gets through. To me it got through. It was the 
only thing that could get through to me out of all the things that were 
happening when I was fifteen. Rock &roll was real. Everything else was 
unreal. And the thing about rock &roll, good rock &roll, whatever 
good means, etc., ha-ha, and all that shit, is that it's real. And realism gets 
through to you, despite yourself. You recognize something in it which is 
true, like all true art. Whatever art is, readers. Okay? It's that. If it's real, 
it's simple usually. And if it's simple, it's true. Something like that. 
YOKO: Um. 
JOHN: Rock &roll got through to you [Yoko], didn't it? 
YOKO: Yes . . . 
JOHN: Finally. 
YOKO:
Classical music was basically 4/4, and then it went into 4/3, too, 
which is a waltz, rhythm and all that. But it just went further and further away from the heartbeat. Heartbeat is 4/4, and it goes-
[demonstrates] you know? And then they started I-2-3, all that. And 
then. . . 
JOHN: Perversion. 
YOKO:
. . . rhythm became very decorative and then you know like 
 
Schoenberg, Webern, all their rhythm is like-[demonstrates] you know 
like that. It5 highly complicated and interesting, and our minds are 
very much like that, but they lost the heartbeat. I went to see the 
Beatles' session in the beginning and I thought, "Oh, well." So I was 
saying to John, "Well, why do you always use that beat all the time? 
The same beat. Why don't you do something a bit more complex3" 
JOHN:
I was doing "Bulldog." 
YOKO: And he was saying, "Oh, she's saying we're using the same beat all 
the time." 
JOHN: Very embarrassing. 
YOKO:
And then I suddenly realized, that's what . . . 
Embarrassing for yourself or for Yoko? 
JOHN: For me, cause if somebody starts playing that intellectual on me, 
I'm going to say, "Oh, maybe . . ." 
YOKO:
He's a very shy fellow . . . 
JOHN: I'm shy. If somebody attacks, I shrink. 
YOKO:
Urn. 
JOHN: Until I've got . . . 
YOKO:
I had the same intellectual snobbery . . . 
JOHN:
She's an intellectual, supreme intellectual. You see, I really know 
what I'm talking about when I say, "those fuckin' intellectuals." They 
have to have a sort of maths-formula thought pattern, in their head to 
feel something. They have to go, "This is the result of that, which did 
this," because the programming of when they were children. 
YOKO:
The best way to explain it, I can't play the piano unless I see a 
score. 
JOHN: Which is insanity. 
YOKC): I have to first see-so that's that. 
 


 
JOHN: That is intellectualism. 
YOKO:
[laugh] 
JOHN:
And that is musicianship, that's the school of music shit-to not 
be able to make music unless you can read a piece of paper, which has 
nothing to do with music. 
And you feel the same way about rock G roll now at thirty as you did at 
fifteen? 
Well, it'll never be as new. It's never going to do what it did to me 
then. But "Tutti Frutti" or "Long Tall Sally"63 is pretty avant garde. I met 
an old avant-garde friend of Yoko's in the Village the other day who was 
talking about "one note," and "didn't Dylan sing one note?"-like he's 
just discovered that. That's about as far out as you can get. intellectually 
I can play games enough to [devise] reasons why that music is very 
important and always will be. Like the blues as opposed to jazz-white 
middle-class good jazz as opposed to the blues. The blues is better. 
Because it5 simpler? 
Cause it's real. It's not perverted or thought-it's not a concept. It is 
a chair, not a design for a chair or a better chair or a bigger chair or a 
chair with leather or with design. It is the first chair, it's chairs for sitting 
on, not chairs for looking at or being appreciated. You sit on that music. 
How would you describe Beatles music? 
Well, it means a lot of things to me. There's not one thing that's 
Beatle music, because I'm part of it. What is Beatle music, "Walrus" or 
"Penny Lane?" Which? It's that diverse. Or "I Want to Hold Your Hand" 
or "Revolution 9"! 
What do you think it was about "Love Me Do" . .. 
h3 Little Richard's Number Six hit single from I956 
 
"Love Me Do" was rock &roll. Pretty funky. 
What do you think accounted for the sudden popularity of "Love Me 
Do"? 
"Love Me Do" was never big. It might have made it over here, after 
we'd made it. Remember that America followed much after. Because we 
were local heroes. "Love Me Do" didn't only make Number Forty on 
the charts in England, it didn't do anything. 
What was it about the sound, not just "Love Me Do" but anything from 
that period, that caught everybody? 
Because we didn't sound like everybody else, that's all. We didn't 
sound like the black musicians because we weren't black and because 
we were brought up on a different kind of music and atmosphere. And 
so "Please Please Me" and "From Me to You" and all those were our 
version of the chair. We were building our own chairs, that's all, and 
they were sort of local chairs. I don't know. 
What were the first devices and tricks that you used to embellish. . . 
The first gimmick was the harmonica. There'd been a few songs 
"Hey! Baby," and there was a terrible thing called "I Remember You" in 
England.64 And I played a lot of harmonica, mouth organ really, when 
I was a child. So we did those numbers. So we started using it on "Love 
Me Do," just for arrangement, because we used to work out arrangements. We just used it. And then we stuck it on "Please Please Me" and 
then we stuck it on "From Me to You," like that. It went on and on, it 
got into the gimmick, and then we dropped it. It got embarrassing. 
"'"Hey! Baby" was a Number One hit for Bruce Channel In I962; "I 
Remember You" was a Number Five hit for Frank Ifield in I962 and had 
been a Number Nine hit for Jimmy Dorsey in I942. 
 


80  
What sort of complexities or embellishment besides harmonica did you 
start to use? 
Well . . . we did that at the Cavern. I was playing harmonica, and 
that was the gimmick in the early days was the harmonica. I don't 
know what you mean-musically on the records? 
On records. 
The first sort of tricks was double tracking on the second album, we 
discovered that, or it was told to us, "You can do this." That really set 
the ball rolling. We double tracked ourselves off the album on the 
second album.65 Apart from that, the first lot, we just did as a group 
that went in and played and they put it on tape and we left. They 
remised it, they did everything to it. I would love to remix some of the 
early stuff. because it's better than it sounds. 
YOKO:
And I want to cover some of Johns songs. 
JOHN: Yes, yes, yes. She's going to do a Lennon-McCartney album. But 
you've got to do your old . . . she's got so many albums to do. 
Have you ever thought if there's a live album? 
Yeah, Hollywood Bowl-it was pretty tatty It's nice to hear. It'll 
probably go out one day. I suppose. But we were so nervous. Dean 
Martin was in the audience and all their children. It wasn't like people 
anymore. It was like that. And we were always nervous-it was like 
going on the Palladium.~~ 
But we were there alright. There's also Shea 
Stadium somewhere. There$ one in Italy apparently that somebody 
65 I963's With the Beatles. 
"On October I6, I963, the Beatles appeared on television for the first time on 
Britain's then top-rated program. Val Parnellj: Sunday Night at the London 
Palladium. 
 
recorded there. But you always did everything twenty times faster than 
normal. 
What do you think of those concerts, like the Hollywood Bowl? 
It was awful. Hated it. Some of them were good, some weren't. I 
didn't like Hollywood Bowl. If we knew we were being recorded, it was 
death, we were so frightened. And because you knew it was always terrible: You could never hear yourself and you knew that they were 
fucking it up on the tape anyway There was no bass, and they never 
recorded the drums, you can never hear them. The places were built for 
fuckin' orchestras, not groups. Some of those big gigs were good but 
not many of them. 
In re-reading an interview you did with Jon Cott, you said something 
about "Ticket to Ride" being a favorite song of yours. 
Yeah. I liked it, cause it was slightly a new sound at the time. 
In what way? 
Because it was pretty fuckin' heavy for then. If you go and look in the 
charts for what other music people were making, and you hear it now, 
it doesn't sound too bad. It's one of them. It doesn't make you cringe. 
YOKO:
It's very heavy 
JOHN: If you'd give me the eight-track now, remix it-I'll show you 
what it is really, but you can hear it there. I used to like guitars. I don't 
want anything else on the album, the guitars and janglin' piano or 
whatever. It's all happening, it's a heavy record. And the drums are 
heavy too. That's why I like it. 
What part did you ever play in the songs that are heavily identified with 
Paul, like "Yesterday "? 
"Yesterday" I had nothing to do with. 
"Eleanor Rigby "? 
 


 
"Eleanor Rigby" I wrote a good half of the lyrics or more. 
When did Paul show you "Yesterday"? 
I don't remember-I really don't remember, it was a long time ago. 
I think he was . . . I really don't remember, it just sort of appeared. 
Who do you think has done the best versions of your stuff? 
I can't think of anybody. 
Did you hear Ike and Tina Turner doing "Come Together"? 
Yeah, I think they did too much of a job on it. I think they could 
have done it better. They did a better "Honky Tonk Women." 
Ray Charles doing "Yesterday"? 
That was quite nice. 
And you had Otis doing "Day TrippeI;" what did you think of that? 
I don't think he did a very good job on "Day Tripper." I never went 
much for the covers. It doesn't interest me, really. I like people doing 
them-I've heard some nice versions of "In My Life," I don't know 
who it was, though Judy Collins]. Jose Feliciano did "Help!" quite 
nice once. I like people doing it, I get a kick out of it. I think it was 
interesting that Nina Simone did a sort of answer to "Revolution." 
That was very good-it was sort of like "Revolution," but not quite. 
That I sort of enjoyed, somebody who reacted immediately to what I 
had said. 
Who wrote "Nowhere Man"? 
Me. me. 
Did you write that about anybody in particular? 
Probably about myself. I remember I was just going through this 
paranoia trying to write something and nothing would come out, so I 
just lay down and tried to not write and then this came out, the whole 
thing came out in one gulp. 
 
What songs really stick in your mind as being Lennon-McCartney 
songs? 
"I Want to Hold Your Hand," "From Me to You," "She Loves 
You-I'd have to have the list, there's so many, trillions of 'em. Those 
are the ones. In a rock band you have to make singles, you have to 
keep writing them. Plenty more. We both had our fingers in each 
other's pies. 
I remember that the simplicity on the new album was evident on the 
Beatles' double album. It was evident on "She's So Heavy," in fact a 
reviewer wrote of "She's So Heavy": "He seems to have lost his talent for 
lyrics, it's so simple and boring." "She's So Heavy" was about Yoko. 
When it gets down to it, like she said, when you're drowning you don't 
say, "I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight 
to notice me drowning and come and help me," you just scream. And 
in "She's So Heavy" I just sang, "I want you, I want you so bad, she's so 
heavy, I want you," like that. I started simplifying my lyrics then, on the 
double album. 
A song from the 'Help!' album, like "You've Got to Hide Your Love 
Away," how did you write that? What were the circumstances? Where were 
you? 
I was in Kenwood and I would just be songwriting. The period 
would be for songwriting and so every day I would attempt to write a 
song, and it's one of those that you sort of sing a bit sadly to yourself, 
"Here I stand, head in hand. . . " 
I started thinking about my own emotions-I don't know when 
exactly it started, like "I'm a Loser" or "Hide Your Love Away" or those 
kind of things-instead of projecting myself into a situation, I would 
try to express what I felt about myself which I'd done in me books. I 
 


84  
think it was Dylan helped me realize that-not by any discussion or 
anything but just by hearing his work-I had a sort of professional 
songwriter's attitude to writing pop songs; he would turn out a certain 
style of song for a single and we would do a certain style of thing for 
this and the other thing. I was already a stylized songwriter on the first 
album. But to express myself I would write Spaniard in the Works or In 
His Own Write, the personal stories which were expressive of my personal emotions
I'd have a separate songwriting John Lennon who 
wrote songs for the sort of meat market, and I didn't consider them- 
the lyrics or anything-to have any depth at all. They were just a joke. 
Then I started being me about the songs, not writing them objectively, 
but subjectively. 
What about on 'Rubber Soul-"Norwegian Wood"? 
I was trying to write about an affair without letting me wife know I 
was writing about an affair, so it was very gobbledygook. I was sort of 
writing from my experiences, girls' flats, things like that. 
Where did you write that? 
I wrote it at Kenwood. 
When did you decide to put a sitar on it? 
I think it was at the studio. George had just got the sitar and I said, 
"Could you play this piece?" We went through many different sort of 
versions of the song, it was never right and I was getting very angry 
about it, it wasn't coming out like I said. They said, "Just do it how 
you want to do it," and I said, "I just want to do it like this." They let 
me go and I did the guitar very loudly into the mike and sang it at the 
hi Lennon's books In His Own Write (I964) and A Spaniard in the Works (I965) 
included prose, poetry and drawings. 
LENNON KEMEMBERS 
same time, and then George had the sitar and I asked him could he 
play the piece that I'd written, dee diddley dee diddley dee, that bit- 
and he was not sure whether he could play it yet because he hadn't 
done much on the sitar but he was willing to have a go, as is his wont, 
and he learned the bit and dubbed it on after. I think we did it in 
sections. 
You also have a song on that album, "In My Life." When did you write 
that? 
I wrote that in Kenwood. I used to write upstairs where I had about 
ten Brunell tape recorders all linked up-I still have them. I'd mastered 
them over the period of a year or two. I could never make a rock & roll 
record, but I could make some far-out stuff on it. I wrote it upstairs, 
that was one where I wrote the lyrics first and then sang it. That was 
usually the case with things like .'In My Life" and "Universe" and some 
of the ones that stand out a bit. 
Would you just record yourself and a guitar on a tape and then bring it 
in to the studio? 
I would do that just to get an impression of what it sounded like 
sung and to hear it back for judging it-you never know tiI you hear the 
song yourself. I would double track the guitar or the voice or some- 
thing on the tape. I think on "Norwegian Wood" and "In My Life" Paul 
helped with the middle eight, to give credit where its due. 
From the same period, same time, I never liked "Run for Your Life," 
because it was a song Ijust knocked off. It was inspired-this is a very 
vague connection-from "Baby Let's Play House." There was a line on 
it-I used to like specific lines from songs-"I'd rather see you dead, 
little girl, then to be with another man-so I wrote it around that, but 
I didn't think it was that important. "Girl" I liked because I was, in a 
 


86  
way, trying to say something or other about Christianity, which I was 
opposed to at the time. 
Why Christianity in that song? 
Because I was brought up in the church. One of the reviews of In His 
Own Write was that they tried to put me in this satire boom with Peter 
Cook and those people that came out to Cambridge, saying, "He's just 
satirizing the normal things like the church and the state," which is 
what I did in In His Own Write.6s Those are the things that you keep satirizing because they're the only things. I was pretty heavy on the church 
in both books, but it was never picked up, although it was obviously 
there. I was just talking about Christianity in that. . . a thing like you 
have to be tortured to attain heaven. I'm only saying that I was talking 
about "pain will lead to pleasure" in "Girl" and that ?as the Catholic 
Christian concept-to be tortured and then it'll be alright, which seems 
to be a bit true but not in their concept of it. But I didn't believe in that, 
that you have to be tortured to attain anything, it just so happens that 
you were. 
Let me ask you about one on the double album, "Glass Onion." You set 
out to write a little message to the audience. 
Yeah, I was having a laugh because there'd been so much gobblede- 
gook about Pepper, play it backwards and you stand on your head and 
all that. Even now, I just saw MeI Tome on TV the other day saying that 
"Lucy" was written to promote drugs and so was "A Little Help From 
My Friends'' and none of them were at all. "A Little Help From My 
Friends" only says get high in it. It's really about a little help from my 
6%ctor/comedian Peter Cook was one of the original members of the comedy 
troupe that created the groundbreaking satiric revue "Beyond the Fringe." 
 
friends, it's a sincere message. Paul had the line about "little help from 
my friends." I'm not sure, he had some kind of structure for it and-we 
wrote it pretty well fifty-fifty but it was based on his original idea. 
In "I Am the Walrus" ... 
That was the B side of "Hello, Goodbye," can you believe it? 
You say in "Glass Onion": "here's another clue for you all . . . " 
"The Walrus is Paul." 
Paul. 
Ray Coleman asked me.6y At that time, [I was] still in my love cloud 
with Yoko, I felt, well, you know, I'll just say something nice to Paul, 
that it's alright and, "You did a good job over these few years holding us 
together." He was trying to organize the group and that, and do the 
music and be an individual artist and all that stuff. I wanted to say 
something to him. And I did it for that reason. I thought, "Well, you 
can have it, I've got Yoko, and thank you, you can have the credit." 
And now you've decided. . . 
I decided I'm sick of reading things about Paul is the musician and 
George is the philosopher and I wonder where I fit in. What was my 
contribution? I get hurt. I'm sick of it. I'd sooner be like [Frank] 
Zapper and say, "Listen, you fuckers, this is what I did. And I don't care 
whether you like my attitude saying it, but that's what I am, I'm a 
fuckin'artist, man." And I'm not a fuckin' PR agent or the product of 
some other person's imagination, whether you're the public or what- 
ever. I'm standing by my work, whereas before I would not stand by it. 
So that's what I'm saying. I was the walrus, whatever that means. We 
6y A Melody Maker writer who traveled with the Beatles and interviewed John 
many times. He later wrote the I984book Lennon: The Definitive Biography. 
 


 
saw the movie in L.A. and the walrus was a big capitalist that ate all 
the fuckin' oysters [laugh], if you must know. That's what he was. I 
always had this image of "The Walrus and the Carpenter" and I 
never checked what the walrus was. I've been going around and 
saying, "I'm the walrus," that it's something, but he's a fucking bastard 
[laugh]. That's what it turns out to be. The way it's written everybody 
presumes that it means something. I mean even Idid, so I mean we all 
just presumed, just cause I said, "Iam the walrus" that it must mean 
I am God or something, but it's just poetry. But it became symbolic 
with me. 
What other little things are there like that? 
The walrus-oh, I don't know. I said hello to Peter Brown in "The 
Ballad of John and Yoko." Its just a way of thanking them. Because I 
learned things from Yoko in a way They always dedicate their work, 
these avant-garde people, to each other, like this is for [the pianist] 
David Tudor and this is for that. And they're great for the original, the 
whole book's dedicated to all these men, and I wouldn't let her put it in 
the real one. But now I understand it a bit. I thought they were all sort 
of ... 
YOKO: No, it wasn't anything special .. . 
JOHN: No, I know. Like I dedicated the album to Yoko, but they dedicated it like, "Isolation" for George, or "Isolation" for Jann . . . Just 
because you were around when we spoke, or something like that. It's 
nice that they did that to each other, and so it's a bit like that. 
YOKC:
With a drop of a hat they did . . . 
'O John and Yoko saw the film version of Alice in Wonderland: Lewis Carroll 
also wrote "The Walrus and the Carpenter." 
 
JOHN: Yes, yes, yes. Yes. I understand, he understands, don't worry. 
They were just in a group and they did a lot of that, so I just sort of 
picked up on it, I suppose. I want people to love me. I want to be loved. 
What did you think of Abbey Road'? 
Iliked the A side. I never liked that sort of pop opera on the other 
side, Ithink it's junk. 
It seemed very fragmented . . . 
Yeah, because it was just bits of song thrown together. And I can't 
remember what some of it is. "Come Together" is alright. And some 
things on it. 
"Come Together-was that you? 
Yeah, that was my song. That's all Iremember. Did I do anything else 
on Abbey Road? [singing "Come Together"] It couldn't be an album with 
just one track on it. 
YOKO:
NO, no, no. 
JOHN:
Anyway I. . . it was a competent album, like Rubber Soul in a way 
it was together in that way, but it had no life really 
How did you come to write "Come Together"? 
I can't say this, we're being sued, you see. See, the Learys wanted me 
to write-this is not the suing bit-them a campaign song." And their 
slogan was "come together." I wrote it, I've still got it, it's actually very like 
the Kinks-[sings] "Dra-a-a-a-g," you know. some song of theirs. But 
anyway, I wrote "Come Together." But before I wrote their song, I was 
writing in the office, just sort of. . . I can't say this because we're going to 
get sued because it's silly. I was writing this like, "You Can't Catch Me," 
" Dr. Timothy and his fourth wife Rosemary:. Leary was a candidate for governor of California in I970. 
 


 
the same rhythm and I'm using the old words.72 I often do it, if I'm trying 
to write one like "Long Tall Sally" or I'm just singing, I'm going, [sings] 
"oh, gonna tell Mary," and just make up-parodize the words, I was 
doing that. And then whetI I got . . . I stopped and I said-just came 
out-"come together," cause "come together" was rolling around in me 
head. "Right now, over me." Now "over me" was meant to be like a 
joke-but "oh-oh-ver me," like Elvis used to "0-o-o-ver you." And then 
I never put the other [one out]-the other one went, [sings] "come together, and [claps in rhythm] join the party, co-o-ome together and join 
the party." For Leary-like "Give Peace a Chance," a chant along thing. 
YOKO: Leary doesn't know, but I wish you'd send that to him. 
JOHN: Yeah, I know, but I never get around to it. So I never did it, and I 
ended up writing "Come Together" instead. And they're suing me 
because it's like "You Can't Catch Me," for the first half a line or some- 
thing, because Chuck Berry's words went something like that. But 
anyway, it's not him that's suing me, it's his people. So you have to not 
put that in because they'll say, "Oh there, he admitted it." And I think 
its a compliment to Chuck Berry, not a fucking .. . [laugh]--I mean we 
resurrected him. 
''The owner of the song's copyright, Big Seven Music Corporation, owned by 
the notorious Morris Levy, filed suit against Lennon for copyright infringement in I969, claiming that he used a few of the I956 Chuck Berry song's 
lines in "Come Together." The suit finally settled in I973 in the publisher's 
favor, and to compensate Levy, Lennon agreed to record three songs owned 
by his publishing company (Lennon was recording Rock 'n' Roll, a collection 
of his favorite songs of the Fifties and Sixties.) Levy actually released a 
bootleg version of Rock 'n' Roll prior to its official I975 release; Lennon sued 
Levy this time and won. 
 
Like in "All You Need Is Love" . . . 
Many songs are similar, [and] I always like to say where the source 
was. I say, "Well, that was 'You Can't Catch Me."' But if I never said it, 
nobody'd ever know. Just one guy spotted it. 
What was it like recording "Instant Karma"? That was your first record 
with Phil [Spector]. 
It was great, cause I wrote it in the morning on the piano, like I said 
many times, and I went to the office and I sang it. I thought, "Hell, let's 
do it," and we booked the studio. And Phil came in, he said, "How do 
you want it?" I said, "You know, I950 but now." And he said "Right," 
and boom, I did it in just about three goes. He played it back, and there 
it was. I said, "A bit more bass," that's all. And off we went. See, Phil 
doesn't fuss about with fuckin' stereo or all the bullshit. Just "Did it 
sound alright? Let's have it." It doesn't matter whether something's 
prominent or not prominent. If it sounds good to you as a layman or as 
a human, take it. Don't bother whether this is like that or the quality of 
this. That suits me fine. [To someone entering the room] Yeah, we're just 
finishing. Have we finished? 
I'd like to know more, but we can take a break. I'd like to call Annie and 
have her come over7j 
Oh, I don't want to, I don't want to, really. Cause nobody's done it, 
I don't want to start all that pictures of John and Yoko bit. Just take one 
with an Instamatic, you can take it. 
"Photographer Annie Leibovitz had just that year started working for 
ROLLING she eventually photographed Lennon (and Yoko Ono) for 
STONE; 
the covers of the issues that ran this interview in two parts, on January 2I, 
I97I, and February 4, I97I. 
 


 
It'll be terrible. I just want to take a- 
It won't be terrible. 
I want to get a good picture for the cover. 
Look at the album. Well, look-take it. Don't be a snob, don't be 
professional. Just take a photo. 
[break] 
When did you first become aware of the idea of stereo? Of being able to 
work in stereo? 
Oh, some time or other, I don't know. There was a period where we 
started realizing that you can go and remix it yourself. And we started 
listening to them or saying, "Well, why couldn't you do that?" We'd be 
just standing by the [control] board saying, "Oh, well, what about that?" 
And George [Martin] would say, "Well, how do you like this?" From the 
early days, they just would present us with finished product. We'd say, 
"What happened to the bass?" or something. They'd say, "Oh well, that's 
how it is." That kind of thing. It must have been a gradual thing. 
Was 'Rubber Soul' the first album where you took control? 
I think so, full control. Well, we'd take control, we'd say, "This is 
what I want on mine. And it should be like that, etc. etc." I'm guessing. 
If it sounds like it, that's when it happened. There's an obvious difference in the . . . 
What did you think of "Give Peace a Chance"? 
As a record? 
Yeah. 
 
I thought it was beautiful. 
Did you see the Moratorium Day in Washington? 
Oh yeah, that's what it was for. I think I heard. . . I don't know, I just 
remember hearing them all singing. I don't know whether it was on the 
radio or TV, but that was a very big moment for me. That's what the song 
was about, because I'm shy and aggressive. So I have great hopes for 
what I do, my work. And I also have great despair that ifs all pointless 
and shit-how can you top Beethoven or Shakespeare or whatever. And 
in me secret heart I wanted to write something that would take over "We 
Shall Overcome." I don't know why, that's the one they always sang. I 
thought, "Why isn't somebody writing one for the people now?" That's 
what my job is. Our job is to write for the people now. So the songs that 
they go and sing on their buses are not just love songs. I have the same 
kind of hope for "Working Class Hero," but I know it's a different concept. I think it's a revolutionary song-it's really just revolutionary. Ijust 
think its concept is revolutionary. I hope it's for workers and not for tarts 
and fags. I hope it's about what "Give Peace a Chance" was about. But I 
don't know-on the other hand, it might just be ignored. I think it's for 
the people like me who are working class, who are supposed to be 
processed into the middle classes, or into the machinery. It's my experience, and I hope it's just a warning to people, "Working Class Hero." 
YOKO: That's a fantastic song! 
JOHN: NO, I don't want praise, I just-I'm saying I think it's a revolutionary song. Not the song itself, it's a song for the revolution. 
'"In I969, the New Mobilization Committee to End the War organized a 
three-day nationwide antiwar demonstration, culminating in a massive 
march in Washington. D.C., on November I5. 
 


94  
Can you deliberately put out a commercial 
record-do you have a feeling for a Number One record? 
No. See, I keep thinking "Mother" is a commercial record, because 
all the time I was writing it, it was the one I was singing the most and 
it's the one that seemed to catch on in my head. I'm convinced that 
"Mother" is a commercial record. But- 
I agree. 
You agree? Well, thank you. But you said "God" . . . 
No, I didn't. 
No, no, well they're all playing "God." Or "Isolation." 
You're right about "Mother" because it's the one that I have in my head 
all the time. 
Yeah, right. 
Trust your instinct. Put that out. 
Yeah, but it's the politics in it, too. Politics will prepare the ground for 
my album. The same as "My Sweet Lord" prepared the ground for George's 
[All Things Must Pass]. I'm not going to get hits just like that. People 
aren't going to buy my album just cause ROLLING liked it. People 
STONE 
have got to be hyped in a way, they've got to have it presented to them in 
all the best ways possible. And if "Love" can-because I like the song 
"Love." I like the melody and the words and everything, I think it's beautiful. I'm more of a rocker, that's all. I originally conceived of "Mother" and 
"Love" as being a single, but I want to put one out with her [Yoko]. Then 
I have to get rid of one. But I think "Love" will do me more good. 
I don't think so. I say, trust your instinct. .. "Mother2'-that what it is. 
What will stay in your- head the longest? 
No, but if you hear "Love" more, that will stay in your head more. 
"Love" is also commercial. 
 95 
I've heard it all the same number of times, and "Mother" is the one I 
always have in mind. 
Yeah, I understand that. If you just take "Love," it's a single song, it's 
a single record. "Mother" is a single, "Love" is a single. "God" could be. 
So could "Isolation," and "Remember." 
YOKO:
And "Working Class Hero." 
JOHN:I write singles, I write them all the same way But [with] 
"Mother-you've got to take into account the lyrics, too. If I can capture more sales by singing about love than singing about my mother, I'II 
do it. 
YOKO:
Because that would open a door for. .. 
I understand- 
JOHN: I'm opening a door for John Lennon, not for music or for the 
Beatles or for a movement or anything. I'm presenting myself to as 
broad a scope as I can. And I'm talking out what I think, as a result 
of them saying this to me. There's also many little sidelines-this is 
not for publication-like Capitol was trying to say that this isn't a 
Plastic Ono record. But that has nothing to do with "Love" actually. 
[The label is] trying to now say that this is John Lennon, one of the 
Beatles. And therefore it's a different deal, you see. When they were 
on the McCartney bandwagon, which they were on, and they thought 
that I was just an idiot pissing about with a Japanese broad and the 
music we were making, like Toronto, they didn't want to put out, 
because they didn't like that.'' They were content to let me be a 
Plastic Ono Band and give me a release on it, a special release I have 
" 
Live Peace in fitunto, I969, recorded live at a rock festival, included experimental tracks by Yoko. 
 


96  
to get. Because Beatles are tied up as Beatles or as individual per- 
formers. 
What are the implications? 
The implications are that money-all of it's money, man. They're 
saying well, "Looks like this is a John Lennon album, not Plastic Ono." 
Well, to me, it's Plastic Ono, or I wouldn't put it out like that [on flip- 
sides of a single]. So that's another reason to put us out together like 
that. There's all those things. But I'm going to think about "Love." You 
see, the original idea was there's not enough things on the album to put 
out a single. Because there's only ten76 songs or nine if you don't count 
"Mummy."77 And that means that there's nothing to buy then. But to 
me it sounds like there's forty songs on it. 
YOKO:
Very heavy. 
JOHN: But there's that side of the market. I'm not going to disregard it. I 
mean to sell as many albums as I can, as many records as I possibly can 
because I'm an artist who wants everybody to love me and everybody to 
buy my stuff. And I'll go for that. Without selling out anymore. 
The theory of putting out something that's commercial to get people to 
buy the album of course is obvious. There's no great shakes about that 
theory but the question is which is most commercial, "Love" or "Mother"? 
How quick do you get to Number One? The thing is, "Love" will 
attract more people because of the message, man. Many, many people will 
not like "Mother"; it hurts them. The first thing that happens to you when 
you get the album is you can't take it. Everybody's reacted exactly the 
same. They think, yuck!" That's how everybody is. And the second time, 
7h Actually there are eleven tracks on Plastic Ono Band. 
77 "My Mummy's Dead," the last song on Plastic Ono Band 
 
they start saying, "Oh, well, there's a little . . ." so I can't lay "Mother" on 
them. It confirms the suspicions that something nasty's going on with that 
John Lennon and his broad again. People aren't that hip. Students aren't 
that aware and all that bullshit. They're just like anybody else. "Oh, oh 
misery, is that what it's . . . don't tell me I'm . . . it is really awful." 
YOKO: "Why is he accusing his mother?" 
JOHN:" Be a good boy now, John." Or "you had a hard time but me, me 
and my mother . . ." So there's all that to go through. "Love" I wrote in 
a spirit of love. In all that shit, I wrote it in a spirit of love. It's for Yoko, 
it has all that connotation for me. It's a beautiful melody and I'm not 
even known for writing melody. There's that angle. Also, people would 
hear it and they've heard all this shit about "it's banned and he doesn't 
believe in God or the Kennedys and-my God, what's hen-all that. I'm 
going to get that, you know. This will say, "Well, in amongst that in life, 
there is that, but there's that too." I'm very good [laughing], I've really 
convinced meself there. 
YOKO:
But it's true-that's a very good thing. 
JOHN: I mean, whoo, yes. But I'll still consider it. 
YOKO:
People think "Mother" is too personal. 
JOHN: It'll do me good. If it goes, it'll do me good. Go on.7H 
Did you write most of the songs on this album on guitar or piano? 
The ones where I play guitar I wrote on guitar. The ones where I 
play piano I wrote on piano. 
What do you think is the difference between a piano song and a guitar 
song? 
7H "Mother" actually became the album's single, released January 9, I97I; it 
wasn't a hit, peaking at Number 43. 
 


 
Well, let's think of the difference between ''I Found Out" and 
"Remember." There's more piano ones on this one than [on] guitar. 
What are the differences to you when you write them? 
Because I play piano even worse than I play guitar, that's a limited 
palette, as they call it. So I surprise meself. I have to think in terms of, 
go from C to A, and I'm not quite sure where I am half the time. 
When I'm holding the chord, I go ding and it might only be an ordinary-on the guitar it's only a sixth or a seventh [chord]. On the 
piano, I don't know what it is. So it's that kind of feel about it. But I 
know such a lot about the guitar. With guitar I can be buskin'. If I want 
to write just a rocker, I have to play guitar cause I can't play piano well 
enough to inspire me to rock. It's like that. That's the difference really. 
What do you think are your best songs? 
Ever? Ever? 
Ever What is the best song? 
The one best song? 
Have you thought of that? 
I don't know, you see, somebody asked me what's my favorite song, 
is it "Stardust" or something like that. I can't-that kind of decision 
making I can't make. I like-I always like "Walrus," "Strawberry 
Fields." "Help! ,""In My Life." Those are some favorites. 
Why "Help! "? 
Because I mean it. It's real. The lyric is as good now as it was then. It's 
not different. It makes me feel secure to know that I was that sensible 
or whatever-not sensible but aware of myself then. That's with no 
acid, no nothing, well, pot, or whatever. It was just me singing "Help!" 
and I meant it. I don't like the recording that much. The song I like. We 
did it too fast to try and be commercial and all that. I like "I Want to 
 
Hold Your Hand." We wrote that together-it's a beautiful melody. I 
might do "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and '.Help!" again, because I like 
them. I sing them, they're the kind of songs I sing [laugh]. 
Why "Strawberry Fields"? Again, cause that was real? 
Because it's real, yeah. It was real for then, and it's like talking. "I 
sometimes think no but I-then again I mean Isa-you know," like 
that.79 It's like that Elton John one where he talks to himself, sort of 
singing, which I thought was nice. It reminded me of that. 
Songs like "Girl"? 
Yeah, I like that one. 
"Run for Your Life"? 
"Run for Your Life" I always hated. 
Why? 
I don't know Because it was one of those I knocked off just to write 
a song. It was phony, but "Girl" is real. There's no such thing as the girl, 
she was a dream. But the words are alright. It's about, well, "she taught 
when she was young that pain would lead to pleasure, did she under- 
stand it," all that. They're sort of philosophy quotes. It was reasonable. 
I was thinking about it when I wrote it. It wasn't just a song. It was 
about that girl that happened to turn out to be Yoko in the end, but the 
one that a lot of us were looking for. There are many songs I forget like 
that, that I do like. I like "Across the Universe," too. 
my ? 
It's one of the best lyrics I've written. In fact, it could be the best. It's 
one of the best. It's good poetry, or whatever you call it. Without tune, 
''Actual Lyric is: "Always, no sometimes, think it's me, but you know I know 
when it's a dream." 
 


I00  
it stands. The ones I like are ones that stand as words, without melody. 
They don't have to have any melody. It's a poem, you could read them. 
That's your ultimate criterion? 
No, it's just the ones I happen to like. I like to read other people's 
lyrics, too. 
So what happened with 'Let It Be'? 
Well, it was another one like Magical Mystery Tour that . . . [sigh] 
well. sort of-this is-it's hard to say. In a nutshell, Paul wanted to 
make-it was time for another Beatle movie or something, and Paul 
wanted us to go on the road or do something. As usual, George and I 
were going, "Oh, we don't want to do it, fuck," and all that. He set it up 
and there was all discussions about where to go and all that. I would 
just tag along and I had Yoko by then, I didn't even give a shit about 
anything. I was stoned all the time, too, on H, etc. And I just didn't give 
a shit. And nobody did, you know. Anyway, it's like in the movie when 
I go to do "Across the Universe," Paul yawns and plays boogie, and I 
merely say, "Oh, anybody want to do a fast one?" That's how I am. Year 
after year, that begins to wear you down. 
How long did those sessions last? 
Oh, fucking--God knows how long. Paul had this idea that we 
were going to rehearse or . . . see it all was more like Simon and 
Garfunkel [laugh],like looking for perfection all the time. And so he 
has these ideas that we'll rehearse and then make the album. And of 
course we're lazy fuckers and we've been playing for twenty years, for 
fuck's sake, we're grown men, we're not going to sit around rehearsing. 
I'm not, anyway. And we couldn't get into it. And we put down a few 
 I0I 
tracks and nobody was in it at all. It was a dreadful, dreadful feeling in 
Twickenham Studio, and being filmed all the time. I just wanted them 
to go away, and we'd be there, eight in the morning. You couldn't 
make music at eight in the morning or ten or whatever it was, in a 
strange place with people filming you and colored lights. 
How did it end? 
So the tape ended up like the bootleg version. We let Glyn Johns 
remix it and we didn't want to know, we just left it to him and said, 
.'Here, do it." It's the first time since the first album we didn't have any- 
thing to . . .we just said, .'Do it." Glyn Johns did it, none of us could 
be bothered going in and Paul. . .nobody called anybody about it. The 
tapes were left there, and we got an acetate each, and we'd call each 
other and say, 'Well, what do you think? Oh, let it out." We were 
going to let it out with a really shitty condition, disgusted. And I 
wanted . . . I didn't care, I thought it was good to go out to show 
people what had happened to us. Like this is where we're at now, we 
couldn't get-we can't get it together and don't play together anymore. 
Leave us alone [laugh]. Glyn Johns did a terrible job on it, cause he's 
got no idea, etc. Never mind. But he hasn't, really. And so the bootleg 
version is what it was like. Paul was probably thinking, "Well, I'm not 
going to fucking work on it." It was twenty-nine hours of tape, it was 
like a movie. I mean just so much tape. Ten, twenty takes of everything, 
because we're rehearsing and taking everything. Nobody could face 
looking at it. 
So when Spector came around, it was like. "Well, alright, if you 
want to work with us [laugh], go and do your audition, man." And he 
worked like a pig on it. He'd always wanted to work with the Beatles 
and he was given the shittiest load of badly recorded shit-and with a 

 
I02  
lousy feeling to it-ever. And he made something out of it. It wasn't fantastic, but I heard it, I didn't puke. Iwas so relieved after six months of 
this black cloud hanging over, [that] this was going to go out. Ithought 
it would be good to go out, the shitty version, because it would break 
the Beatles, it would break the myth. That's us with no trousers on and 
no glossy paint over the cover and no sort of hype. "This is what we're 
like with our trousers off. So would you please end the game now?" But 
that didn't happen, and we ended up doing Abbey Road quickly and 
putting out something slick to preserve the myth. 
Why? 
To preserve the myth. 
That was Paul. .. 
It's not like that. If it's suggested, I will go along. I'm weak as well as 
strong. I wasn't going to fight for Let It Be. Because Ireally couldn't 
stand it. 
When 'Let It Be' was finally going to be released, Paul at that point 
wanted to release his solo album? 
Oh, yeah. I don't quite . . . it's so many clashes. It did come out at the 
same time or something, didn't it? 
Yeah. 
Ithink he wanted to show he was the Beatles. 
By bringing out 'McCartney'? 
I think so. 
Were you surprised when you heard it? At what he had done? 
Yeah, I was surprised it was so poor. I expected just a little more, 
because if Paul and I are sort of disagreeing and I feel weak, I think he 
must feel strong. That's in an argument. Not that we've had much physical argument, I mean when we're talking-but you expect the 
 


 I03 
opposition so-called. So I was just surprised. And I was glad, too 
[Laugh].I suddenly got it all in perspective. 
What do you think Paul will think of your new album? 
I think it'll probably scare him into doing something decent, and 
then he'll scare me into doing something decent, and I'll scare him like 
that. I think he's capable of great work. I think he will do it. I wish he 
wouldn't. I wish nobody would, Dylan or anybody. I mean in me heart 
of hearts I wish I was the only one in the world-or whatever it is. But 
I can't see him doing it twice. 
I read something Derek [Taylor-] wrote about cripples and other afflicted people coming up to you to be cured. What was that like? 
Well, that was our version of what was happening. People were sort 
of touching us as we walked past, that kind of thing. Wherever we went 
we were supposed to be not normal and we were supposed to put up 
with all sorts of shit from lord mayors and their wives and be touched 
and pawed like Hard Day's Night only a million more times. At the 
American Embassy, the British Embassy in Washington, or wherever it 
was, some bloody animal cut Ringo's hair, in the middle of. . . I walked 
out of that. Swearing at all of them and I just left in the middle of it. But 
I've forgotten. 
You tripped me off onto that. What was the question? 
The cripples. 
Oh, yeah. And wherever we went on tour, like in Britain or wherever 
we went, there's always a few seats laid aside for cripples and people in 
wheelchairs. Because we were famous, we were supposed to have 
people-sort of epileptics and whatever they are-in our dressing room 
 




I04  
all the time. We're supposed to be good. But you wanted to be alone, 
and you don't know what to say. They're usually saying, "I've got your 
record" or they can't speak or something. And they just want to 
touch. ..and it's always the mother or the nurse pushing them on you. 
They would just say hello and go away, they're pushing them at you like 
you're Christ or something, or as if there's some aura about you which 
will rub off on them. It just got to be like that. We got very callous 
about it. It was just dreadful. You'd open up every night, and instead of 
seeing kids there you'd just see a row full of cripples on the front. 
When we were running through, it seemed like [we were] just surrounded by cripples and blind people all the time. And when we'd go 
through corridors, everybody would be-they'd be all touching us. It 
got horrifying. 
You must have been still fairly young and naive at that point. 
Yeah. Well, as naive as In His Own Write. 
Surely that must have made you think for a second. 
About what? 
About. . . 
No, I mean we knew what the game was. The game is the same 
all . . . 
Didn't it astound you at that point to see that you were supposed to be 
able to . . . 
. . .that was a glib way of saying what was going on. It was sort of the 
"in" joke that we were supposed to cure them, it's the kind of thing that 
Derek would say Because it's a cruel thing to say We felt sorry for them. 
Anybody would. There's a kind of embarrassment when you're surrounded by blind, deaf and crippled people. There's only so much we 
could say, with the pressure on us to perform and things like that. But it 
 I05 
just built up, it built up, the bigger we got, the more unreality we had to 
face, the more we were expected to do, until when you didn't shake 
hands with the mayor's wife, she starts abusing you and screaming or 
saying, "How dare they?" There's one of Derek's stories where we were 
asleep after the session, in the hotel somewhere in America, and this 
mayor's wife comes and says, "Get 'em up! I want to meet them." And 
Derek said, "I'm not going to wake them up." And she starts saying, "You 
get them up, I'll tell the press!" It was always that, they were always 
threatening what they would tell the press about us, the bad publicity if 
we didn't see their bloody daughter with braces on her teeth. And it was 
always the police chief's daughter and the lord mayor's, all the most 
obnoxious kids. Because they got the most obnoxious parents, we were 
forced to see all the time. And we had these people thrust on us. And 
[that was] the most humiliating experiences for me. Like sitting with the 
governor of the Bahamas because we were making Help! and being 
insulted by these fuckin' jumped-up middle-class bitches and bastards, 
who would be commenting on our work and our manners. And I was 
always drunk, like the typical-whatever it is-insulting them. I couldn't take it. It hurt me so, I would go insane, swearing at them and 
whatever. I'd always do something. I couldn't take it. It was awful. All 
that business was awful. It was a fuckin' humiliation. One has to completely humiliate oneself to be what the Beatles were, and that's what I 
resent. I did it, but I didn't know, I didn't foresee that, it just happened bit 
by bit tiI this complete craziness is surrounding you. And you're doing 
exactly what you don't want to do with people you can't stand-the 
people you hated when you were ten. And that's what I'm saying in this 
album, I'm saying, "I remember what it's all about now, you fuckers,fuck 
you all." That's what I'm saying. "Fuck you all. You don't get me twice!" 
 


I06  
Would you take it all back? 
What? 
Being a Beatle? 
If I could be a fuckin'fisherman, I would! If I had the capabilities of 
being something other than I am, I would. It's no fun being an artist. 
You know what it's like writing, it isn't fun, it's torture. I read about Van 
Gogh or Beethoven, any of the fuckers. And I read an article the other 
day-'.If they'd had psychiatrists, we wouldn't have had Gauguin's 
great pictures." And these fuckin' bastards, they're just sucking us to 
death. About all we can do is do it like fuckin' circus animals. I resent 
being an artist in that respect. I resent performing for fuckin' idiots who 
won't know-who don't know-anything. Cause they can't feel-I'm 
the one that's feeling, cause I'm the one expressing what they are trying 
to. They live vicariously through me and other artists. And we are the 
ones that-even with the boxers. When Oscar [Bonavena] comes in the 
ring, they're booing the shit out of him." He only hit Clay once, they're 
all cheering him. That's what I resent. I'd sooner be in the audience, 
really, but I'm not capable of it. You know one of my big things is that 
I wish I was a fuckin' fisherman! I know it sounds silly, and I'd sooner 
be rich than poor and all the rest of that shit. But the pain, I'd sooner 
not be . . . I wish I was . . . ignorance is bliss or something. If you don't 
know, man, there's no pain. Oh, probably there is. but that's how I 
express it. It's shit! 
What do you think the effect of the Beatles was on the history of Britain? 
I don't know about on the history The people who are in control 
"" A I970 boxing match between Oscar Convene and Cassius Clay (who 
changed his 
name to Muhammad Ali). Clay won the match. 
 I07 
and in power and the class system and the whole bullshit bourgeois 
scene is exactly the same, except that there's a lot of fag fuckin' middle- 
class kids with long hair walking around London in trendy clothes. 
And Kenneth Tynan's making a fortune out of the word "fuck." But 
apart from that, nothing happened. But we all dressed up. The same 
bastards are in control, the same people are running everything. It's 
exactly the same! They hyped the kids. We've grown up a little, all of us, 
and there has been a change and we are a bit freer and all that, but it's 
the same game. Nothing's really changed. It's the same! History a bit and 
shit, they're doing exactly the same things, selling arms to South Africa. 
killing blacks on the street, people are living in fuckin' poverty with 
fuckin' rats crawling over 'em. It just makes you puke, and I woke up 
to that, too. That dream is over, it's just the same, only I'm thirty and a 
lot of people have got long hair, that's all. 
YOKO:
Very heavy, isn't it? 
JOHN: That's what it is, man. Nothing happened, except that we grew 
up. We did our thing, just like they were telling us. "Well, well, you 
kids-it's exactly the same. Most of the so-called "Now Generation" 
are getting a job and all that. Nothing changed, we're a minority. We're 
a minority like people like us always were. But maybe we're a slightly 
larger minority because of something or other. 
YOKO:
And what I respect about John's music is it's very real. You know 
how people tell children about Santa Claus and all that, and you know 
when you start not to believe in Santa Claus and all that shit, but the 
thing is, like George Harrison, the only thing that I object [to] is that 
he's still saying Santa Claus is there. 
JOHN: But that-he-that's nothing. . . 
YOKC): Cause he's just saying . . . 
 


I08  
JOHN: Well that's a question of age or whatever, or the . . .his . . . he 
can't . . .he believes it, there's .. . 
YOKO:
It isn't that . . . 
JOHN: It's not-it's not a conscious choice. He's twenty-five or some- 
thing8I 
YOKO:
Well, it's just that the fact is . . . 
JOHN: But it's no good-don't compare it with George .. . 
YOKO:
Oh, okay, I won't compare it with George, but he's . . . 
JOHN: We're not talking about that anyway. We're talking about social 
revolution in England. No, I don't-I don't like-I don't want this-it's 
hard not to compare with George, even for us. But I don't want to be 
compared with George. Why should I be compared with George? What? 
YOKO:
You're right. 
JOHN:YOU know, my music has nothing to do with George's. 
Why do you think the impact of the Beatles was so much bigger in 
America than it was in England? 
The same as American stars are so much bigger in England, I sup- 
pose. I don't know. Cause it's- 
Greener grass? 
Grass is greener. And we really were professional by the time we got 
here. We learned the whole game. When we arrived here, we knew how 
to handle press. The British press are the toughest in the world-we 
could handle anything. We were alright. I know on the plane over I was 
thinking, "Oh, we won't make it," or I said it on a film somewhere. But 
we knew. We would wipe them out if we could just get a grip on you. 
We were new. When we got here you were all walking around in fucking bermuda shorts with Boston crewcuts and stuff on your teeth. Harrison was twenty-seven at the time And 
now they're telling us that-Beatles are passe and this is like that, man. 
The chicks looked like fuckin' I940s horses. There was no conception 
of dress or any of that jazz. I mean we just thought, "What an ugly 
race." It looked just disgustin'. And we thought how hip we were, but, 
of course, we weren't. It was just the five of us-us and Mick-were 
really the hip ones, the rest of England is just the same as it ever was. 
But you tend to get nationalistic. We used to really laugh at America, 
except for its music. It was the black music we dug. Over here, even the 
blacks were laughing at people like Chuck Berry and the blues singers. 
The blacks thought it wasn't sharp to dig the really funky black music. 
The whites only listened to Jan and Dean and all that. We felt like we 
were . . .we had . . .the message was, "Listen to this music." It was the 
same in Liverpool. We felt very exclusive and underground in 
Liverpool listening to Ritchie valenss2 and Barrett and all 
those old-time records that nobody was listening to anywhere, except 
for Eric Burdon [of the Animals] in Newcastle and Mick Jagger in 
London. It was that lonely-it was fantastic. And we came over here 
and it was the same. Nobody was listening to rock &roll or to black 
music in America. And we felt as though we were . . . we thought we 
were coming to the land of its origin. But nobody wanted to know 
about it. 
''Mexican-American rocker Ritchie Valens had three hits ("Come On, Let's 
Go," "Donna" and "La Bamba") before he died in a I959 plane crash at the 
age of seventeen. 
'' Barrett Strong had one of Motown's earliest hits, I96I's "Money," an early 
cover by the Beatles. 
 


II0  
Why did you make "Revolution"? 
Which one? 
Both. 
Three of 'em. There's three. 
Right. Starting with the single. 
When George and Paul and all them were on holiday, I made 
"Revolution," which is on the LP, and "Revolution 9," I wanted to put it 
out as a single, but they said it wasn't good enough. They came home, I 
had it all prepared and they came back and said it wasn't good enough 
and we put out, what, "Hello, Goodbye" or some shit. No, we put- 
"Hey Jude," sorry, which was worthy. But we could have had both. I 
wanted to put out what I felt about revolution, I thought it was about 
time we fuckin' spoke about it, the same as I thought it was about time 
we stopped not answering about the Vietnamese war, on tour with 
Brian. We had to tell him, "We're going to talk about the war this time, 
we're not going to just waffle." And I wanted to say what I thought about 
revolution. I'd been thinking about it up in the hills in India. And I still 
had this "God will save us" feeling about it. "It's going to be alright." But 
even now I'm saying, "Hold on, John, it's going to be alright."" 
Otherwise, I won't hold on. But that's why I did it, I wanted to say my 
piece about revolution. I wanted to tell you or whoever listens and communicate and say "What do you say? This is what I say." And that's why 
I say on one version, about violence, "in or out?" because I wasn't sure. 
But the version we put out said, "Count me out," I think." Because I 
H' Referring to "Hold On" on John Lennon Plastic Ono Band. 
'j Lyric IS "But when you talk about~ destruction/Don't you know that you can 
count me out." 
don't fancy a violent revolution happening all over. I don't want to die. 
But I'm beginning to think that what else can happen. It seems 
inevitable. 
The violent revolution? 
Yeah. And the "Revolution 9" was an unconscious picture of what I 
actually think will happen when it happens. That was just like a drawing of revolution. Because arbitrarily I was making ...all the thing was 
made with loops. I had about thirty loops going, I fed them onto one 
basic track. I was getting like Beethoven and I'd go upstairs, chopping 
it up and making it backwards and things like that to get sound effects. 
And one thing was an engineer's testing [tape], where they'd come on 
talking and say [in a robotic voice], "This is EMI test series number 
nine." So I just cut up whatever he said, and I had "number nine." 
"Nine" is-I don't know, it turned out to be my birthday and me lucky 
number and everything, but I didn't realize it. It was just so funny, the 
voice went, "number nine." It was like a joke, bringing "number nine" 
in all the time. Thai's all it was. 
YOKO: It turns out to be the highest number in the, one, two, etc. up to 

Nine, yeah, it's the. . . it's all. ..many symbolic things about it, 
but it just happened. It was an engineer's tape and I was just using all 
the bits to make a montage. But I really wanted that out. Never mind. 
So that's how I feel. And I know the Chairman Mao bit, I always feel a 
bit strange about, cause I thought that if they're going to get hurt, the 
idea was, don't aggravate the pig by waving the red flag in his face. I 
really thought that-that love would save us all, but now I'm wearing 
a Chairman Mao badge, so that's where it's at. I'm just beginning to 
think he's doing a good job. 
 


II2  
YOKO: He is. 
JOHN: He seems to be. I would never know until I went to China. I'm 
not going to be like that. I'm not like that. I just was always interested 
enough to sing about him. But I just wondered what the kids were 
doing that were actually Maoists. I wonder what their motive was or 
what was really going on. And I thought, If they wanted revolution, if 
they really want to be subtle, what's the point of saying, "Well I'm a 
Maoist, and why don't you shoot me down?" I thought that was not a 
very clever way of getting what they wanted. 
You don't really believe that we're headed for a violent revolution? 
I don't know. I've got no more conception than you. I can't see- 
eventually, it'll happen. It has to happen. What else can happen? It might 
happen now, or it might happen in fifty or a hundred years, but it's 
like . . . 
The problem is a violent revolution now would really just be the end of 
the world. 
Not necessarily. They say that every time, but I don't really believe it. 
If it is, okay. I'm back to where I was when I was seventeen. At seven- 
teen, I used to think, Well, I wish a fuckin' earthquake or a revolution 
would happen, just to go out and steal and do what the blacks are 
doing now. If I was black, I'd be all for it. And if I was seventeen, I'd be 
all for it, too, cause what have you got to lose? And now I've got nothing to lose. I don't want to die and I don't want to be hurt physically, but 
fuck, man, if they blow the world up,fuck it! We're all out of our pain 
then. Forget it! No more problems! 
But you sing, "Hold on, world. "84 
85 A lyric from Plastic Ono Band's "Hold On 
" 
 II3 
Yeah, I sing "Hold on, John," too, because I don't want to die. And 
I'm a coward. I'm not a coward, I don't want to die. I don't want to be 
hurt. And please don't hit me! 
So you feel like holding on, it will be alright? 
It's only going to be alright now, this moment, that's alright. The 
thing we forgot about the acid was-to live now, this moment. And 
hold on now! We might have a cup of tea, or we might get a moment's 
happiness any minute now. So that's what it's all about. Just moment by 
moment. That's how we're living now. But really living like that. 
Cherishing each day and dreading it too. 
YOKO:
[laugh] 
JOHN: It might be your last. I mean it sounds funny, but you might get 
run over by a car. Although I'm really beginning to cherish it when I'm 
cherishing it. 
YOKO:
That's true. 
I like the philosophy of "Hold On," because there really is nothing else 
to do. 
Yeah, just hold on day to day. 
Let's talk about more tracks from the album, like "isolation" and "Hold 
On." 
"Isolation" and "Hold On John," they're the rough remixes. I just 
remixed them that night on seven-and-a-half to take them home to 
see what else I was going to do with them.$' And then I didn't really, 
I didn't even put them on to fifteen, so the quality is a bit [hisses]-y 
on 'me too. By the time I'd done everything, I started listening. I 
" Seven-and-a-half[inches per second] refers to the speed the tape goes over 
the tape head; the slower the tape, the lower the quality. 
 


II4  
found out it's better that, with "Instant Karma" and other things, 
you remix it right away that night. I'd known that before, but never 
followed it through. There's nothing like that re-usually the remix 
that you do [on] the day you do the session, because you know- 
there's a-it really-it worked on every one that I did like that. I just 
remixed them the same night, "Hold On John" and "Isolation" 
and-oh "I Found Out," but I did change it later, actually. Especially 
those two. 
Did you put in 'fucking" deliberately on "Working Class Hero"? 
No, I put it in because it does fit. I didn't even realize there was two 
in tiI somebody pointed it out. And actually when I sang it, I missed a 
bloody verse. I had to edit it in. But you do say "fucking crazy," don't 
you? That's how I speak. I was very near to it many times in the past, 
but I would deliberately not put it in, which is the real hypocrisy, the 
real stupidity. I would deliberately not say things, because it might 
upset somebody, or whatever I was frightened of. 
"Happiness Is a Warm Gun" is a nice song. 
Oh, yeah, I like that one of me best, I forgot about that. 
A weird one. 
What? 
That was a weird one. 
Oh, I love that, you know? 
Why ? 
Because I think it's a [laugh]beautiful song. I just like all the different things that are happening in it. That was like "God." I put together 
three sections of different songs. But it was meant to be like-I don't 
know, it seemed to run through all the different kinds of rock music. It 
wasn't about H at all. 
 II5 
"Happiness Is a Warm Gun"? 
No. It wasn't. It was never-like all the ones that really-like LSD, 
the "Lucy in the Sky," which I swear to God or swear to Mao, or any- 
body you like, I'd no intention. "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" is the 
same. George Martin had a fuckin' book on guns, or he told me about 
it-I can't remember4 think he showed me a cover of a magazine that 
said, "Happiness Is a Warm Gun." It was a gun magazine. I just thought 
it was a fantastic, insane thing to say. A warm gun means you just shot 
something [laugh]. 
On "Lucy in the Sky," when did you realize that the initials spelled 
LSD? 
Only after I read it-or somebody told me, like you coming up. I 
didn't even see it on the label, I didn't look at the initials. I never play 
things backwards, I just listened to it as I made it. There will be things 
on this one, if you fiddle about with it, but I don't know what they are. 
Every time after, I would look at titles, see what it said, but it never said 
anything. 
You said to me, 'Sgt. Pepper's' was the one, that was the album. 
It was a peak, and Paul and I definitely were working together, especially on "A Day in the Life." That was a real .. .the way we wrote a lot 
of the time was he'd write he good bit that was easy, like "I read the 
news today, oh boy-or whatever it was, or "Day Tripper," anything 
like that. And then when you got stuck, instead of carrying on-when- 
ever it got hard-~you'd just drop in and meet each other and I'd sing 
half and he'd be inspired to write the next bit and vice versa. And then 
he came up with that. And he was a bit shy about it, cause I think he 
thought, "Well, it's a good song" [and] sometimes we wouldn't let each 
other interfere with a song either. Cause you tend to be a bit lax with 
 


II6  
somebody else's stuff-you experiment a bit. We were doing it in his 
room with the piano, and he's saying, "Would you-should we do 
this?" I said, "Yeah, let's do that." And that's how it happened. 
I always kept saying Iprefer the double album [the "White Album"], 
cause my music is better on the double album. I don't care about the 
whole concept of Pepper. It might be better, but the music is better for 
me on the double album, because I'm being meself on it. I'm doing it 
how I like it. It's as simple as this album [Plastic Ono Band], my stuff on 
the double album. Like "I'm So Tired" and all that, it's just the guitar. I 
felt more at ease with that than the production. I don't like productions 
so much, but Pepper was a peak, alright. 
YOKO:
In a way, the thing is, people . . . 
JOHN:
Hello. 
YOKO:
Yes. People say something like, "Oh, that's the peak," and 
I'm just so amazed. I see groups we thought that do well, John's 
done all that Beatles stuff and everything. But this new album of 
John's is a real peak that's higher than any other thing that he has 
done. 
JOHN: Thank you, dear. 
Do you think it is? 
Yeah, sure. I think it's, you know, "Sgt. Lennon." 
YOKO:
It5 a real revolution. 
JOHN:I don't really know how it'll sink in, or where it'll lie, in the spectrum of rock & roll and the generation and all the rest of it. But I 
know what it is. It's something else, and it's another door . .. 
YOKO:
That you don't even know yet, or realize it. 
IOHN: . . . sneakingly aware of but not fully . . . 
I'OKO: No. 
 II7 
JOHN: . . . until it's all over, like anybody else. No, we didn't know really 
what Pepper was going to do or what anything was going to do. I have 
a feeling, but I don't know whether it's going to settle down in a minority. It could do that, because in one way it's terribly uncommercial. It's 
so miserable in a way and heavy, but it's reality. I'm not going to veer 
away from it for anything. 
YOKO: The thing is, the psychedelic age brought this thing about music 
with lots of decorative sounds, so decorative. And I think George probably . . . 
JOHN: Oh, Yoko, you keep talking about George. 
YOKO:
I was thinking, like Tom Jones, is like .. . 
Getting back to it. 
YOKO:
Tom Jones is like medium without message. John's stuff is like- 
instead of medium is the message, which was the psychedelic age, 
medium the message. He's like the message is the medium. And it's 
really the message. Because it was so important, he didn't need any decorative sound, or decorativeness about it. That's why in some songs it 
seems like the accompaniment is simple or something. But it was like 
an urgent message, I feel. 
JOHN: [like a radio announcer] Thank you and good night. 
How did you first get in touch with Allen Klein? 
I got various messages through various people like from Robert 
Fraser and people like that that: "Allen Klein would like to talk to 
you." I knew who he was, and I heard about him over the years. The 
first time I heard about him was when he said, one day he'd have the 
Beatles. But he offered Brian this good deal, which in retrospect hearing about it, Brian probably should have done at the time. This was 
years ago, but that's when I first heard about him. I had heard all these 
dreadful rumors about him, but I could never coordinate it with why 
the Stones seemed to be going on and on with him. Nobody ever said 
a word and Mick's not the type to just clam up. So "it must be a lie." But 
still, when I heard he wanted to see me, I thought-I got nervous. 
Because I know when some businessman wants to see me, its going to 
be business, and business makes me nervous. I finally got the message 
from Mick, and Allen had set up a deal that Mick and us nearly went 
into an Apple together a few years back. We had big meetings discussing about the studios and all that, but it never happened. And 
Allen wanted to come in that way. It was after Brian [died], but it didn't 
happen like that. All these approaches were coming from all over the 
place. I met him at the Rock and Roll Circus, which has never been seen, 
John and Yoko performing together for the first time with a crazy violinist and Keith on bass and all that.88 I'll always regret that. And I met 
him there, but I didn't know what to make of him, just. shook hands. 
[To Yoko] And then what happened? 
YOKO:
Then one day we finally decided to meet him. Remember? 
IOHN: Yeah, we just sort of decided to meet him. But did we call him or 
did we accept his call? He called me once, I never accepted the call in 
the house. I think in Kenwood. I didn't take it, I was too nervous. I 
don't like talking to strangers as it is, but strangers want to talk about 
X8 The Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus was a never-completed TV show, 
filmed on December II, I968, that mocked variety shows and featured the 
Rolling Stones playing with a number of other artists including John Lennon 
and Yoko Ono. A video and CD of the show was finally released in I996. 
 II9 
reality, so I didn't accept the call. And then finally I did accept the call 
or did I put a call through to him? He'll tell you. He knows the lyrics to 
every fuckin' song you'd ever imagine from the Twenties on! I was 
with him eating last night, I was just singing a few things, because she 
thinks I know every song that4 know millions of songs, I'm like a 
jukebox of thousands upon millions of chords and stuff. But he not 
only knows it, he knows every fuckin' word, not just the chorus, like- 
oh, I can't think of a one now, like "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" or 
whatever, but every fuckin' word. He's got memory like that. But then 
we met and it was very traumatic. 
In what way? 
JOHN: Well, cause we were both very nervous. He was nervous as shit, 
and I was nervous as shit, and Yoko was nervous as him. We met at the 
Dorchester, we went up to his room and I- 
YOKO:
We were so nervous- 
JOHN: I just went in and he was sitting there all nervous, and he was all 
alone. He didn't have any of his helpers around, because he didn't want 
to do anything like that. But he was very nervous, you could see it in 
his face. So I felt better. But I don't know, he knows exactly what we 
said and what we did from-so if you ever want to get that story-I 
don't remember, she knows-she's got a pretty good memory. We talked 
to him a few hours-and we decided that night . . . 
YOKO:
It happened very quickly 
JOHN: . . . he was it. 
What made you decide that? 
Because he not only knew my work and the lyrics that I'd written, 
understood 'em, and from way back. If he knew what I was saying and 
followed me work, then that was pretty damn good for me, because it's 
 


I20  
hard to see me, John Lennon, in amongst all that. And he talked sense 
about what had happened. He just said what was going on. And I just 
knew. 
Like what? 
YOKO: Very intelligent guy 
JOHN:
He's an intelligent guy, he told me all that was happening with the 
Beatles, my relationship with Paul and George and Ringo. He knew 
every damn thing about us. The same as he knows everything about the 
Stones. He's a fuckin' sharp man. There's things he doesn't know, but 
when it comes to that kind of business, he knows. And anybody that 
knew me that well, without ever having met me, had to be a guy that I 
could let look after me. He knew how to handle me, to look after me. 
I let him handle the business. So I wrote to Sir Joe [Lockwood] that 
night." We were so pleased, I said, "Okay, we'll write to Sir Joe." I said, 
"I don't care what the others say, you can handle me." Yoko always was 
my advisor, so's I wouldn't go into any Maharishis anymore. So whether 
it was Derek or people coming to take over Apple when we were running at Wigmore Street and interviewing people for all that, and Yoko 
would sit behind me and advise-I'd play me games and she'd tell me 
what they were doing when I blinked and how they were in her opinion, because she wasn't as stupid as me, or emotional. It was like Janov's 
book in a way, We thought, "Well . . . only before, when the Beatles 
were against the world did I have the cooperation of a good mind like 
Paul's." It was us against them. But for the last few years I've been on 
me own. But Yoko was intelligent and . . . 
So you wrote Lockwood? 
'"Sir Joseph Lockwood was chairman of EMI from I954 to I974 
 I2I 
I wrote Lockwood, saying "Dear Sir Joen-cause he was always such 
a bastard-"from now on Allen Klein handles all my stuff." He's got it 
framed somewhere. And I posted it that night. Allen couldn't 
believe . . . he was-[gasp]-so excited [laugh]. "At last, at last." He 
was trying not to push, he was trying . . . 
You made a one-year deal. 
Then, I don't know. I just was saying, "You can handle me, and I'll 
tell the others you seem alright and you can come and meet George and 
everything and Paul and all them." And. . . 
So Ringo was happy to go along? 
No, they didn't do what I wanted. I had to present a case, and Allen 
had to present-talk to them himself. But I just said, listen-and 
Eastman was there too-I just told them what I thought of him.90 And 
of course I promoted him in the-in the fashion of which I will-you 
see me promoting something, or talking about something. I was enthusiastic about him and I was relieved because I met a lot of people 
including Lord Beeching, who's one of the top people in Britain and all 
that. And though he didn't want to take the job, Paul had told me, "Go 
and see Lord Beeching." So I went. I mean I'm a good boy, man. And I 
saw Lord Beeching and he was no help at all and he didn't look nice. I 
mean, he was alright. 
YOKO:
Yeah. 
JOHN: He was alright, and everybody I interviewed for the . . . while 
Paul was in America getting Eastman, I was interviewing all these top 
"'Paul meantime had married American photographer Linda Eastman, whose 
father, Lee, and brother, John, were music business lawyers who also wanted 
to manage the Beatle affairs. 
 


I22 CENNON REMEMBERS 
so-called."people." And they were animals. Allen was a human being. 
The same as Brian was a human being. It was the same thing with 
Brian in the early days. It was assessment, and I make a lot of mistakes 
character-wise. But now and then I make a . . .I don't make. ..I make 
a good one, and Allen's one, Yoko's another one, Brian was one. And so 
I'm closer to him than anybody else, outside of Yoko. 
How did the rest of the Beatles react? 
I don't remember. They were nervous like me because this terrible 
man who had got the Rolling Stones and said that he was going to get 
the Beatles years ago and all that, and "You don't know what's going 
on." I don't know what we did next. 
YOKO: Somebody said, "Please, let's see Allen and Eastman together and 
see how it is." 
JOHK: Yeah. But what did I say to George then? Did I ring them or 
something? I suppose I rung them. 
YOKO:
No, we were going to Apple with them so we met George there. 
JOHN: But did I say, "This is Allen Klein and we met him last night"? I 
know that Isaid that he was okay and you should meet and all that. And 
then we got Paul because John Eastman had already been in. We almost 
signed ourselves over to the Eastmans at one time. When Paul presented me with John Eastman, I thought. . .when you're not presented 
with a real alternative, you take whatever's going. I would say "Yes. let's 
do Let It Be," or "Yeah, there's no real . .."-and I can't think of anything, 
I have no thing to produce, I will go along. And we almost went away 
with Eastman, but then Eastman made the mistake of sending his son 
over and not coming over himself to look after the Beatles. Playing it a 
bit cool. So finally, when we got near the point and Allen came in, they 
panicked. I was still open. I would have taken Eastman if he'd turned out 
 I23 
[to be] something other than he was. But we arranged to see Eastman 
and Klein together, in a hotel where one of them was staying. And for the 
four Beatles and Yoko to go and see them both. We hadn't been in there 
more than a few minutes when Eastman was having like an epileptic fit 
and screaming at Allen, that he was the lowest scum on earth and calling him all sorts of names. And Allen was sitting there taking it. Because 
he was just taking it, this guy was abusing him with class snobbery. 
And we all know Eastman's name is Epstein. And the rest of it. That's the 
kind of people they are. But Paul fell for that bullshit because he's got 
Picassos hanging on the wall, and because he's got some kind of East 
Coast suit. Form and not substance. And that's McCartney. 
YOKO:
I can't believe he fell for it. 
JOHN: We were all still not sure and they brought in this fucking fellow, 
and he had an epileptic fit. We had thought it was one in a million but 
that was enough for me. Soon as he started nailing him on his taste, Paul 
was getting in little digs about Allen's dress and all that-just go and look 
at Paul's dress or his father or anything-what the fuck does he think he 
is! Him talking about dress! And appearances, man. Fucking hell. And so 
that was it, we said "yuck it!" I wouldn't let [Eastman] near me. I wouldn't let a fuckin' animal like that near me who has a mind like that. Who 
despises me too! Despises me because of what I am! Of what I look like! 
These people like Eastman and people like him think that I'm an idiot. 
And Dick James and all of them. They really can't see me. 
YOKO: NO, no. 
JOHN:
And they think I'm some kind of guy who got struck lucky, a pal 
of Paul's or something. They're so fuckin' stupid, they don't know. The 
reason Allen knew was cause he knew who I was. He wasn't going on 
what a pretty face I'd got. Eastman blew it, man, and then he went on 
 


I24  
to do it again. Where did he do it? Next time he did it in the Apple 
office, but he keeps coming to me and saying, "Try and hold this mad-
ness down," this insanity that kept coming out. And the son's so uptight 
you can hardly . . . the whole family's like that, they're so uptight, 
there must be a maniac scene there! 
YOKO:
Can you imagine what he did was . . . 
JOHN: He kept going up to me saying, "I can't tell you how much I 
admire you." Gortikov from Capitol does that too.9I They're full of 
praise, unlike the immigration officer, which we won't mention cause 
we're here so I can't . . . "Don't be afraid of me, I can't tell you how much 
I've admired your work, John-really thinking, "Just give me the 
copyrights to 'Yesterday,"' and really thinking, y yesterday"^ all that 
counts." And I'm just watching this, and thinking, "It's happening to 
me" and "Thank you very much" and all that. [To Yoko] What was the 
second epileptic fit, because I want this out! What was the second time 
he blew it? 
YOKO:
In Apple or something. 
JOHN:
I don't know, he did it in front of everybody in Apple. This was 
supposed to be the guy who was taking over the multimillion-dollar 
corporation and who was going to be slick and who was sort of intimating that Allen's Broadway offices [weren't nice enough], Paul was 
saying, as if that meant any fuckin' difference. Where Eastman's was in 
the good section of town. "Oh boy, man, that's where it's at, and 
Eastman's office has got class!" I don't care if this is fuckin' red, white 
and blue! I don't care what Allen dresses like! He's a human being, 
man. 
" 
Stanley E. Gortikov, the former chairman of Capitol Records 
 I25 
YOKO:
Paul said, you know, "Allen's office is in Broadway, Yoko." 
JOHN:
And I'm thinking, "Well what does that . . . maybe good taste 
counts [laugh]." 
YOKO:
And then he said that . . . 
JOHN: But Eastman went around blowing at everybody . . . you know 
what he does, he writes letters to everybody saying, "Don't you dare-
and he's got no right . . . he's completely mad! 
Still? 
Sure, he's still doing it! 
So you said no to Eastman. What did Paul do? 
The more we said "No," the more he said "Yes." It's just like that. I 
don't know. We're still talking, and Eastman went mad and started 
shouting and all that. And I don't know what Paul was thinking in the 
room, I mean his heart must've sunk. I think it's cause he's in the family 
YOKO:
They were saying that they don't even want to come to meetings 
where Allen is. 
JOHN:
Eastman was refusing to meet Allen, saying "I will not meet such 
a low rat!" What the fuck has Klein done! He never done a fuckin' 
thing! All this income tax shit, he'd been cleared, and even if he hadn't, 
so what the fuck, all these fuckin' wolves and sharks, how dare they call 
him for being what he is. How dare they insult anybody like that! 
They're fuckin' bastards, they're-Eastman's a WASP Jew, man! And 
that's the worst kind of Jew on earth, that's the worst kind of WASP 
too-he's a WASP Jew, can you imagine it! 
YOKO:
And can you imagine what they did? Like to meet with Allen in 
New York . . . 
JOHN:
They refused to meet him . . . 
YOKO:
. . . they invited. . . they. . . 
 


I26  
JOHN:. . . I said, you don't meet anybody-I don't talk to anybody 
unless I come along with Allen. They said, "Come on, John, I want to 
meet you alone." 
YOKO: Right. 
JOHN:
I said, "I don't see any of you without Allen with me!" 
YOKO:
We don't want to be in the same room with ... 
JOHN:
With Allen. 
YOKO:
. . .with that guy. But the thing is, what he did finally, when they 
met, they invited Allen to the Harvard Club, can you imagine that? Just 
to show. . . 
JOHN:
And when Eastman finally was signing something, God knows 
what it was, he made us all come. There was something, Allen will tell 
you the details if he wants to talk about it. I had to jump over a fence 
and get Paul's signature for something, which finally secured us our 
position. And he really started insulting me then. 
Who? 
Eastman. He knew the game was over. 
At the Harvard Club? 
No, it was the equivalent in London. The three of us had to go there 
to get his final approval on Paul's signature which we'd got, but he went 
through every line, pretending . . . he's an idiot, he doesn't know from 
Adam! He's living off the copyrights of some shit that he conned years 
ago! And he's initialing all these things just to slow us down, like an 
immigration officer, really putting us through it. And I'm ...we're waiting there [thinking], "Sign it, you fuckin' idiot and let's get out," but he 
starts insulting me. 
YOKO: Um. 
JOHN:
What was he saying? [Yoko] said, "Will you please stop insulting 
 I27 
my husband." He had his few lawyers with him, and this sort of fuckin' 
phony club, and he's going, "You're stupid! Tell him how stupid it is 
signing with this guy! Tell him how stupid it is!" And she was saying, 
"Don't call my husband stupid." I wasn't saying anything but 'just sign 
it and just give me the signature, just put your initials on it, Epstein," I 
was thinking, "Let's get out of here. And we'll wrap you up." And that's 
what we did! You can't believe it, man! The guy had epileptic fits, and 
then expected to run the company! 
And Allen even offered John Eastman to be the lawyer for the deals 
we were making with Northern Songs, but they screwed him deliberately. They were screwing everything Allen did. It fucked all the 
Northern Songs deal and all that, but we still came out with all the 
money. They couldn't outmaneuver him. Klein not only knew our characters and what the relationship between the group was, the same way 
he knows Creedence Clearwater, he knows his business, he knows 
who's who in the group, what you have to do to get things done! And 
also he knew about every fuckin' contract and paper we'd ever had! He 
understood. And Eastman was making judgments and saying things to 
Paul based on something that he'd never seen! It was a wipeout, you 
can't imagine! The real story will never come out because Allen knows 
every detail, and he remembers everything we've said. 
YOKO:
The first approach was, well, he knew I went to Sarah Lawrence. 
JOHN:
Oh yeah. 
YOKO:
He was saying "Kafka-esque" and all that, and .. . 
JOHN:
Talking in those . . . 
YOKO:
. . . talking in a very "in" way. "We're middle class, aren't we," 
kind of. .. 
JOHN: And Allen said, "Who's Kafka [laugh]?" 
 


I28  
YOKO:[Laugh] But the point is, he doesn't know that I was a Sarah 
Lawrence dropout because I was sick and tired of that middle-class 
scene, and I married a working-class hero. It's that, isn't it? And John 
Eastman is a law student or something that comes to Sarah Lawrence. 
I would never date one of those uptight WASPy [laugh] . . . 
JOHN: Yeah, with the veins stickin' out of my neck . . . 
YOKO:. . . WASPy, you know-and if he's a true aristocrat-from a 
WASP class, he's not going to invite Allen to Harvard Club, he5 going 
to make sure that he will invite Allen to somewhere that Allen would 
enjoy. 
JOHN: Second-generation idiots. That's what he is. 
YOKO:
That's the kind of scummy thing I don't like. 
So what was it like with Paul then? 
Well, Paul was getting more and more uptight, tiI then Paul wouldn't 
speak to us without his . . . he told us, you speak to my lawyer. 
When did you first start having unpleasant words with Paul over that? 
We never had unpleasant words. 
YOKO:
NO. not really. 
JOHN: It never got to a talking thing, you see. 
YOKO: NO. 
JOHN: It just got that Paul one day said, "Speak to my lawyer, I don't 
want to speak about business anymore." Which meant "I'm gonna 
drag my feet." The whole Northern thing was going on, and we were 
trying to save our fuckin' stuff! And he was playing hard to get, like 
a fucking chick! Because he hadn't thought of it. It was a pure ego 
game. And I got into the ego thing, of course, but I was really fighting for what I believed was our money and our fuckin' business! It 
wasn't just cause I'd found Allen, I would've dropped Allen if Eastman 
 I29 
had been something. But he was a fuckin' animal! And a fuckin' 
stupid middle-class pig who didn't know from Adam about nothin' 
and thought he could con me with fuckin' talking about Kafka! And 
shit, Picasso . . . 
YOKO:
And de Kooning, Willem de Kooning. 
JOHN: De Kooning, man, I shit on the fuckin' lot of 'em! Heh-heh. 
[Pause] Yeah. Heh-heh. 
YOKO:
I mean that was their level, de Kooning, you know, I would kick 
a de Kooning and burn it . . . 
JOHN:I don't even know who the fuck they are, I just know it's some- 
thing that somebody's got hung up on the wall that he thinks is an 
investment. 
What was the state of the Beatles business at that point? 
Chaos. Exactly what I said in ROLL~NG wasn't it? It all hap- 
STONE, 
pens in the ROLLING 
STONE! But Steve Maltz-Allen said I must've got 
it from Steve Maltz, this accountant who we fired because we couldn't 
stand him, a young guy, who just sent me a letter one day saying, 
'You're in chaos. You're losing-this is so much a week going out of 
Apple." People are always saying, "You sold out the dream of Apple." 
People were robbing us and living on us for the tune of fuckin' eighteen 
or twenty thousand pounds a week [that ] was rolling out of Apple like 
that, and nobody was doing anything about it. All our buddies that 
worked for us for fifty years, all just living and drinking and eating like 
fuckin' Rome, man! And I suddenly realized it! And I said it to you. 
"We're losing money at such a rate that we would have been broke, 
really broke." We didn't have anything in the bank, really, none of us 
did. Paul and I could have probably floated, but we would have just 
sunk in-we were sinking fast! It was just hell! It had to stop! When 
 


I30  
Allen heard me say that-he read it in STONE-he came over right 
away, he said, now-soon as he realized that I knew what was going on, 
then he said, "Now I can get through." Until somebody knows they're 
in Shit Street, how can somebody come and get in? It's just like some- 
body coming up to me now and saying, "I want to help you with the 
business." I would say, "I've got somebody or I'm doing alright, Jack." 
But soon as [Allen] realized I realized what was going on, he came over. 
How much money do you have now? 
I'm not telling. Heh-heh-heh-heh. Lots more than I ever had before! 
Allen's got me more money, real money in the bank, than I've ever had 
in the whole period. And I've got money that I earned but eight or ten 
years of my fuckin' life, instead of all these Dick James Music Company 
and the whole . . . 
How much were you making in that period? 
I don't know. If Allen wants to talk about that, he'll talk about it to 
you, because I don't know. I just know it was millions. But Brian was no 
good businessman. He had a flair for presenting things, he was more 
theatrical than actual substance of business. And he was hyped a lot. He 
was advised by the gang of crooks, really. That's what's going on, and 
the battle's still going on to the Beatles' rights. The latest one is the Lew 
Grade thing-it's still going on. If you read Cashbox, you see what's 
happening. We put in a bill to Lew Grade for five million pounds.92 
And my songs have gone on Maclen Limited, not Northern Songs. 
They've been underpaying us for fucking years, Dick James, the whole 
lot of 'em, sold us out. And they still think we're like Tommy Steeleg3 or 
9L In unpaid royalties. 
" Britain's first homegrown rock & roll star in the I950s. 
 I3I 
some fuckin' product that none of them realize that just simply because 
of Hard Day's Night we got to wake up one day! And we're not the same 
as the last generation of stars or whatever they were fucking called. 
How did it get down to Paul telling Ringo he was going to get him 
someday? 
I don't know. It happened. It didn't happen in front of me. I think it 
happened on the phone. I just knew that . . . 
When Ringo was sent around to say, "Look, we don't want the album 
out" . . . 
Oh yeah, that was it. Because we thought it was unfair even 
though it was Paul's first new album, that was alright, we weren't 
against him puttin' an album out. I mean I'd done it. And I didn't 
think it was any different, except for Paul sang, and mine happened 
to be Toronto because that happened to happen. If I hadn't gone to 
Toronto, I would have made an album probably. I was half hoping I 
would make single after single and until there was enough for an 
album that way, because I'm lazy. But anyway, there was nothing 
against Paul having an album out. There was an atmosphere about 
Eastman and Klein, but it's alright. It's business, we all profit from it. 
But we didn't want to put it out against Let It Be, it would have killed 
the sales. It's like in the old days we used to watch, if the Stones 
were coming out, we'd ask Brian, "Who's coming out?" You know? 
And he'd tell us who's coming out shortly, and we'd say, "Well, we'll 
put it out now." We could always beat everyone, but what's the point 
of losing sales to somebody else? We'd time it! Mick timed it! We 
never came out together. Nobody ever . . . we're not that idiot . . .with 
Elvis, we miss everyone. I would miss Tom Jones, anybody now! I 
don't want to fight in the charts! I want to get in while the going's 
 


I32  
good. It would have killed. ..it was just an ego game! It would have 
killed Let It Be. Let Let It Be breathe! 
But Paul didn't want to. 
No! 
So.. . 
I can't remember, he just insisted on putting it out. We asked Ringo 
to go and talk to him because the real fighting had been going on 
between me and Paul, and because Eastman and Klein and we were on 
the opposite ends about that. So Ringo had not taken sides, and he'd 
always been straight about it, and we thought Ringo would be able to 
talk fairly. If Ringo agreed that it was unfair,it was unfair, it was like 
that! Paul wanted-even at one time he wanted a fuckin' extra vote on 
our voting trust, but that was the same as like the four of us at a table, 
but Paul has two votes! Something was going on that Paul thought he 
was the fuckin' Beatles! And he never fucking was! Never, never None of 
us were the fucking Beatles! Four of us were! 
YOKO:
Aren't you hungry? 
JOHN:
Yeah. 
YOKO:
Shall we just go into some place and just have a bite or some- 
thing? 
JOHN: Yeah. Well, we can't, Uann has] got to go somewhere and we're 
taping. Let's finish this . . . 
YOKO:
Okay. 
JOHN:
. . .and then we can go and eat, and at the hotel you got all them 
people. 
So that was it. Ringo went and asked him and he attacked Ringo and 
threatened him and everything. And that was the kibosh for Ringo. I 
don't know what the situation is now. 
 I33 
Allen says that you all are going to get together in a few months. 
I think we have to have a meeting shortly, because we all agreed to 
meet sometime in February to see where we are financially. It's business. 
We have to. 
Do you think you all will ever record again? 
No. Not a chance. I wouldn't record with anyone again. I record with 
Yoko, but I'm not going to record with another egomaniac. There's 
only room for one on an album nowadays, and so there's no point. 
There's just no point at all. At one time there was a reason to do it, but 
there's no reason to do it anymore. I had a group, I was the singer and 
the leader. I met Paul, and Imade a decision whether to-and he 
made a decision too-whether to have him in the group or not. Was it 
better to have a guy who was better than the people I had-obviously-or not? To make the group stronger or to let me be stronger? 
That decision was to let Paul in to make the group stronger. Then 
from that, Paul introduced me to George, and Paul and I had to make 
the decision-or I had to make the decision-whether to let George 
in. And I listened to him play and said, "Play raunchy," or whatever 
the old story is, and I let him in. I said okay, "You come in," and that 
was the-that was the three of us then. And then the rest of the group 
was thrown out gradually. It just happened like that. Instead of going 
for an individual thing, we went for the strongest format. And for 
equals. But George is ten years younger than me, or some shit like 
that.94I couldn't be bothered with him when he first came round. He 
"In actuality): George was only three years younger than John, but when they 
first started playing together In the Quarrymen, George was fifteen and 
John was eighteen 
 


I34  
used to follow me around like a bloody kid, hanging around all the 
time. It took me years to come round to him, to start considering him 
as an equal or anything. He was a kid who played guitar. And he was 
a friend of Paul's and made it all easier. Then we had all sorts of different drummers over time. Cause they-people who owned drum 
kits were far and few between. It was an expensive item. And they 
were usually idiots. And then we ended up-we got Pete Best just 
because we needed a drummer the next day to go to Hamburg. We'd 
passed the audition on our own with a stray drummer. And there's 
other myths about Pete Best was the Beatles or Stuart Sutcliffe was the 
Beatles, his mother's writing [that] in England. 
li0~I'r.ethe Beatles. 
No, I'm not the Beatles, I'm me. But nobody's the Beatles. Paul isn't 
the Beatles. And Brian Epstein isn't the Beatles, neither is Dick James. 
The Beatles are the Beatles and separately they're separate. Nobody's the 
Beatles. How could they be? We all had our roles to play. [pause] 
George was a separate individual singer with his own group as well 
before he came in with us. He had the Rebels. 
You say now on the record, "I don't believe in the Beatles." 
Yeah. I don't believe in the Beatles, that's all. 
What were the Beatles? 
I don't believe in the Beatles myth. I don't believe in the Beatles- 
there's no other way of saying it, is there? I don't believe in them, 
whatever they were supposed to be in everybody's head, and including 
our own for a period. It was a dream. That's all. I don't believe in the 
dream anymore. But I made me mind up not to talk about all that shit. 
I'm sick of it. I'd like to talk about the album, which I was going to do 
and say to you, "Look,jann, I don't want to talk about all that Beatles 
 


 I35 
splitting up," because it not only hurts me, but it always ends up looking like I'm blabbing off and just attacking people. I don't want it! 
How would you assess George's talents? 
I don't want to assess him. George has not done his best work yet. 
His talents have developed over the years, and he was working with 
two fucking brilliant songwriters and he learned a lot from us. And I 
wouldn't have minded being George, the invisible man, and learning 
what he learned. And maybe it was hard sometimes for him, because 
Paul and I are such egomaniacs, but that's the game. So is Gcorge-just 
give him a chance, and he'll be the same. The best thing he's done is 
"Within You Without You," still for me. I can't assess his talents. He's 
not the kind of person I would buy the records of. But I don't want to 
say this about him. It will hurt him. I don't want to hurt his feelings. 
But just personally, I think it's nothing. "Something" was a nice tune, 
but it doesn't mean anything to me. I'm talking about not lust rock & 
roll, just the universe or whatever. I don't consider my talents fantastic 
compared with the fuckin' universe, but I consider George's less. As an 
artist I can only consider myself. 
If you ask me what music I listen to, I'm not really interested in concepts and philosophies and not wallpaper, which most music is. 
What music do you listen to today? 
I don't. If you want the record bit, I mean since I've been listening to 
the radio here I like something or whatever it is called by Neil Young- 
[half singing] "Something special 99 -and something by Elton John. A 
song by him. And a few things I've heard. But I couldn't-didn't find 
9i Lennon may have been referring to a track from Young's album, After- the 
Gold Rush. 



I36  
out who they were. On FM. Some really good sound, but then there's 
no-there's no follow through. There'll be a section of fantastic sound 
come over the radio and then you wait for the conclusion or the concept 
or something to finish it off, and then nothing happens, it just goes on. 
A jam session or whatever. 
You've had a chance to listen to FM radio in New York. What have you 
heard? 
Yeah. "My Sweet Lord." Every time I put the radio on it's "Oh my 
Lord-I'm beginning to think there must be a God! I knew there 
wasn't when "Hare Krishna" never made it on the polls with their own 
record, that really got me suspicious. We used to say to them, "You 
might get Number One" and they'd say, "Higher than that." 
What do we hear? It's interesting to hear Van Morrison. He seems to 
be doing nice stuff-sort of I960s black music-he is one of them 
that became an American like Eric Burdon. I just never have time for a 
whole album. I only heard Neil Young twice-you can pick him out a 
mile away, the whole style. He writes some nice songs. I'm not stuck on 
Sweet Baby James Taylor]-I'm getting to like him more hearing him 
on the radio, but I was never struck by his stuff. I like Creedence 
Clearwater. They make beautiful Clearwater music-they make good 
rock &roll music. You see it's difficult when you ask me what I like, 
there's lots of stuff I've heard that I think is fantastic on the radio here, 
but I haven't caught who they are half the time. 
But I'm interested in more things with a worldwide-I'm interested 
in what's it called, something that means something for everyone, not 
just for a few kids listening to wallpaper. I'm just as interested in poetry 
or whatever or art or anything. And always have been. That's been my 
hangup, continually trying to be Shakespeare. 
or whatever it is. That's 
 I37 
what I'm doing, I'm not pissing about. I consider I'm up against them, 
I'm not competing meself against Elvis. 
YOKO: Or multiple artists. 
JOHN: Or multiple artists, whatever. I'm in the game of all those things. Of 
concept and philosophy and ways of life and whole movements in history. 
I'm not interested in good guitarists. Just like Van Goth was or any 
other of those fucking people. they're no more nor less than I am or Yoko 
is. They're no more, no less, they were just living those days. I'm interested in producing-expressing myself, like they expressed it, that will 
mean something to people in any country, in any language, and at any 
time in history And rock just happens to be the media which I was born 
into, that's all. It was the one. It's like those people picked up paint 
brushes, Van Gogh probably wanted to be Renoir or whoever went before 
him. And I wanted to be Elvis or whatever the shit it is. But to me it's art. 
When did you realize that what you were doing really transcended . .. 
Listen, people like me are aware of their genius so-called at ten, 
eight, nine. I always thought I was-why has nobody discovered me? 
In school, can't they see that I'm cleverer than anybody in this school? 
That the teachers are stupid too? That all they had was information, 
which I didn't need, to give me? I didn't become aware of it in the Beatle 
thing. I got fuckin' lost in that, like being at high school or something. 
I used to say to my auntie, "You've thrown my fuckin' poetry out and 
you'll regret it when I'm famous!" And she threw the bastard stuff out. 
I never forgave her, for not treating me like a fuckin' genius or whatever 
I was when I was a child! It was obvious to me! Why didn't they put me 
in art school? Why didn't they train me? Why would they keep forcing 
me to be a fuckin' cowboy like the rest of them? I was different, I was 
always different! Why didn't anybody notice me? A couple of teachers 
 


I 
would notice me, encourage me to be something or other, to draw or to 
paint. express meself. But most of the time they were trying to beat me 
into being a fuckin'dentist or a teacher! And then the fuckin' fans tried 
to beat me into being a fuckin' . . . 
YOKO: Beatle. 
JOHN:.. . Beatle or an Engelbert Humperdinck and the critics tried to 
beat me into being Paul McCartney! And all the rest of it! 
YOKO:SOYOU were very deprived in a way. 
JOHN:
But that's what makes me what I am! It comes out that people like 
me have to save themselves, because we get fucking kicked! Nobody 
says it! Zappa's there screaming, "Look at me, I'm a genius, for fuck's 
sake, what do I have to do to prove to you son-of-a-bitches what I can 
do and who I am and don't dare fuckin' criticize my work like that! You 
who don't know anything about it!" Fucking bullshit! I know what 
Zappa's going through! And a half! I'm just coming out of it now, just 
fuckin' hell, I've been in school again, I've had teachers ticking me off 
and marking my work! Fuck you all! If nobody can recognize what I 
am, fuck 'em! And Yoko too, fuckin' hell! 
YOKO: That's why it's an amazing thing. after somebody who's done 
something like the Beatles, you'd think that he's sort of satisfied, but 
actually . . . 
JOHN: The Beatles was nothing, it was like . . . 
YOKO: . . .the Beatles situation was cutting him down into a smaller size 
than what he is. 
JOHN: And I learned lots from Paul and George in many ways. But they 
learned a damn sight lot from me! They learned afuckin'lot from me! 
And it's like George Martin or anything, just come back in twenty 
years' time and see what we're doing and see who's doing what. And 
 I39 
don't mark my papers like I'm top of the maths class or did I come 
number one in English language, because I never did. But just assess 
me on what I am and what comes out of my mouth and what my 
work is, don't mark me in classrooms! It's like I've just left school 
again! I just graduated from the school of showbiz or whatever it was 
called. 
Who do you think is good today? 
[sigh] 
In any art. 
You see, the unfortunate thing about egomaniacs is they don't take 
much attention of other people's work. I only assess people on whether 
they're a danger to my work or not. Yoko is as important to me as Paul 
and Dylan rolled into one. I don't think the poor bastard will get recognition tiI she's dead. and there's me and maybe I could count the people 
on one hand that can have any conception of what she is or what her 
mind's like or what her work means to this fuckin' idiotic fuckin' generation! She has the hope that she might be recognized, but. . . If I can't 
get recognized, and I'm doing it in a fuckin' clown's costume, man. I'm 
doing it on the streets. I admire Yoko's work. 
I admire Andy Warhol. I admire Zappa a bit, but I think he's a 
fucking intellectual. I can't think of anybody else. I admire people 
from the past. I admire Fellini, a few that Yoko's into. I admire 
Fluxus.
I really think what they do is beautiful and important. [Yoko 
has] educated me into things that I didn't know about before, just 
because of the scene I was in. So I'm getting to know some other great 
work that's been going on in the past and now. There's all sorts going 
9h A New York-based group of artists founded by George Macuinas 
 


I40  
on. But I still love Little Richard! And I love Jerry Lee Lewis! They're 
like primitive painters. 
Chuck Berry is one of the all-time great poets, a rock poet you could 
call him. He was well advanced of his time lyric-wise. We all owe a lot 
to him, including Dylan. I've loved everything he's done, ever. He was 
in a different class from the other performers, he was in the tradition of 
the great blues artists but he really wrote his own stuff-I know 
Richard did, but Berry really wrote stuff, just the lyrics were fantastic, 
even though we didn't know what he was saying half the time. 
YOKO: I'm really getting into it. 
JOHN: We're both showing each other's experience to each other. And 
it's like you say when you play Yoko's music or something, I had the 
same thing. I had to open up to hear it. I had to get out of the concept of what I wanted to hear-to allow abstract art or music in. She 
had to do the same for rock &roll; it was an intellectual exercise 
because we're all boxed in! We're all in little boxes. And somebody 
has to come in and go-[makes sound] rip your fuckin' head open for 
you to allow something else in! A drug will do it, acid will box your 
head open and you think, "Fuckin' hell!" Some artists can do it. but 
they usually have to be dead two hundred years to do it. All I ever 
learned in art school was about fuckin' Van Gogh and stuff! They 
didn't teach me anything about anybody that was alive now! They 
never taught me about Marcel Duchamp, which I despise them for, 
and Yoko has taught me about Duchamp and what he did, which is 
just out of this-fantastic! He got a fuckin' bike wheel and said, 
"This is art, you cunts!" He wasn't Dali. Dali's alright, but he's like 
Mick. 
YOKO:
Well, see, you heard about Dali in school. 
LENNOK REMEMBERS I4I 
JOHN:NO, but if YOU put the thing back into that age, Dali is like Mick 
and Duchamp is like me or you. 
YOKO: Mick, yes, yes, yes, yes. 
JOHN: And I love Dali, but fuckin' Duchamp was spot on! 
Why Warhol? 
Because-because-because-
YOKO:
He's creating the same impact. 
JOHN: He just. .. 
He's a great original. 
He's great. 
YOKO: Um, great. He's an original. 
JOHN: He's an original great. He's in so much pain, but he's got his fame, 
and he's got his own cinema and all that. I don't dig all that junkie fag 
scene and all that that he lives in. I don't know whether he lives like that 
or what. I dig Heinz Soup Can.97 That was something! That wasn't just 
a pop art or some stupid ass like Peter Max and all that psychedelic shit! 
YOKO:NO, it's not that .. . 
JOHN:Warhol's one of the greats! He said it, nobody else said it, Heinz 
Soup! He said that to us, and I thank him for it. 
Fcllini. 
Oh, Fellini's more like Dali, I suppose .. . 
YOKO: Dali, yeah. 
JOHN: I mean Fellini's just great. 
YOKO:
We just saw that great ... 
JOHN:A great meal, to go and see Fellini's [movies]. A great meal of 
senses. 
''Lennon is refering to Warhol's Campbell's soup can paintings 
 


I42  
YOKO:
We like Citizen Kane, don't we [laugh]? 
JOHN: And Citizen Kane. That's something else too. Poor old Orson 
[Welles], though, he was troubled. He goes on [the] Dick Cavett 
[Show] and he's sort of [sadly], "Please love me, I'm a big fat man now 
and I've eaten all this food and I did do well when I was younger and I 
can act, I can direct and you're all very kind to me but at the moment 
I don't do anything." 
Do you see a time when you'll retire? 
No, I couldn't, you know. 
YOKO: He'll probably work until eighty or until he dies. 
JOHN:
Well, I don't know. I can't foresee it. Because even when you're a 
cripple, you carry on painting. I would paint if I couldn't move. It 
doesn't matter, you see. When I was saying about what Yoko did with 
"Greenfield Morning" and took half an inch of rubbishy tape that none 
of us knew what we were doing at the time, it was just a bum tape, 
when I saw her create something, with something we would normally 
throw away. With the other stuff we did, we were all good in the backing and everything went according to plan, it was a good session, but 
with "Greenfield Morning" and "Paper Shoes" there was nothing there 
for her to work with." She just took nothing-the way Spector did- 
that's the way the genius shows through any media. You give Yoko or 
Spector a piece of tape, two inches of tape, they can create a symphony 
out of it. You don't have to be trained in rock & roll, the same as I didn't 
98 "Greenfield Morning" and "Paper Shoes" were tracks on I970's Yoko Ono & 
Plastic Ono Band. 
 I43 
have to be trained to sing. I can sing. Singing is singing tiI people enjoy 
what you sing, and not being able to hold notes or anything like that. 
And I don't have to do; I don't have to do it in rock & roll. If I'm an old 
man, I can-we'll make wallpaper together. 
YOKO:[laugh] 
What is holding back people understanding Yoko? 
Well, she was doing alright before she met Elvis. When I was telling 
you that Howard Smith announced he was going to play her music and 
all these idiots rang up and said, "Don't dare play it, she split the 
Beatle~."~~
She didn't split the Beatles. And even if she did, so what's 
that got to do with their fuckin' record? But she's a woman and she's 
Japanese, there's racial prejudice against her and there's female 
prejudice against her. It's as simple as that. People come up and shake 
my hand, they don't. . . I say, "This is my wife!" 
Well, that's why they don't like Yoko. 
Her work is far out. Has anybody understood Warhol really or 
understood his [films]-[whistle] that "building," you know, "24 hours 
of sleep" and that-Yoko's Bottoms thing is as important.I00 Bottoms 
film is as important as Sgt. Pepper. The real hip people, they know 
about it. A person in Paris knows about her, a person in Moscow knows 
about her, a person in fuckin' China knows about her. But in general 
she can't be accepted, because she's so far out, man, it's hard to take! 
Her pain is such that she expresses herself in a way that hurts you! That 
you cannot take it! That's why they couldn't take Van Gogh and all that 
shit, it's too real! It hurts! That's why they kill you! 
99 Smith was one of New York's hipper radio DJs of the time. 
Yoko's "Film No. 4 (Bottoms)." which she made in I966. 
 


I44  
What accounts for your great popularity? 
Because I fuckin' did it in-I copped out in that Beatle thing. I was 
like an artist that went off and-like-you never heard of Dylan 
Thomas and all them that's never fuckin' wrote, they just went off 
drinkin' and Brendan Behan and all them died of drink. Everybody 
who's done anything is like that. I just found meself in a party! I was an 
emperor, and I had millions of chicks, drugs, drink, fuckin' power! And 
everybody sayin' how great Iwas. How could I get out of there, just- 
[humming] it was just like being in a fucking coach! I couldn't get out, I 
couldn't create either! I created a little, it came out, but I was in the 
party, man! You don't get out of a thing like that! it was fantastic! I 
came out of the sticks. I didn't hear about anything though-Van Gogh 
was the most far out thing I'd ever heard of. And even London was 
something we used to dream of, and London's nothing! And Paris and 
all this, it was all that. I came out the fucking sticks to take over the 
fucking world, it seemed like to me! I was enjoying it, and I was in it and 
I was trapped in it too. I couldn't do anything about it. I was just going 
along for the ride, I was hooked. Hooked, just like on junk. 
What do you think of America? 
I love it, you know, and I hate it [laugh]. 
YOKO:
It's a very lovely thing, isn't it? 
JOHN: America is where it's at. You know, I should have been born in 
New York, man, I should have been born in the Village! That's where I 
belong! Why wasn't I born there! Like Paris was in the eighteenth century or whatever it was, London I don't think has ever been it. It might 
have been it literary-wise when Wilde and Shaw and all them were 
 I45 
there. New York was it! I regret profoundly not being American and not 
being born in Greenwich Village. That's where I should have been. But 
it never works that way. Everybody heads towards the center, that's why 
I'm here now. I'm here just to breathe it. It might be dying, or there 
might be a lot of dirt in the air, but this is where it's happening. And 
you go to Europe to rest, like in the country. But it's so overpowering, 
America, for me, and I'm such a fuckin' cripple that I can't take much 
of it, it's too much for me. 
YOKO:
He's very New York. 
JOHN: I'm too frightened of it. It's so much and people are so aggressive. 
I can't take all that, you know? I need to go home, I need to look at the 
grass. I'm always writing about English garden and that lot. I need 
that, the trees and the grass. [To Yoko] Don't I? 
YOKO:
Yes, yes. Definitely. 
JOHN: Yeah, I need to go into the country. Because I can't stand too 
much. . . 
What is Liverpool like? 
Liverpool was just where I was brought up. [It's] like anywhere . . . 
I love the concept of it, but I don't live there. 
What did being from Liverpool have to do with your art? 
Because it was a port, that means it was less hick than somewhere in 
the midlands, like the Midwest or whatever you call it. We were a port, 
the second biggest port in England. Also between Manchester and 
Liverpool, the North was where all the money was made in the I800s 
whenever it was, that was where all the brass and the heavy people 
were. And that's where the despised people were. We were the ones that 
 


I46  
were looked down upon by the southerners as animals. Like the South, 
you, all you Easterners think that people are pigs down South here and 
the people in New York think West Coast's hick and all that. So we were 
hicksville, and also we were all-great amount of Irish descent and 
blacks and Chinamen, all sorts there-it's like San Francisco. Why do 
you think Haight-Ashbury and all that happened there and didn't 
happen in L.A.? It happened in San Francisco. That's where people are 
going. L.A. you pass through and get a hamburger. Liverpool was like 
that, but there was nothing big, it wasn't American, it was going poor. 
It was a very poor city and tough. But people had a sense of humor 
because they're in so much pain. So they're always cracking jokes, 
they're very witty. And it's an Irish place. It's where the Irish came 
when they ran out of potatoes. And it's where black people were left or 
worked as slaves or whatever and the trader communities. It's cosmopolitan, and it's where the sailors would come home with the blues 
records from America on the ships! And the biggest country & western 
following in England [is] in Liverpool, probably besides London- 
always besides London, because there's more of it there. I remember the 
first guitar I ever saw was a guy in a cowboy suit in a province of 
Liverpool with the stars and the cowboy hat. And a big dobro. They're 
real cowboys there, they take it seriously. There've been cowboys long 
before there was rock & roll. There's folk clubs and all that was going 
on there. So there's all that kind of environment. 
Right after 'Sgt. Peppy' George came to San Francisco. 
George went over, in the end. I was all for going there and living on 
the Haight. In my head I thought. "Well, hell, acid's it and this is the 
answer, I'II go there." I was going to go there. But I'm too nervous to do 
anything actually. I thought, "Haight, I'll go there now and we'll live 
 I47 
like that, and I'll make music and all that." But of course it didn't come 
true. But it happened in San Francisco, it happened alright, didn't it? It 
goes down in history. I love it, it's like while Shaw was in England and 
they all went to Paris and there's all that, and New York, San Francisco 
and London. Even London we created something there, with Mick and 
us and all of them. We didn't know what we were doing, but we were 
all talking and blabbing over coffee like they must have done in Paris 
talking about painting. We-[Eric] Burdon and Brian Jones would be 
up night and day talking about music and playing records and blabbing 
and arguing and getting drunk. It's beautiful history. It happened in all 
these different places. I just missed New York. In New York, they have 
their own cool clique. She [Yoko] came out of that. This is the first time 
I'm really seeing [New York], you see, cause I was always too nervous 
or I was a famous Beatle. Dylan showed it to me once on a sort of 
guided tour around the Village with him, but I never got any feel of it. 
I just knew Dylan was New York, and I always sort of wished I'd been 
there for the experience that Bob got, from living around it. 
What's the nature of your relationship with Dylan? 
Well, it's sort of acquaintance, because we're so nervous. Whenever 
we used to meet, it was always under the most nerve-wracking circumstances. I know I was always uptight and I know Bobby was. 
People like [journalist] AI Aronowitz would try and bring us together. 
And we were together and we'd spend some time, but I'd always be too 
paranoid or I'd be aggressive or something and vice versa. We didn't 
really speak, but we spent a lot of time together, and he came to me 
house, which was Kenwood, can you imagine it? And I didn't know 
where to put him in this sort of bourgeois home life I was living, I didn't 
know what to do and things like that. It was all strange. I used to go to 
 


I48  
his hotel rather. And I loved him, because he wrote some beautiful 
stuff. I used to love his so-called protest things. But I like the sound of 
him. I didn't have to listen to his words. He used to come with his 
acetate and say, [imitates Dylan] "Listen to this, John." And "Did you 
hear the words?" And I said, "That doesn't matter, just the sound is what 
counts. The overall thing." You didn't have to hear what Bob Dylan's 
saying, you just have to hear the way he says it, like medium is the message, all-whatever mix of-but Dylan was like that. But I had quite a 
good. . . 
YOKO:
But YOU respect him a lot. 
JOHN:. . . I respected him, I respect him a lot. I know Paul didn't. I think 
Paul was jealous. Paul didn't like any other artist. But that's valid. Paul 
didn't get hyped by me. I had too many father figures. 
YOKO:
And you like words . . . 
JOHN:I like words too, so I liked a lot of the stuff he did. I like words. 
Do you see him as the great artist? 
No, I see him as another poet, or as competition. You just read my 
books, which are written before I'd heard of Dylan or read Dylan or even 
heard of anybody, it's the same. I didn't come after Elvis and Dylan, I've 
been around always. But if I see or meet a great artist, I love 'em. I just love 
'em, I go fanatical about them for a short period, and then I get over it. And 
if they wear green socks, I'm liable to wear green socks for a period, too. 
When was the last time you saw Bob? 
He came to our house with George when I'd written "Cold Turkey" 
and we were . . . 
YOKO:
And his wife. 
JOHN:
. . . and his wife-I was just trying again to put him on piano for 
"Cold Turkey" to make a rough take, but his wife was pregnant or 
 I49 
something and they left. But he's calmed down a lot now than what he 
was. I just remember we were both in shades and both on fucking 
junk. And all these freaks around us, and Ginsberg and all those people. 
I was nervous as shit. 
Where did this happen? 
In London when he came. 
You were in that movie with him.I0I' 
Oh yeah, I've never seen it. I'm in it. Frightened as hell. 
I haven't seen it but somebody told me about it. 
I'd love to see it. I have to see it. I must ask to see it. 
YOKO:
How could we see it? Could you arrange it? 
Sure. 
YOKO:
Oh great! 
JOHN:I never did see it. I was so frightened, you know. I was always so 
paranoid that Bob said, "I want you to be in this film." He just wanted 
me to be in the film. I thought, "Why? What? He's going to put me 
down!" I went all through this terrible thing. So in the film, I'm just 
blabbing off [and], I'm commenting all the time, like you do when 
you're very high and stoned. Yeah. What did he say? 
I don't remember the exact thing, but you come off really nervous. 
Yeah. So . . . 
YOKO:
I'd like to see it. 
JOHN: . . . I'd been up all night. 
You were trying to trade humor? 
Yeah. That's it. We were being smart alecks. Oh, it's terrible. But it 
was his scene. That was the problem for me. It was his movie and I was 
In' D.A. Pennebaker's Eat the Document, filmed in I966 
 


I50  
on his territory. That's why I was so nervous. I was on his session. 
YOKO:
Tomorrow night? 
JOHN: NO, Yoko, we've got-you're going to see the Toronto rock film 
tomorrow, you're going to make a film tomorrow and you're going to do 
an interview tomorrow, and you probably lined up Howard Smith for 
tomorrow by the sound of what you were saying on the bloody phone. 
[Points to Yoko] This is the woman who drove me mad. 
YOKO:
[laugh] 
JOHN: [laugh]No. Yeah. Okay? So try and cool it. We'll see it some other 
day. But if you can just tell us how to get in touch with it, that would 
be interesting. 
It's Pennebaher: 
Oh yeah. Oh, I see, okay, well we'll probably see him tomorrow. I 
don't know how we're going to see it and make a movie I mean it's such 
a full day 
YOKO:
We better get going. 
JOHN:
Well, we better go and copy this tape, anyway cause I want it all 
for the archives. 
[on the phone a week or so later] 
You're going back to London. What's a rough picture of your immediate 
future, say, the next three months? 
I'd like to just vanish a bit. It wore me out, New York. I love it. I'm 
just sort of fascinated by it, like a flicking monster. Doing the films was 
a nice way of meeting a lot of people. I think we've both said and done 
 I5I 
enough for a few months, especially with this article. I'd like to get out 
of the way and wait tiI they all . . . 
Do you have a rough picture of the next few years? 
Oh no, I couldn't think of the next few years; it's abysmal thinking 
of how many years there are to go, millions of them. I just play it by the 
week. I don't think much ahead of a week. 
I have no more to ask. 
Well, fancy that. 
Do you have anything to add? 
No, I can't think of anything positive and heartwarming to win your 
readers over. 
Do you have a picture of "When I'm 64"? 
No, no. I hope we're a nice old couple living off the coast of Ireland 
or something like that, looking at our scrapbook of madness.