In November 1971, Paul McCartney shared his thoughts on the Beatles breakup, John and Yoko, and John's song "How Do You Sleep" with Melody Maker magazine. The article infuriated John Lennon so much that Lennon dashed a letter of reply to Melody Maker, and requested that his letter be published in its entirety in an effort to give "equal time" to his version of the story. The exchange read as a very public argument between the two ex-Beatles.
McCartney in Melody Maker
PAUL: "There was a bit of hype on the back of the (Let It Be) sleeve for the first time ever on a Beatles album. At the time, the Beatles were very strained with each other and it wasn't a happy time. It said it was a 'new-phase Beatles album' and there was nothing further from the truth. That was the last Beatles album and everybody knew it... (Allen) Klein had it re-produced because he said it didn't sound commercial enough."
"I just want the four of us to get together somewhere and sign a piece of paper saying it's all over and we want to divide the money four ways. No one else would be there, not even Linda or Yoko or Allen Klein. We'd just sign the paper and hand it to the business people and let them sort it out. That's all I want now, but John won't do it. Everybody thinks I am the agressor but I'm not, you know. I just want out."
"John and Yoko are not cool in what they are doing. I saw them on television the other night and thought that what they are saying about what they wanted to do together was basically the same as what Linda and I want to do."
"John's whole image now is very honest and open. He's alright, is John. I like his 'Imagine' album but I didn't like the others. 'Imagine' is what John is really like but there was too much political stuff on the other albums. You know, I only really listen to them to see if there's something I can pinch." (laughs)
"'How Do You Sleep'? I think it's silly. So what if I live with straights? I like straights. I have straight babies. It doesn't affect him. He says the only thing I did was 'Yesterday.' He knows that's wrong. He knows and I know it's not true."
"John wanted to do a big thing in Toronto (9/13/69 concert, Toronto Rock and Roll Revival) but I didn't dig that at all. I hear that before he went on stage he was sick, and that's just what I didn't want. Like anybody else I have been nervous because of the Beatles thing."
"I wanted to get in a van and do an unadvertised concert at a Saturday night hop at Slough Town Hall or somewhere like that. We'd call ourselves Rikki and the Red Streaks or something and just get up and play. There'd be no press and we'd tell nobody about it. John thought it was a daft idea."
"Before John was leaving the Beatles, I was lying in bed at home one night and I thought we could get a band together, like his Plastic Ono Band. I felt the urge because we had never played live for four years. We all wanted to appear on a stage but not with the Beatles. We couldn't do it as the Beatles because it would be so big. We'd have to find a million-seater hall or something."
Lennon's response letter, published in Melody Maker
Dear Paul, Linda et all the wee McCartney's,
Thanks for your letter.
1. We give YOU money for your bits of Apple.
2. We give you MORE money in the form of royalties which legally belong to Apple (I know we're Apple, but on the other hand we're not.).
Maybe there's an answer there somewhere, but for the millionth time in these past few years I repeat, 'What about the TAX?' It's all very well, playing 'simple honest ole Paul' in Melody Maker but you know damn well we can't just sign a bit of paper.
You say, 'John won't do it.' I will if you indemnify us against the tax man! Anyway, you know that after we have OUR meeting, the fucking lawyers will have to implement whatever we agree on, right?
If they have some form of agreement between THEM before WE meet, it might make it even easier. It's up to you, as we've said many times, we'll meet whenever you like. Just make up your mind! E.g. two weeks ago I asked you on the phone, 'Please let's meet without advisors, etc. and decide what we want,' and I emphasized especially Maclen [Lennon and McCartney's songwriting company] which is mainly our concern, but you refused, right?
You said under NO CONDITION would you sell to us if we didn't do what you wanted, you'd sue us again and that Ringo and George are going to break you John, etc. etc.
Now I was quite straight with you that day, and you tried to shoot me down with your emotional "logic." If YOU'RE not the aggressor (as you claim) who the hell took us to court and shat all over us in public?
As I've said before, Have you ever thought that you might POSSIBLY be wrong about something? Your conceit about us and Klein is incredible. You say you "made the mistake of trying to advise them against Klein and that pissed them off" and we secretly feel that you're right! Good God! You must know WE'RE right about Eastman.
One other little lie in your "It's only Paulie" MM bit: Let It Be was not the first bit of hype on a Beatle album. Remember Tony Barrow? And his wonderful writing on "Please Please Me" etc. etc. The early Beatle Xmas records!
And you gotta admit it was a 'new-phase' Beatle album, incidentally written in the style of the great Barrow himself! By the way, what happened to my idea of putting the parody of our first album cover on the Let It Be cover?
Also, we were intending to parody Barrow originally, so it was hype. But what is your LIFE article? Tony Barrow couldn't have done it better. (And your writing inside of the Wings album [Wild Life] isn't exactly the realist is it?) Anyway, enough of this petty bourgeois fun.
Another thing, whadya mean BIG THING in Toronto? It was completely spontaneous. They rang on the Friday, we flew there, and we played on Saturday. I was sick because I was stone pissed. Listen to the album-- with no rehearsal too. Come on Macka! Own up! We'd never played together before! Half a dozen live shows with no big fuss. In fact we've BEEN DOING what you've said the Beatles should do. Yoko and I have been doing it for three years! (I said it was daft for the Beatles to do it. I still think it's daft.) So go on and do it! Do it! Do it! E.g. Cambridge 1969, completely unadvertised! A very small hall. Lyceum Ballroom, 1969, no fuss, great show-- thirty piece rock band! "Live Jam" out soon! Filmore East, 1971, unannounced. Another good time had by all-- out soon!! We even played in the streets here in the Village (our spiritual home!?) with the great David Peel!! We were moved on by the cops even!! It's best just to DO IT.
I know you'll dig it, and they don't even expect the Beatles now anyway!
So you think 'Imagine' ain't political? It's 'Working Class Hero' with sugar on it for conservatives like yourself!! You obviously didn't dig the words. Imagine! You took 'How Do You Sleep' so literally (read my own review of the album in Crawdaddy.) Your politics are very similar to Mary Whitehouse's-- 'Saying nothing is as loud as saying something.'
No hard feelings to you either. I know basically we want the same, and as I said on the phone and in this letter, whenever you want to meet, all you have to do is call.
All you need is love
Power to the people
Free all prisoners
Jail the judges
Love and peace
Get it on and rip 'em off
John Lennon
P.S. The bit that really puzzled us was asking to meet WITHOUT LINDA AND YOKO. I thought you'd have understood BY NOW that I'm JOHNANDYOKO.
P.P.S. Even your own lawyers know you can't "just sign a bit of paper." (or don't they tell you?)
John & Paul's Hindsight Perspective
PAUL circa-1994: "When John did 'How Do You Sleep?' I didn't want to get into a slinging match. Part of it was cowardice. John was a great wit, and I didn't want to go fencing with the rapier champion of East Cheam-- But it meant that I had to take shit-- It meant that I had to take lines like 'All you ever did was Yesterday.' I always find myself wanting to excuse John's behavior, just because I loved him. It's like a child, sure he was a naughty child, but don't you call my child naughty. Even if it's me he's shitting on, don't you call him naughty. That's how I felt about this and still do. I don't have a grudge whatsoever against John. I think he knew exactly what he was doing and because we had been so intimate he knew what would hurt me and used it to great effect. I thought, 'Keep your head down and time will tell,' and it did because in the 'Imagine' film (Imagine John Lennon, documentary) he says it was really all about himself."
JOHN 1974: "It's not about Paul, it's about me. I'm really attacking myself. But I regret the association... well... what's to regret? He lived through it. The only thing that matters is how he and I feel about these things and not what the writer or commentator thinks about it. Him and me are okay."
JOHN 1974: "When I slagged off the Beatles thing, it was like divorce pangs and, me being me, it was 'Blast this! Fuck the past!' I've always had a bit of a mouth and when a thing begins that way you have to live up to it. Then Paul and me had that fight in the pages of MM. It was a period I had to go through. I sort of enjoy the fight at the time-- that's the funny thing. Now we've got it all out and it's cool. I can see the Beatles from a new point of view."
JOHN 1980: "I used my resentment against Paul that I have as a kind of sibling rivalry resentment from youth to create a song... not a terrible vicious horrible vendetta... I used my resentment and withdrawing from Paul and the Beatles, and the relationship with Paul, to write 'How Do You Sleep.' I don't really go 'round with those thoughts in my head all the time."
Hősünk megnyilvánulásai az élet legkülönbözőbb területein:
I can't remember anything without a sadness
So deep that it hardly becomes known to me
So deep that its tears leave me a spectator of my own stupidity.
-John, in a letter to Stuart Sutcliffe about 1961-1962.
Good George Martin is our friend
Buddy Pal and Mate
Buy this record and he'll send
A dog for your front gate
CHORUS: With an arf arf here
And an arf arf there, etc.
Sung to the tune of Old McDonald Had An Arm by the Beatles a band.
"Your Majesty, I am returning my MBE in protest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against 'Cold Turkey' slipping down in the charts.
With love,
John Lennon"
November 25, 1969
Úgy emlékszem, Budapesten, a tizenhatodik kerület egyik elhanyagolt kis művésziskolájában, meg Ózdon és egyszer Miskolcon készített pokoli installációkat. Ő alkalmazott medvevért a világon elsőként, a mozaik megfelelő színezése céljából. Ezekről annak idején a Rolling Stone is beszámolt.
Hello mindenki!
Művészeti suliba járok és a képzősöknek az volt a feladatuk,hogy mozaikképet készítsenek vkiről.A kedvencem JOHN LENNON-é volt.Fantasztikus!Az a srác egy zseni!
Lennon Psychedelic Sketches Found
Psychedelic Images From the Mind of John Lennon
by Catherine Milner and Mark Inglefield
A sketchbook of John Lennon’s disturbing
psychedelic drawings from 1967 were recently
unearthed. Described as “drug-fuelled visions,”
they reveal in part the disorientation he was
experiencing during his years of serious
experimentation with mind-expanding drugs.
A collection of John Lennon sketches depicting the singer’s drug-fuelled vision of an island escape from Beatlemania, has come to light at the home of the man who introduced him to Yoko Ono.
John Dunbar, ex-husband of singer Marianne Faithfull, has discovered the drawings inside a jotter he took on a trip to Ireland with Lennon. It is estimated that they could fetch more than Ł100,000 at auction. “I can’t believe it - most of John’s drawings are frightful,“ said Mr. Dunbar.
The journey of Lennon and Dunbar to Ireland typified the surreal adventures of the Beatles and the rock aristocracy in the late Sixties. Mr. Dunbar recalls that Lennon had spotted a newspaper advertisement for “an island off Ireland“ being sold for Ł1,000. While attending one of the decade’s notorious psychedelic “happenings,“ the “24 Hour Technicolour Dream” party at Alexandra Palace, north London, Lennon determined to buy it. “It was something to do“ explained Mr. Dunbar.
They flew to Dublin the following morning, from where they travelled across Ireland in a black limousine to Clew Bay on the west coast. There they hired a boat to Dornish Beg - the tiny hummock sticking out of the Atlantic that had caught Lennon’s fancy.
But the journey was warped by copious consumption of LSD, and the increasingly chaotic nature of the drawings chart the singer’s mental disintegration. The men had started taking the drug at the Technicolour Dream party, said Dunbar, and continued without a break for four or five days.
“I had taken it first as early as 1963 - whereas John had only recently started, so I think he was probably more affected by it. The island was more like a couple of small hills joined by a gravelly bar with a cottage on it,“ said Dunbar. “When we got there, John sat down and started drawing.“
Apart from one Dante-esque drawing covering two pages which features hollowed eyes, ghoulish faces and fat nude females in an incoherent scrawl of lines and squiggles, Lennon drew up architectural plans of a large octagonal tower or lighthouse on the island in which he wanted to live.
“It was a beautiful spot,“ says Mr. Dunbar. But Lennon never went to live on the island because of his relationship with Yoko Ono. Lennon later gave the island away to a stranger who turned up with his family at Apple, the Beatles’ self-founded record company, at a time when the group’s hippie ideals made them the target of fleecers. The musicians haemhorraged so much money that Lennon was soon to announce that he was “down to my last Ł40,000.“
The drawings belong to the most controversial period of Lennon and McCartney’s songwriting. A few months after Lennon’s visit to the island the group released Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds - the source of speculation, because of the title’s initials, that it was inspired by LSD. Lennon always insisted that it was prompted by a drawing done by his son, Julian, but the influence of drugs was undeniable.
The recording of A Day In The Life - whose drug references were brazen - was turned into a psychedelic “happening“ by the group and their friends. However, Lennon was forced into giving up LSD by the “thousands“ of bad trips he experienced. He was later privately to admit that he was lucky to have regained his mental equilibrium afterwards. Many of his friends never did.
His drawings - and the whole Irish escapade - capture the singer’s desperation to escape the pressures of fame. In another typical episode, the whole group planned to decamp to live together in Greece.
A London art dealer in the Sixties, Dunbar introduced Lennon to Yoko Ono when she was showing at his gallery. “He lost interest when Yoko appeared on the scene. They eventually moved to the U.S.“
Carey Wallace, Beatles expert at Christies, said: “Anything that gives an insight into Lennon’s mind is highly sought-after and Beatles’ memorabilia is very strong at the moment.“
The Beatles, after 40 years still have Satan's power behind them. Before The Beatles, music was innocent. There was not any loud music or music with evil lyrics. Music was pure and Christian. The Beatles with "pagan skins" and electric guitars polluted the Earth.
-Pastor Rick Panning
Christianity will go, it will shrink and vanish. I will be proved right. You just wait. We are more powerfull now than Jesus ever was"
-John Lennon
Pagan Skins
Before The Beatles came rumbling along, American music did not use drums or "pagan skins". They came storming into America with the rythm of Satan.
Why are drums called pagan skins? Because the African people used drums in their Satanic and Idol worship. The would beat frantically on the skins and call to the Devil. Often they would rape and kill each other in these rituals and it was all done to the back beat of drums that sounded much like The Beatles drums.
So the Beatles, having discoved the power of Satan, came through the world like an evil pide piper. Taking victoms into a frenzy thousands at a time.
Beatle Lyrics
The folling are lyrics that seem inocent enough at first glance, but when you take a closer look with wisdon, you begin to see the true meaning.
Hey Jude.
"Hey Jude, don't make it bad take a sad song and make it better. The minute you put it under your skin, then you begin to feel better".
What does one put under their skin to make them feel better?
How about a needle full of heroin. It is bad enough to do heroin but to then promote it to the youth is absolutely evil. It is by the way common knowledge that the Beatles were all heroin adicts.
Strawberry Fields Forever
When people shoot drugs, the needles leave marks on the arms. Drug adicts call these red marks "strawberry feilds" In this song John Lennon is expressing his desire to always shoot drugs into his body.
This song sounds like a drug induced experience and was written while Mr. Lennon was high on heroin.
You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
"Here I stand, head in hand turned my face to the wall"
This song is obviously about masturbation, which is a sin
Revolution 9.
In this song the meaning is cleverly concealed, in fact you cannot hear the secret message unless you play the record backward on a special player. When tured backwards you can hear the words "turn me on dead man, turn me on dead man", this was done to secretly express the fact that John Lennon was, in secret, a homosexual necrofeeliac, a ritual that has been performed for centuries by African Satanic organizations.
It Won't Be Long
"It won't be long 'till i can be with you"
It dosn't take long into this song before you figure out that The Beatles are waiting to be called home by Satan.
Little Child
"Little child, little child, little child won't you dance with me"
Need more be said?
You Really Got A Hold On Me
Another self explanitory title, of course Satan has a hold on you idiots.
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
The Initials for this song are L.S.D., a drug. The song is about an LSD trip that McCartney had
Yellow Submarine
"We all live in a yellow submarine"
During the period when this song was written, the Beatles were taking LSD in the form of a yellow capsule.
Beatles in Germany-Home of Hitler
While in Hamburg, the Beatles' manager, a homosexual named Brian Epstein, who was back in England sent them a telegram that read, "Congratulations EMI wants to record you"
George Martin recorded the Beatles at EMI
Martin was a trained classical musician, and had studied the oboe and piano at the London School of Music. The Beatles could neither read music nor play any instrument other than guitar and they couldn't play that very good either. Martin thought that the Beatles musicianship was a bad joke. On their first hit record, "Love Me Do," Martin refused to let Ringo play on the recording.. Martin said Ringo, "couldn't do a [drum] roll to save his life." From then on, Martin would take the simple, little juvenile tunes the Beatles would come to him with, and he alone would turn them into hit records.
Musicians who sought to preserve the traditional music like Brahms and Beetoven would not play on Beatle records so Martin had to hire EX-NAZIS from Germany to play.
From the beginning, EMI created the myth of the Beatles' great popularity. In August of 1963, at their first major television appearance at the London Palladium, thousands of their fans supposedly rioted. The next day every mass-circulation newspaper in Great Britain carried a front page picture and story stating, "Police fought to hold back 1,000 squealing teenagers." Yet, the picture displayed in each newspaper was cropped so closely that only three or four of the "squealing teenagers" could be seen. The story was a fraud. According to a photographer on the scene, "There were no riots. I was there. We saw three girls, even less than three."
In February 1964, the Beatles Satanic rythm hit the United States, complete with the well orchestrated riots(another fraud) at Kennedy Airport. To launch their first tour, the media created one of the largest mass audiences in history.
On returning to England, the Beatles were rewarded by the British aristocracy they served so well . In October 1965, the four were inducted into the Order of Chivalry, and were personally awarded the accolade of Member of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham palace.
The plan was now to use the Beatles as the means to transform an entire generation into satanic heathen followers of the New Age, followers which could mold into the future cadre of a Satanic movement and then deploy into our schools, law enforcment agencies and political leadership.
Enter Satan
In his book, The Ultimate Evil, investigator-author Maury Terry writes that between 1966 and 1967, the Satanic cult, the Process Church, "sought to recruit the Beatles.
A key link between the Beatles and the Process Church is Kenneth Anger, a follower of the "founding father" of modern Satanism, Aleister Crowley. Anger, born in 1930, and a child Hollywood movie star, became a devoted disciple of Crowley.
Crowley was born in 1875 and was called the "Great Beast." He was known to practice ritual child sacrifice regularly, in his role as Satan's high priest or "Magus." Crowley died in 1947 due to complications of his huge heroin addiction. Before dying, he succeeded in establishing Satanic covens in many U.S. cities including Hollywood. Anger, like Crowley, is a Magus, and appears to be the heir to Crowley.
Anger was seventeen years old when Crowley died. In that same year, 1947, Anger was already producing and directing films which, even by today's standards, reek of pure evil.
Sgt. Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band
In 1967 the Beatles had released their first album dedicated to the promotion of psychedelic drugs, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The album contained a fantasized version of an LSD trip, called "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", or L.S.D. for short. It became a top seller.
Clearly, the Beatles' album was dedicated to Satanist Aleister Crowley.
It was released 20 years, to the day, after Crowley's death in 1947, and its title song began with the lyrics, "It was twenty years ago today..." The album's cover featured a picture of Crowley.
One month after the album's release, the Beatles shocked the world by announcing, publicly, that they were regularly taking LSD. Beatle member Paul McCartney, in an interview with Life magazine said, "LSD opened my eyes. It is better than Jesus". We only use one-tenth of our brain." They also publicly called for the legalization of marijuana.
The cat was now out of the bag, but the protests were few and minor. In England, the BBC banned "A Day in the Life," and in the U.S.A., Maryland Governor Spiro T.Agnew, who would later be watergated, launched a campaign to ban "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds."
Aliester Crowley is without a doubt, the main spiritual "teacher" of rock music. Crowley's mission in life was to destroy Jesus Christ and Christianity, while exalting sex perversion, drugs, magic and Satan.
Aliester Crowley spews his hatred of Jesus Christ in The World's Tragedy:
In the introduction of The World's Tragedy, Israel Regardie says:
"This long, almost epic poem is one of the most bitter and vicious diatribes against Christianity that I have ever read."
Crowley's most famous teaching, "Do what thou wilt shalt be the whole of the law" became the "mantra" of the 60's revolution of drugs, sexual perversion and anti-Christianity. "Do your own thing" "If it feels good do it".
THE BEATLES & CROWLEY
According to The All Music Guide, The Beatle's Sgt. Pepper album, "will forever be known as the recording that changed rock & roll". Time magazine said, Sgt Pepper's was "drenched in drugs."
The cover of Sgt. Pepper's showed the Beatles with a background of, according to Ringo Starr, people "we like and admire" Paul McCartney said of Sgt. Pepper's cover, ". . . we were going to have photos on the wall of all our
HEROS . .
One of the Beatle's heros included on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's was the infamous Aliester Crowley! Most people, especially in 1967, did not even know who Crowley was but the Beatles certainly did.
Sgt. Pepper
". . . we were going to have photos on the wall of all our HEROS . . ."
"Hero" Aliester Crowley is second from left on the top row. Where is Jesus?????:
The Bealtes took Crowley's teaching very seriously. Beatle John Lennon, in an interview, says the "whole idea of the Beatles was Aliester Crowley's idea, "do what thou wilt":
"The whole Beatle idea was to do what you want, right? To take your own responsibilty, do what you want and try not to harm other people, right? DO WHAT THOU WILST, as long as it doesn't hurt somebody. . ."
"They're COMPLETELY ANTI-CHRIST. I mean, I am anti-Christ as well, but they're so anti-Christ they shock me which isn't an easy thing."
Derek Taylor, Press Officer for the Beatles
"I believed that he was Satan himself at times"
George Martin, Beatles Producer
"Jesus, a garlic-eating, stinking little yellow, greasy fascist bastard catholic spaniard."
(John Lennon, A Spaniard in the Works, p.14)
"Christianity will go, it will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that. I'm right and will be proved right. You just wait.. . .We're more powerfull than Jesus ever was.."
John Lennon
The important thing now is FOR YOU to spread the word of the evil in rock music. It was all started by The Beatles ladies and gentlemen. Now we have The Rolling Stones and their Goat Head Soup, Alice Cooper and Ozzy Osbourne with whatever they are trying to do and the newest and most evil of them all Marilyn Manson. It keeps getting worse people. WAKE UP, WAKE UP and look at what is happening. If you have Beatle records or CD's or any other rock music, get rid of them. Don't give them away, destroy them, before they destroy you. Giving them or selling them to someone else is just like selling people drugs or worse yet handing them a ticket to ride strait to Hell.
http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/news/125johnfbi.html
ABOUT THIS INTERVIEW:
In the fall of 1966, Look Magazine's European editor Leonard Gross and photographer Douglas Kirkland visited John Lennon on-location during the filming of 'How I Won The War.' The article, published in the magazine's December 13th issue, is Gross's firsthand account of events on the movie set. The article also contains extended excerpts of conversations with Lennon, which are highlighted in blue.
Whoever would have dreamed that beneath that mop lurked a Renaissance man? Yet there, shorn, sits John Lennon, champion minstrel, literary Beatle, coarse truthsayer, who turned Christendom on with one wildly misunderstood gibe at cant. Now, face white, tunic red, playing wounded in a field of weeds, this pop-rock De Vinci is proposing to act for real. Relaxed to all appearances, he is all knots inside.
"I was just a bundle of nerves the first day. I couldn't hardly speak I was so nervous. My first speech was in a forest, on patrol. I was suppose to say, 'My heart's not in it any more' and it wasn't. I went home and said to myself, 'Either you're not going to be like that, or you're going to give up.'"
As he casts his weak brown eyes at the camera, the entire movie company jockeys for a glimpse. "I don't mind talking to the camera-- it's people that throw me."
Sure enough, he blows his lines. He waggles his head in shame. "Sorry about that." But under the low-key coaxing of Director Dick Lester, Beatle John becomes Private Gripweed, a complex British orderly, in an unorthodox new film, How I Won The War.
Lennon on his own-- rich for life at 26, yet poor still in what men of all seasons crave-- full knowledge of himself. Beatling by itself, he has found, is not enough. "I feel I want to be them all-- painter, writer, actor, singer, player, musician. I want to try them all, and I'm lucky enough to be able to. I want to see which one turns me on. This is for me, this film, because apart from wanting to do it because of what it stands for, I want to see what I'll be like when I've done it."
They stood silently in the deserted German square that Sunday morning, three young British actors costumed like the soldiers who had taken the town 22 years before. Then the one whose notorious locks had recently been chopped short observed, "I haven't seen so much fresh air together for about four years."
For John Lennon, the Beatles' leader, it had been one swift crazy ride to the top. But now, there were distortions, and he had recoiled. Grownups were twisting a Beatles' kids' song into an LSD trip-- an ingenious lament that he and Beatle Paul McCartney had polished off one wild night was, current rumor had it, actually the synopsis of an opera so bitter it could not be sung. A passing remark about religious hypocrisy had made Lennon a devil or a saint, depending on your tastes. Others might enjoy them, but to Lennon, who is nothing if not honest, the distortions had become a threat.
"I don't want people taking things from me that aren't really me. They make you something that they want to make you, that isn't really you. They come and talk to find answers, but they're their answers, not us. We're not Beatles to each other, you know. It's a joke to us. If we're going out the door of the hotel, we say, 'Right! Beatle John! Beatle George now! Come on, let's go!' We don't put on a false front or anything. But we just know that leaving the door, we turn into Beatles because everybody looking at us sees the Beatles. We're not the Beatles at all. We're just us."
"But we made it, and we asked for it to an extent, and that's how it's going to be. That's why George is in India (studying the sitar,) and I'm here. Because we're a bit tired of going out the door, and the only way to soften the blow is just to spread it a bit."
In that kind of mood, a Dick Lester set was just the therapy for Lennon. Each man is the kind who makes the New Theologians jump. To them, the individual is more thrill than threat-- a unique being who should be taken for what he is. Lester, who directed both Beatle films, gratefully recalls his first meeting with the group, when the movies were just an idea. "They allowed me to be what I damn well pleased. I didn't have to put on an act for them, and they didn't put one on for me."
This is what a Lester set is like: Once more, they are in a deserted German square, now, with all the paraphernalia of movie-making, with British 'soldiers,' Lennon among them, ready to comb the streets, with German 'soldiers' lying in wait. "Quiet please!" an assistant shouts-- just as a little boy walks into the scene. Apoplectic, the assistant rushes forward and shoves the child aside. Lester, whose normal weapon is humor, flushes. "Don't push!" he commands.
Once again, they are ready to shoot-- and once again, the child intrudes. For 15 seconds, Lester eyes the man silently. Then, "Boo," he calls, and "Boo" the cast joins in.
For Lester, a director makes no statement against violence by having thousands die. To him, each death must matter-- and in his new film, each does. Such were the ideas that captured Lennon, despite his doubts about himself.
He did not doubt alone. How I Won The War is staffed with seasoned British actors, all trained in repertory, all well-known at home and all suspicious. But none is today.
Samples:
"We expected someone a bit kinky, bitchy, arrogant. He is none of those things. He's completely natural."
"You're not working with another actor, you're working with an OBE, a multimillionaire-- in sterling, not dollars-- whose every word will be reported in the world press. The miracle is that he's so normal. I could wrap him up dialectically in two minutes, intellectually, in three. But he's got a certain inborn, prenatal talent. I have my talent, which I think is considerable, but it doesn't compare in his field."
"I don't think he does anything with a conscious thought of trying to impress. He's remarkably free. He does not act the part."
"We talk about him all the time. All of us feel the same thing. We find it difficult to be as normal with him as he is with us."
Lennon's lack of pretense astonished the actors. "He's someone who just tries anything," one of them marveled. "No stand-in, no special treatment, no chair for him."
During a break for tea one raw morning, Lennon queued with the rest. When his turn arrived, his heart's desire was gone. "You don't have to be a star to get a cheese sandwich," he mused. "You just have to be first."
They like his humor too. That same morning, a German mother pushed her three-year-old son up to the Beatle, clutching his autograph book in his hand. "Sign it!" she demanded. Lennon did as bidden, telling the boy, "Yes, sir, you put us where we are today." On location in Spain one afternoon, the script required Lennon to drive a troop carrier along the beach. Accelerating too fast, he spun the wheels; the rear of the carrier sank. As his crestfallen director approached the cab, Lennon peered sheepishly over his glasses and gave him a limp salute.
Lennon is not on; he is simply original. "America used to be the big youth place in everybody's imagination. America had teenagers and everywhere else just had people." He recognizes his own impact on the changes since then, but he refuses to concede that youth today is all that different-- particularly youth in England.
The last generation might have been just like today's young adults, he maintains, had it not had to fight the war.
"If they said, 'Fight the war now,' my age group would fight the war. Not that they'd want to. There might be a bit more trouble gettin' them in line-- because I'd be up there shouting, 'Don't do it!'"
"It just so happens that some groups playing in England are making people talk about England, but nothing else is going on. Pop music gets through to all people all over the world, that's the main thing. In that respect, youth might be together a bit. The Commie youth might be the same as us, and we all know that, basically, they probably are. This kind of music and all the scene is helping. But there's more talk about it than is actually happening. You know, swinging this, and all that. Everybody can go around in England with long hair a bit, and boys can wear flowered trousers and flowered shirts and things like that, but there's still the same old nonsense going on. It's just that we're all dressed up a bit different."
"The class thing is just as snobby as it ever was. People like us can break through a little-- but only a little. Once, we went into this restaurant and nearly got thrown out for looking like we looked until they saw who it was. 'What do you want? What do you want?' the headwaiter said, 'We've come to bloody eat, that's what we want,' we said. The owner spotted us and said, 'Ah, a table sir, over here, sir.' It just took me back to when I was 19, and I couldn't get anywhere without being stared at or remarked about. It's only since I've been a Beatle that people have said, 'Oh, wonderful, come in, come in,' and I've forgotten a bit about what they're really thinking. They see the shining star, but when there's no glow about you, they only see the clothes and the haircut again."
"We weren't as open and as truthful when we didn't have the power to be. We had to take it easy. We had to shorten our hair to leave Liverpool and get jobs in London. We had to wear suits to get on TV. We had to compromise. We had to get hooked, as well, to get in and then sort of get a bit of power and say, 'This is what we're like.' We had to falsify a bit, even if we didn't realize it at the time."
If Lennon is compulsive about anything today, it's about truth as he sees it. But he protests when he's labeled a cynic.
"I'm not a cynic. They're getting my character out of some of things I write or say. They can't do that. I hate tags. I'm slightly cynical, but I'm not a cynic. One can be wry one day and cynical the next and ironic the next. I'm a cynic about most things that are taken for granted. I'm cynical about society, politics, newspapers, government. But I'm not cynical about life, love, goodness, death. That's why I really don't want to be labeled a cynic."
It is in the context of the young man who recoils at distortion that his now-famous remark should be viewed. "I said it. I said we were more popular than Jesus, which is a fact." What he could not explain then was why.
He does not feel that one need accept the divinity of Jesus-- he, personally, does not-- in order to profit from his words. A frequent reader of ancient history as well as philosophy (his current lists includes a book on Indian thought and Nikos Kazantzakis's 'Report Greco'), he contends that man has mishandled Christ's words throughout the centuries.
"I believe Jesus was right, Buddha was right, and all of those people like that are right. They're all saying the same thing-- and I believe it. I believe what Jesus actually said-- the basic things he laid down about love and goodness-- and not what people say he said."
Christianity has suffered, he believes, not only because Christians have distorted Christ's words but because they concern themselves with structures and numbers and fail to listen to their vows. They 'mutter' and 'hum' their prayers, but pay no attention to the words. "They don't seem to be able to be concerned without having all the scene about, with statues and buildings and things."
"If Jesus being more popular means... more control, I don't want that. I'd sooner they'd all follow us even if it's just to dance and sing for the rest of their lives. If they took more interest in what Jesus-- or any of them-- said, if they did that, we'd all be there with them."
Would he call himself a religious person? "I wouldn't really. I am in the respect that I believe in goodness and all those things." And if being religious meant being 'concerned,' as Paul Tillich the late Protestant theologian, once put it? "Well, I am then. I'm concerned alright. I'm concerned with people."
At the age when most men are just beginning to adjust to the world, John Lennon has already nudged it a bit. The hysteria that surrounds him can no longer disguise the presence of a mind. His ideas are still rough, but his instincts are good and his talent, extraordinary. You may love him, you may loath him, but this you should know: As performer, composer, writer or talker, he'll be around for a long, long time.
...
Q: Are there any other versions of your songs you like?
A: Well, Ray Charles’s version of "Yesterday"- that’s beautiful. And "Eleanor Rigby" is a groove. I just dig the strings on that. Like Thirties strings. Jose Feliciano does great things to "Help!" and "Day Tripper." "Got to Get You Into My Life"- sure, we were doing our Tamla Motown bit. You see, we’re influenced by whatever’s going. Even if we’re not influenced, we’re all going that way at a certain time. If we played a Stones record now, and a Beatles record - and we’ve been way apart - you’d find a lot of similarities. We’re all heavy. Just heavy. How did we ever do anything light? What we’re trying to do is rock & roll, with less of your philosorock, is what we’re saying to ourselves. And get on with rocking because rockers is what we really are. You can give me a guitar, stand me up in front of a few people. Even in the studio, if I’m getting into it, I’m just doing my old bit - not quite doing Elvis Legs but doing my equivalent. It’s just natural. Everybody says we must do this and that but our thing is just rocking - you know, the usual gig. That’s what this new record is about. Definitely rocking. What we were doing on Pepper was rocking - and not rocking. "A Day in the Life" - that was something. I dug it. It was a good piece of work between Paul and me. I had the "I read the news today" bit, and it turned Paul on. Now and then we really turn each other on with a bit of song, and he just said "yeah - bang bang", like that. It just sort of happened beautifully, and we arranged it and rehearsed it, which we don’t often do, the afternoon before. So we all knew what we were playing, we all got into it. It was a real groove, the whole scene on that one. Paul sang half of it and I sang half. I needed a middle-eight for it, but that would have been forcing it. All the rest had come out smooth, flowing, no trouble, and to write a middle-eight would have been to write a middle-eight, but instead Paul already had one there. It’s a bit of a 2001, you know.
...
Q: You really had a place where you grew up.
A: Oh, yeah. Didn’t you?
Q: Well, Manhattan isn’t Liverpool.
A: Well, you could write about your local bus station.
Q: In Manhattan?
A: Sure, why not? Everywhere is somewhere.
... (hö. hö. hö.)
Q: What about the new desire to return to a more natural environment? Dylan’s return to country music?
A: Dylan broke his neck and we went to India. Everybody did their bit. And now we’re all just coming out, coming out of a shell, in a new way, kind of saying, remember what it was like to play.
Q: Do you feel better now?
A: Yes . . . and worse.
...
Q: What would you tell a black-power guy who’s changed his head and then finds a wall there all the time?
A: Well, I can’t tell him anything ‘cause he’s got to do it himself. If destruction’s the only way he can do it, there’s nothing I can say that could influence him ‘cause that’s where he’s at, really. We’ve all got that in us, too, and that’s why I did the "Out and In" bit on a few takes and in the TV version of "Revolution" - "Destruction, well, you know, you can count me out, and in," like yin and yang. I prefer "out." But we’ve got the other bit in us. I don’t know what I’d be doing if I was in his position. I don’t think I’d be so meek and mild. I just don’t know.
Sometime In New York City - Az ájtatoskodó Imagine után Lennon végre ismét rockol ezerrel, hangszerelés perfekt, Yoko dalai is királyak, a Mothersszel közös számok zseniálisak
Plastic Ono Band - sokan túlértékeltnek tartják, pedig korántsem az, vagyis az, de joggal. Nincsen ilyen bitliszes művészkedés, dob van és zongora és basszus és gitár. És kurva jó dalok
Two Virgins - a brit birodalom büszkesége, a csodálatos fab four egyik tagja egy szál faszban virít a borítón, felvesz a nőjével egy értékelhetetlen zajkollázst, aztán kúrnak. Mi ez, ha nem punk?
Imagine - Johnny rájön, hogy jó lenne már valami pénzt is kereseni, ír 10 középszerű aor-t, mézédes vonósokkal. Egyetlen jó szám az I don't wanna be a soldier, de az is csak Spectornak köszönhetően
Double Fantasy - nem tudok mit mondani, egy ilyen lemez után én is lelőttem volna. Yoko menti a helyzetet úgy ahogy, de ő is volt már jobb formában
Mind Games - Johnny ismét rájön, hogy jó lenne már valami pénzt is kereseni, ír 11 középszerű aor-t. Normális ember a 2. szám után bealszik tőle
Na jólvan, Szabolcs, akkor pontosítok: a matrózblúz alatt melltartót ÉS a bőrömet viseltem. És ez utóbbiba sikerült azt a nyüves tűt beleszúrni, ha esetleg ezért hümmögsz, megnyugodtatsz. Egyébként az igazgató nőnemű, csak közlöm, remélem tényleg véletlen volt.
én múlt héten kipróbáltam a sört. igaz csak egy kortyot (aztis kiköptem), de legalább ez is megvolt. ma este már elég erőt érzek hozzá, azt hiszem nekiugrok egy ciginek is! elvégre egyszer él a yuppi..
Ez nem a "lordofthechicagoblues bekopizza, aztán kérésre pedig bármely nyelvjárásra lefordítja a dzsonlenonnal kapcsolatos cikkeket". Ennyi energiám azért nincs. A témakörbenszületett már néhány autentikus tréfa, lásd (hát a f....m nem kéne?) Inkább kussolok.
