LENNON: I always had an easier
time with lyrics, though Paul is quite a capable lyricist who
doesn't think he is. So he doesn't go for it. Rather than face
the problem, he would avoid it. "Hey, Jude" is a damn
good set of lyrics. I made no contribution to the lyrics there.
And a couple of lines he has come up with show indications of a
good lyricist. But he just hasn't taken it anywhere. Still, in
the early days, we didn't care about lyrics as long as the song
had some vague theme -- she loves you, he loves him, they all
love each other. It was the hook, line and sound we were going
for. That's still my attitude, but I can't leave lyrics alone. I
have to make them make sense apart from the songs.
PLAYBOY: What's an example of a lyric you and Paul worked on
together?
LENNON: In "We Can Work It Out," Paul did the first
half, I did the middle eight. But you've got Paul writing,
"We can work it out/We can work it out" -- real
optimistic, y' know, and me, impatient: "Life is very short
and there's no time/For fussing and fighting, my friend...."
PLAYBOY: Paul tells the story and John philosophizes.
LENNON: Sure. Well, I was always like that, you know. I was like
that before the Beatles and after the Beatles. I always asked why
people did things and why society was like it was. I didn't just
accept it for what it was apparently doing. I always looked below
the surface.
PLAYBOY: When you talk about working together on a single lyric
like "We Can Work It Out," it suggests that you and
Paul worked a lot more closely than you've admitted in the past.
Haven't you said that you wrote most of your songs separately,
despite putting both of your names on them?
LENNON: Yeah, I was lying. [Laughs] It was when I felt resentful,
so I felt that we did everything apart. But, actually, a lot of
the songs we did eyeball to eyeball.
PLAYBOY: But many of them were done apart, weren't they?
LENNON: Yeah. "Sgt. Pepper" was Paul's idea, and I
remember he worked on it a lot and suddenly called me to go into
the studio, said it was time to write some songs. On
"Pepper," under the pressure of only ten days, I
managed to come up with "Lucy in the Sky" and "Day
in the Life." We weren't communicating enough, you see. And
later on, that's why I got resentful about all that stuff. But
now I understand that it was just the same competitive game going
on.
PLAYBOY: But the competitive game was good for you, wasn't it?
LENNON: In the early days. We'd make a record in 12 hours or
something; they would want a single every three months and we'd
have to write it in a hotel room or in a van. So the cooperation
was functional as well as musical.
PLAYBOY: Don't you think that cooperation, that magic between
you, is something you've missed in your work since?
LENNON: I never actually felt a loss. I don't want it to sound
negative, like I didn't need Paul, because when he was there,
obviously, it worked. But I can't -- it's easier to say what I
gave to him than what he gave to me. And he'd say the same.
PLAYBOY: Just a quick aside, but while we're on the subject of
lyrics and your resentment of Paul, what made you write "How
Do You Sleep?," which contains lyrics such as "Those
freaks was right when they said you was dead" and "The
only thing you done was yesterday/And since you've gone, you're
just another day"?
LENNON: [Smiles] You know, I wasn't really feeling that vicious
at the time. But I was using my resentment toward Paul to create
a song, let's put it that way. He saw that it pointedly refers to
him, and people kept hounding him about it. But, you know, there
were a few digs on his album before mine. He's so obscure other
people didn't notice them, but I heard them. I thought, Well, I'm
not obscure, I just get right down to the nitty-gritty. So he'd
done it his way and I did it mine. But as to the line you quoted,
yeah, I think Paul died creatively, in a way.
PLAYBOY: That's what we were getting at: You say that what you've
done since the Beatles stands up well, but isn't it possible that
with all of you, it's been a case of the creative whole being
greater than the parts?
LENNON: I don't know whether this will gel for you: When the
Beatles played in America for the first time, they played pure
craftsmanship. Meaning they were already old hands. The jism had
gone out of the performances a long time ago. In the same
respect, the songwriting creativity had left Paul and me in the
mid-Sixties. When we wrote together in the early days, it was
like the beginning of a relationship. Lots of energy. In the
"Sgt. Pepper"- "Abbey Road" period, the
relationship had matured. Maybe had we gone on together, more
interesting things would have come, but it couldn't have been the
same.
PLAYBOY: Let's move on to Ringo. What's your opinion of him
musically?
LENNON: Ringo was a star in his own right in Liverpool before we
even met. He was a professional drummer who sang and performed
and had Ringo Star-time and he was in one of the top groups in
Britain but especially in Liverpool before we even had a drummer.
So Ringo's talent would have come out one way or the other as
something or other. I don't know what he would have ended up as,
but whatever that spark is in Ringo that we all know but can't
put our finger on -- whether it is acting, drumming or singing I
don't know -- there is something in him that is projectable and
he would have surfaced with or without the Beatles. Ringo is a
damn good drummer. He is not technically good, but I think
Ringo's drumming is underrated the same way Paul's bass playing
is underrated. Paul was one of the most innovative bass players
ever. And half the stuff that is going on now is directly ripped
off from his Beatles period. He is an egomaniac about everything
else about himself, but his bass playing he was always a bit coy
about. I think Paul and Ringo stand up with any of the rock
musicians. Not technically great -- none of us are technical
musicians. None of us could read music. None of us can write it.
But as pure musicians, as inspired humans to make the noise, they
are as good as anybody.
PLAYBOY: How about George's solo music?
LENNON: I think "All Things Must Pass" was all right.
It just went on too long.
PLAYBOY: How did you feel about the lawsuit George lost that
claimed the music to "My Sweet Lord" is a rip-off of
the Shirelles' hit "He's So Fine?"
LENNON: Well, he walked right into it. He knew what he was doing.
PLAYBOY: Are you saying he consciously plagiarized the song?
LENNON: He must have known, you know. He's smarter than that.
It's irrelevant, actually -- only on a monetary level does it
matter. He could have changed a couple of bars in that song and
nobody could ever have touched him, but he just let it go and
paid the price. Maybe he thought God would just sort of let him
off. [At presstime, the court has found Harrison guilty of
"subconscious" plagiarism but has not yet ruled on
damages.]
PLAYBOY: You actually haven't mentioned George much in this
interview.
LENNON: Well, I was hurt by George's book, "I, Me,
Mine" -- so this message will go to him. He put a book out
privately on his life that, by glaring omission, says that my
influence on his life is absolutely zilch and nil. In his book,
which is purportedly this clarity of vision of his influence on
each song he wrote, he remembers every two-bit sax player or
guitarist he met in subsequent years. I'm not in the book.
PLAYBOY: Why?
LENNON: Because George's relationship with me was one of young
follower and older guy. He's three or four years younger than me.
It's a love- hate relationship and I think George still bears
resentment toward me for being a daddy who left home. He would
not agree with this, but that's my feeling about it. I was just
hurt. I was just left out, as if I didn't exist. I don't want to
be that egomaniacal, but he was like a disciple of mine when we
started. I was already an art student when Paul and George were
still in grammar school [equivalent to high school in the U.S.].
There is a vast difference between being in high school and being
in college and I was already in college and already had sexual
relationships, already drank and did a lot of things like that.
When George was a kid, he used to follow me and my first
girlfriend, Cynthia -- who became my wife -- around. We'd come
out of art school and he'd be hovering around like those kids at
the gate of the Dakota now. I remember the day he called to ask
for help on "Taxman," one of his bigger songs. I threw
in a few one-liners to help the song along, because that's what
he asked for. He came to me because he couldn't go to Paul,
because Paul wouldn't have helped him at that period. I didn't
want to do it. I thought, Oh, no, don't tell me I have to work on
George's stuff. It's enough doing my own and Paul's. But because
I loved him and I didn't want to hurt him when he called me that
afternoon and said, "Will you help me with this song?"
I just sort of bit my tongue and said OK. It had been John and
Paul so long, he'd been left out because he hadn't been a
songwriter up until then. As a singer, we allowed him only one
track on each album. If you listen to the Beatles' first albums,
the English versions, he gets a single track. The songs he and
Ringo sang at first were the songs that used to be part of my
repertoire in the dance halls. I used to pick songs for them from
my repertoire -- the easier ones to sing. So I am slightly
resentful of George's book. But don't get me wrong. I still love
those guys. The Beatles are over, but John, Paul, George and
Ringo go on.
PLAYBOY: Didn't all four Beatles work on a song you wrote for
Ringo in 1973?
LENNON: "I'm the Greatest." It was the Muhammad Ali
line, of course. It was perfect for Ringo to sing. If I said,
"I'm the greatest," they'd all take it so seriously. No
one would get upset with Ringo singing it.
PLAYBOY: Did you enjoy playing with George and Ringo again?
LENNON: Yeah, except when George and Billy Preston started
saying, "Let's form a group. Let's form a group." I was
embarrassed when George kept asking me. He was just enjoying the
session and the spirit was very good, but I was with Yoko, you
know. We took time out from what we were doing. The very fact
that they would imagine I would form a male group without Yoko!
It was still in their minds. . . .
PLAYBOY: Just to finish your favorite subject, what about the
suggestion that the four of you put aside your personal feelings
and regroup to give a mammoth concert for charity, some sort of
giant benefit?
LENNON: I don't want to have anything to do with benefits. I have
been benefited to death.
PLAYBOY: Why?
LENNON: Because they're always rip-offs. I haven't performed for
personal gain since 1966, when the Beatles last performed. Every
concert since then, Yoko and I did for specific charities, except
for a Toronto thing that was a rock- 'n'-roll revival. Every one
of them was a mess or a rip-off. So now we give money to who we
want. You've heard of tithing?
PLAYBOY: That's when you give away a fixed percentage of your
income.
LENNON: Right. I am just going to do it privately. I am not going
to get locked into that business of saving the world on stage.
The show is always a mess and the artist always comes off badly.
PLAYBOY: What about the Bangladesh concert, in which George and
other people such as Dylan performed?
LENNON: Bangladesh was caca.
PLAYBOY: You mean because of all the questions that were raised
about where the money went?
LENNON: Yeah, right. I can't even talk about it, because it's
still a problem. You'll have to check with Mother [Yoko], because
she knows the ins and outs of it, I don't. But it's all a
rip-off. So forget about it. All of you who are reading this,
don't bother sending me all that garbage about, "Just come
and save the Indians, come and save the blacks, come and save the
war veterans," Anybody I want to save will be helped through
our tithing, which is ten percent of whatever we earn.
PLAYBOY: But that doesn't compare with what one promoter, Sid
Bernstein, said you could raise by giving a world-wide televised
concert -- playing separately, as individuals, or together, as
the Beatles. He estimated you could raise over $200,000,000 in
one day.
LENNON: That was a commercial for Sid Bernstein written with
Jewish schmaltz and showbiz and tears, dropping on one knee. It
was Al Jolson. OK. So I don't buy that. OK.
PLAYBOY: But the fact is, $200,000,000 to a poverty- stricken
country in South America----
LENNON: Where do people get off saying the Beatles should give
$200,000,000 to South America? You know, America has poured
billions into places like that. It doesn't mean a damn thing.
After they've eaten that meal, then what? It lasts for only a
day. After the $200,000,000 is gone, then what? It goes round and
round in circles. You can pour money in forever. After Peru, then
Harlem, then Britain. There is no one concert. We would have to
dedicate the rest of our lives to one world concert tour, and I'm
not ready for it. Not in this lifetime, anyway.
[Ono rejoins the conversation.]
PLAYBOY: On the subject of your own wealth, the New York Post
recently said you admitted to being worth over $150,000,000
and----
LENNON: We never admitted anything.
PLAYBOY: The Post said you had.
LENNON: What the Post says -- OK, so we are rich; so what?
PLAYBOY: The question is, How does that jibe with your political
philosophies? You're supposed to be socialists, aren't you?
LENNON: In England, there are only two things to be, basically:
You are either for the labor movement or for the capitalist
movement. Either you become a right-wing Archie Bunker if you are
in the class I am in, or you become an instinctive socialist,
which I was. That meant I think people should get their false
teeth and their health looked after, all the rest of it. But
apart from that, I worked for money and I wanted to be rich. So
what the hell -- if that's a paradox, then I'm a socialist. But I
am not anything. What I used to be is guilty about money. That's
why I lost it, either by giving it away or by allowing myself to
be screwed by so-called managers.
PLAYBOY: Whatever your politics, you've played the capitalist
game very well, parlaying your Beatles royalties into real
estate, livestock----
ONO: There is no denying that we are still living in the
capitalist world. I think that in order to survive and to change
the world, you have to take care of yourself first. You have to
survive yourself. I used to say to myself, I am the only
socialist living here. [Laughs] I don't have a penny. It is all
John's, so I'm clean. But I was using his money and I had to face
that hypocrisy. I used to think that money was obscene, that the
artists didn't have to think about money. But to change society,
there are two ways to go: through violence or the power of money
within the system. A lot of people in the Sixties went
underground and were involved in bombings and other violence. But
that is not the way, definitely not for me. So to change the
system -- even if you are going to become a mayor or something --
you need money.
PLAYBOY: To what extent do you play the game without getting
caught up in it -- money for the sake of money, in other words?
ONO: There is a limit. It would probably be parallel to our level
of security. Do you know what I mean? I mean the
emotional-security level as well.
PLAYBOY: Has it reached that level yet?
ONO: No, not yet. I don't know. It might have.
PLAYBOY: You mean with $150,000,000? Is that an accurate
estimate?
ONO: I don't know what we have. It becomes so complex that you
need to have ten accountants working for two years to find out
what you have. But let's say that we feel more comfortable now.
PLAYBOY: How have you chosen to invest your money?