LENNON: Do you want to go back
to high school? Why should I go back ten years to provide an
illusion for you that I know does not exist? It cannot exist.
PLAYBOY: Then forget the illusion. What about just to make some
great music again? Do you acknowledge that the Beatles made great
music?
LENNON: Why should the Beatles give more? Didn't they give
everything on God's earth for ten years? Didn't they give
themselves? You're like the typical sort of love-hate fan who
says, "Thank you for everything you did for us in the
Sixties -- would you just give me another shot? Just one more
miracle?"
PLAYBOY: We're not talking about miracles -- just good music.
LENNON: When Rodgers worked with Hart and then worked with
Hammerstein, do you think he should have stayed with one instead
of working with the other? Should Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis
have stayed together because I used to like them together? What
is this game of doing things because other people want it? The
whole Beatle idea was to do what you want, right? To take your
own responsibility.
PLAYBOY: All right, but get back to the music itself: You don't
agree that the Beatles created the best rock 'n' roll that's been
produced?
LENNON: I don't. The Beatles, you see -- I'm too involved in them
artistically. I cannot see them objectively. I cannot listen to
them objectively. I'm dissatisfied with every record the Beatles
ever fucking made. There ain't one of them I wouldn't remake --
including all the Beatles records and all my individual ones. So
I cannot possibly give you an assessment of what the Beatles are.
When I was a Beatle, I thought we were the best fucking group in
the god-damned world. And believing that is what made us what we
were -- whether we call it the best rock-'n'-roll group or the
best pop group or whatever. But you play me those tracks today
and I want to remake every damn one of them. There's not a single
one. . . . I heard "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" on
the radio last night. It's abysmal, you know. The track is just
terrible. I mean, it's great, but it wasn't made right, know what
I mean? But that's the artistic trip, isn't it? That's why you
keep going. But to get back to your original question about the
Beatles and their music, the answer is that we did some good
stuff and we did some bad stuff.
PLAYBOY: Many people feel that none of the songs Paul has done
alone match the songs he did as a Beatle. Do you honestly feel
that any of your songs -- on the Plastic Ono Band records -- will
have the lasting imprint of "Eleanor Rigby" or
"Strawberry Fields"?
LENNON: "Imagine," "Love" and those Plastic
Ono Band songs stand up to any song that was written when I was a
Beatle. Now, it may take you 20 or 30 years to appreciate that,
but the fact is, if you check those songs out, you will see that
it is as good as any fucking stuff that was ever done.
PLAYBOY: It seems as if you're trying to say to the world,
"We were just a good band making some good music,"
while a lot of the rest of the world is saying, "It wasn't
just some good music, it was the best."
LENNON: Well, if it was the best, so what?
PLAYBOY: So----
LENNON: It can never be again! Everyone always talks about a good
thing coming to an end, as if life was over. But I'll be 40 when
this interview comes out. Paul is 38. Elton John, Bob Dylan --
we're all relatively young people. The game isn't over yet.
Everyone talks in terms of the last record or the last Beatle
concert -- but, God willing, there are another 40 years of
productivity to go. I'm not judging whether "I am the
Walrus" is better or worse than "Imagine." It is
for others to judge. I am doing it. I do. I don't stand back and
judge -- I do.
PLAYBOY: You keep saying you don't want to go back ten years,
that too much has changed. Don't you ever feel it would be
interesting -- never mind cosmic, just interesting -- to get
together, with all your new experiences, and cross your talents?
LENNON: Wouldn't it be interesting to take Elvis back to his Sun
Records period? I don't know. But I'm content to listen to his
Sun Records. I don't want to dig him up out of the grave. The
Beatles don't exist and can never exist again. John Lennon, Paul
McCartney, George Harrison and Richard Starkey could put on a
concert -- but it can never be the Beatles singing
"Strawberry Fields" or "I am the Walrus"
again, because we are not in our 20s. We cannot be that again,
nor can the people who are listening.
PLAYBOY: But aren't you the one who is making it too important?
What if it were just nostalgic fun? A high school reunion?
LENNON: I never went to high school reunions. My thing is, Out of
sight, out of mind. That's my attitude toward life. So I don't
have any romanticism about any part of my past. I think of it
only inasmuch as it gave me pleasure or helped me grow
psychologically. That is the only thing that interests me about
yesterday. I don't believe in yesterday, by the way. You know I
don't believe in yesterday. I am only interested in what I am
doing now.
PLAYBOY: What about the people of your generation, the ones who
feel a certain kind of music -- and spirit -- died when the
Beatles broke up?
LENNON: If they didn't understand the Beatles and the Sixties
then, what the fuck could we do for them now? Do we have to
divide the fish and the loaves for the multitudes again? Do we
have to get crucified again? Do we have to do the walking on
water again because a whole pile of dummies didn't see it the
first time, or didn't believe it when they saw it? You know,
that's what they're asking: "Get off the cross. I didn't
understand the first bit yet. Can you do that again?" No
way. You can never go home. It doesn't exist.
PLAYBOY: Do you find that the clamor for a Beatles reunion has
died down?
LENNON: Well, I heard some Beatles stuff on the radio the other
day and I heard "Green Onion" -- no, "Glass
Onion," I don't even know my own songs! I listened to it
because it was a rare track----
PLAYBOY: That was the one that contributed to the "Paul
McCartney is dead" uproar because of the lyric "The
walrus is Paul."
LENNON: Yeah. That line was a joke, you know. That line was put
in partly because I was feeling guilty because I was with Yoko,
and I knew I was finally high and dry. In a perverse way, I was
sort of saying to Paul, "Here, have this crumb, have this
illusion, have this stroke -- because I'm leaving you."
Anyway, it's a song they don't usually play. When a radio station
has a Beatles weekend, they usually play the same ten songs --
"A Hard Day's Night," "Help!,"
"Yesterday," "Something," "Let It
Be" -- you know, there's all that wealth of material, but we
hear only ten songs. So the deejay says, "I want to thank
John, Paul, George and Ringo for not getting back together and
spoiling a good thing." I thought it was a good sign. Maybe
people are catching on.
PLAYBOY: Aside from the millions you've been offered for a
reunion concert, how did you feel about producer Lorne Michaels'
generous offer of $3200 for appearing together on "Saturday
Night Live" a few years ago?
LENNON: Oh, yeah. Paul and I were together watching that show. He
was visiting us at our place in the Dakota. We were watching it
and almost went down to the studio, just as a gag. We nearly got
into a cab, but we were actually too tired.
PLAYBOY: How did you and Paul happen to be watching TV together?
LENNON: That was a period when Paul just kept turning up at our
door with a guitar. I would let him in, but finally I said to
him, "Please call before you come over. It's not 1956 and
turning up at the door isn't the same anymore. You know, just
give me a ring." He was upset by that, but I didn't mean it
badly. I just meant that I was taking care of a baby all day and
some guy turns up at the door. . . . But, anyway, back on that
night, he and Linda walked in and he and I were just sitting
there, watching the show, and we went, "Ha-ha, wouldn't it
be funny if we went down?" but we didn't.
PLAYBOY: Was that the last time you saw Paul?
LENNON: Yes, but I didn't mean it like that.
PLAYBOY: We're asking because there's always a lot of speculation
about whether the Fab Four are dreaded enemies or the best of
friends.
LENNON: We're neither. I haven't seen any of the Beatles for I
don't know how much time. Somebody asked me what I thought of
Paul's last album and I made some remark like, I thought he was
depressed and sad. But then I realized I hadn't listened to the
whole damn thing. I heard one track -- the hit "Coming
Up," which I thought was a good piece of work. Then I heard
something else that sounded like he was depressed. But I don't
follow their work. I don't follow Wings, you know. I don't give a
shit what Wings is doing, or what George's new album is doing, or
what Ringo is doing. I'm not interested, no more than I am in
what Elton John or Bob Dylan is doing. It's not callousness, it's
just that I'm too busy living my own life to be following what
other people are doing, whether they're the Beatles or guys I
went to college with or people I had intense relationships with
before I met the Beatles.
PLAYBOY: Besides "Coming Up," what do you think of
Paul's work since he left the Beatles?
LENNON: I kind of admire the way Paul started back from scratch,
forming a new band and playing in small dance halls, because
that's what he wanted to do with the Beatles -- he wanted us to
go back to the dance halls and experience that again. But I
didn't. . . . That was one of the problems, in a way, that he
wanted to relive it all or something -- I don't know what it was.
. . . But I kind of admire the way he got off his pedestal -- now
he's back on it again, but I mean, he did what he wanted to do.
That's fine, but it's just not what I wanted to do.
PLAYBOY: What about the music?
LENNON: "The Long and Winding Road" was the last gasp
from him. Although I really haven't listened.
PLAYBOY: You say you haven't listened to Paul's work and haven't
really talked to him since that night in your apartment----
LENNON: Really talked to him, no, that's the operative word. I
haven't really talked to him in ten years. Because I haven't
spent time with him. I've been doing other things and so has he.
You know, he's got 25 kids and about 20,000,000 records out --
how can he spend time talking? He's always working.
PLAYBOY: Then let's talk about the work you did together.
Generally speaking, what did each of you contribute to the
Lennon-McCartney songwriting team?
LENNON: Well, you could say that he provided a lightness, an
optimism, while I would always go for the sadness, the discords,
a certain bluesy edge. There was a period when I thought I didn't
write melodies, that Paul wrote those and I just wrote straight,
shouting rock 'n' roll. But, of course, when I think of some of
my own songs -- "In My Life" -- or some of the early
stuff -- "This Boy" -- I was writing melody with the
best of them. Paul had a lot of training, could play a lot of
instruments. He'd say, "Well, why don't you change that
there? You've done that note 50 times in the song." You
know, I'll grab a note and ram it home. Then again, I'd be the
one to figure out where to go with a song -- a story that Paul
would start. In a lot of the songs, my stuff is the "middle
eight," the bridge.
PLAYBOY: For example?
LENNON: Take "Michelle." Paul and I were staying
somewhere, and he walked in and hummed the first few bars, with
the words, you know [sings verse of "Michelle"], and he
says, "Where do I go from here?" I'd been listening to
blues singer Nina Simone, who did something like "I love
you!" in one of her songs and that made me think of the
middle eight for "Michelle" [sings]: "I love you,
I love you, I l-o-ove you . . . ."
PLAYBOY: What was the difference in terms of lyrics?