The Rolling Stone Interview: John Lennon, Part I

When did you become aware that that song would be the one that is played the most?
I didn't know that. I don't know. I'll be able to tell in a week or so what's going on, because they [the radio] 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 whatevers — sort of ideas or feelings — on the record.

Why did you choose or refer to Zimmerman, not Dylan?
Because Dylan is bullshit. Zimmerman is his name. You see, I don't believe in Dylan and 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 that cut at the end with "Mummy's Dead"?
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 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 that anybody ever does. Whether it is an article or what, it's just the best ones that come out, and all these came out, because I had time. If you are on holiday or in therapy, wherever you are, if you do spend time... like in India I wrote the last batch of best songs, like "I'm So Tired" and "Yer Blues." They're pretty realistic, they were about me. They always struck me as — what is the word? Funny? Ironic? — that I was writing them supposedly in the presence of guru and meditating so many hours a day, writing "I'm So Tired" and songs of such pain as "Yer Blues" which I meant. I was right in the Maharishi's camp writing "I wanna die..."

"Yer Blues," was that also deliberately meant to be a parody of the English blues scene?
Well, a bit. I'm a bit self-conscious — we all were a bit self-conscious and the Beatles were super self-conscious people about parody of Americans which we do and have done.

I know we developed our own style but we still in a way parodied American music ... this is interesting: in the early days in England, all the groups were like Elvis and a backing group, and the Beatles deliberately didn't move like Elvis. That was our policy because we found it stupid and bullshit. Then Mick Jagger came out and resurrected "bullshit movement," wiggling your arse. So then people began to say the Beatles were passé because they don't move. But we did it as a conscious move.

When we were younger, we used to move, we used to jump around and do all the things they're doing now, like going on stage 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 worked out, it is something that you do when you play six or seven hours. There is nothing else to do: you smash the place up, and you insult everybody. But we were groomed and we dropped all of that and whatever it was that we started off talking about, which was what singing ... what was it? What was the beginning of that?

Was "Yer Blues" deliberate?
Yes, there was a self-consciousness about 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. I'm self conscious about doing it.

I think Dylan does it well, you know. In case he's not sure of himself, he makes it double entendre. So therefore he is secure in his Hipness. Paul was saying, "Don't call it 'Yer Blues,' just say it straight." But I was self-conscious and I went for "Yer Blues." I think all that has passed now, because all the musicians... we've all gotten over it. That's self-consciousness.

Ono: You know, I think John, being John, is a bit unfair to his music in a way. I would like to just add a few things... like he can go on for an hour or something. One thing about Dr. Janov, say if John fell in love, you know he is always falling in love with all sorts of things, from the Marharashi to all what not.

[John and Yoko went through four months of intensive therapy with Dr. Arthur Janov, author of 'The Primal Scream' (Putnam's), in Los Angeles, June through September of this year. In October they returned to England, where they made their new albums. "Having a primal," or "primaling," is an extremely intense type of re-living/acting-out experience, around which many of Janov's theories are based.]

Nobody knows there is a point on the first song on Yoko's track where the guitar comes in and even Yoko thought it was her voice, because we did all Yoko's in one night, the whole session. Except for the track with Ornette Coleman from the past that we put on to show people that she wasn't discovered by the Beatles and that she's been around a few years. We got stuff of her with Cage, Ornette Coleman... we are going to put out "Oldies But Goldies" next for Yoko. I'll play it again and talk about it later.

Ono: There is this thing that he just goes on falling in love with all sorts of things. But it is like he fell in love with some girl or something and he wrote this song. Who he fell in love with is not very important, the outcome of the song itself is important. That is very important.

For instance, you have to say that a song like "Well, Well, Well" is connected with Primal therapy or the theory of Primal Therapy.
Why?

The screaming.
No, no. Listen to "Cold Turkey."

Ono: He's screaming there already.

Lennon: Listen to "Twist and Shout." I couldn't sing the damn thing I was just screaming. Listen to it. Wop-Bop-a-loo-bop-a-Wop-bam-boom. Don't get the therapy confused with the music. Yoko's whole thing was that scream. "Don't Worry, Kyoko" was one of the fuckin' best rock and roll records ever made. Listen to it, and play "Tutti Fruitti." Listen to "Don't Worry, Kyoko" on the other side of "Cold Turkey."

I'm digressing from mine, but if somebody with a rock-oriented mind could possibly hear her stuff, you'll see what she's doing. It's fantastic, you know. It's as important as anything we ever did, and it is as important as anything the Stones or Townshend ever did. Listen to it, and you'll hear what she is putting down. On "Cold Turkey" I'm getting towards it. I'm influenced by her music 1000 percent more than I ever was by anybody or anything. She makes music like you've never heard on earth.

And when the musicians play with her, they're inspired out of their skulls. I don't know how much they played her record later. We've got a cut of her from the Lyceum in London, 15 or 20 musicians playing with her, from Bonnie and Delaney and the fucking lot. We played the tracks of it the other night. It's the most fantastic music I've ever heard. They've probably gone away and forgotten all about it. It's fantastic. It's like 20 years ahead of its time. Anyway, back to mine.

You once said about "Cold Turkey": "That's not a song, that's a diary."
So is this, you know. I announced "Cold Turkey" at the Lyceum saying, "I'm going to sing a song about pain." So pain and screaming was before Janov. I mean Janov showed me more of my own pain. I went through therapy with him like I told you and I'm probably looser all over.

Are you less paranoid now?
No. Janov showed me how to feel my own fear and 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 out. I can move a little easier.

What was your experience with heroin?
It just was not too much fun. I never injected it or anything. We sniffed a little when we were in real pain. We got such a hard time from everyone, and I've had so much thrown at me, and at Yoko, especially at Yoko. Like Peter Brown in our office — and you can put this in — after we come in after six months he comes down and shakes my hand and doesn't even say hello to her. That's going on all the time. And we get into 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 others were doing to us. But we got out of it.

Ono: You know he really produced his own stuff. Phil is, as you know, well known about as a very skillful sort of technician with electronics and engineering.

Lennon: But let's not take away from what he did do, which expended a lot of energy and taught me a lot, and I would use him again.

Like what?
Well, I learned a lot on this album, technically. I didn't have to learn so much before. Usually Paul and I would be listening to it and we wouldn't have to listen to each individual sound. So there are a few things I learned this time, about bass, one track or another, where you can get more in and where I lost something on a track and some technical things that irritated me finally. But as a concept and as a whole thing, I'm pleased, yes. That's about it, really. If I get down to the nitty gritty, it would drive me mad, but I do like it really.

When you record, do you go for feeling or perfection of the sound?
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 putting the backing on first, then the singing, which is what we used to do in the old days, but those days are dead, you know.

It starts off with bells: why?
Well, I was watching TV as usual, in California, and there was this old horror movie on, and the bells sounded like that to me. It was probably different, because those were actually bells slowed down that they used on the album. They just sounded like that and I thought oh, that's how to start "Mother." I knew "Mother" was going to be the first track so...

You said that you wrote most of the songs in California?
Well, actually some of it. Actually I wrote "Mother" in England, "Isolation" in England and a few more. I finished them off in California. You will have to push me if you want more detail. "Look At Me" was written around the Beatles' double album time, you know, I just never got it going, there are a few like that lying around.