The Rolling Stone Interview: John Lennon

And "She Said She Said" — yeh, I dug that cause I was going through a bad time writing then and so I couldn't hear it, but then I heard it and so I dug it. "Lucy in the Sky," all right. "Sleeping," it's like that. "Run for Your Life" I always hated, you know. "Walrus," yeah, "Girl," yeah, "All You Need Is Love" — hah, you know that's sort of natural.

The ones that really meant something to me — look, I don't know about "Hide Your Love Away," that's so long ago — probably "Strawberry Fields," "She Said," "Walrus," "Rain," "Girl," there are just one or two others, "Day Tripper," "Paperback Writer," even. "Ticket to Ride" was one more, I remember that. It was a definite sort of change..."Norwegian Wood" — that was the sitar bit. Definitely, I consider them moods or moments.

I feel you in these songs more than in a song like "Michelle," for example.
Yeh, right, they're me touch. Well the thing is, I don't know how they'd work out if I recorded them with other people, it would be entirely different. But it's my music with my band when it's me singing it, and it's Paul's music with his band. Sometimes it's halvey-halvey you know. When we write them together, they're together. But I'm not proud of all of my songs. "Walrus," "Strawberry Fields," you know — I'll sort of stick my name on them, the others are a bit...I think they're more powerful.

I heard that "Strawberry Fields" was written when you were sitting on a beach alone.
Yeh, in Spain, filming How I Won the War. I was going through a big scene about song writing again you know — I seem to go through it now and then, and it took me a long time to write it. See, I was writing all bits and bits. I wanted the lyrics to be like conversation. It didn't work, that one verse was sort of ludicrous really, I just wanted it to be like [John sing-talks] "we're talking and I just happen to be singing" — like that. And it was very quiet. But it was written in this big Spanish house, part of it, and then finished on the beach. It was really romantic — singing it too — I don't know who was there.

Don't you find something special about the song?
Oh yes, definitely yes. It was a big scene, like I'd say "Ticket to Ride" was a big scene, "Rain" was, not so much, but because of the backwards, you know. That was the time I discovered backwards accidentally.

It was the first time I discovered it. On the end of "Rain" you hear me singing it backwards. We'd done the main thing at EMI and the habit was then to take the songs home and see what you thought a little extra gimmick or what the guitar piece would be.

So I got home about five in the morning, stoned out of me head, I staggered up to me tape recorder and I put it on, but it came out backwards, and I was in a trance in the earphones, what is it — what is it? It's too much, you know, and I really wanted the whole song backwards almost, and that was it. So we tagged it on the end. I just happened to have the tape the wrong way round, it just came out backwards, it just blew me mind. The voice sounds like old Indian.

There have been a lot of philosophical analyses written about your songs, "Strawberry Fields" in particular...
Well, they can take them apart. They can take anything apart. I mean I hit it on all levels, you know. We write lyrics, and I write lyrics that you don't realize what they mean till after. Especially some of the better songs or some of the more flowing ones, like "Walrus." The whole first verse was written without any knowledge. And "Tomorrow Never Knows" — I didn't know what I was saying, and you just find out later, that's why these people are good on them. I know that when there are some lyrics I dig I know that somewhere people will be looking at them, and with the rest of the songs it doesn't matter cause they work on all levels. Anything. I don't mind what they do. And I dig the people that notice that I have a sort of strange rhythm scene, because I've never been able to keep rhythm on the stage. I always used to get lost. It's me double off-beats.

In "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," what about an image like "newspaper taxis"?
That was a Paul line, I think. In a lot of them you'll get so far. You've lumbered yourself with a set of images and it's an effort to keep it up.

Pop analysts are often trying to read something into songs that isn't there.
It is there. It's like abstract art really. It's just the same really. It's just that when you have to think about it to write it, it just means that you labored at it. But when you just say it, man, you know you're saying it, it's a continuous flow. The same as when you're recording or just playing, you come out of a thing and you know "I've been there" and it was nothing, it was just pure, and that's what we're looking for all the time, really.

What is Strawberry Fields?
It's a name, it's a nice name. When I was writing "In My Life" — I was trying "Penny Lane" at that time — we were trying to write about Liverpool, and I just listed all the nice sounding names just arbitrarily. Strawberry Fields was a place near us that happened to be a Salvation Army home. But Strawberry Fields — I mean I have visions of Strawberry Fields. And there was Penny Lane, the Cast Iron Shore which I've just got in some song now, and they were just good names, just groovy names. Just good sounding. Because Strawberry Fields is anywhere you want to go. Actually I've just written a song which goes "I told you about Strawberry Fields/And you heard about the Walrus and me/Told you about the Fool on the Hill...," it's amazing.