I’ve seen a lot of interviews with the Beatles and have noticed how happy John was (as seemed the others) Yet I do know that he was angered very easily do you think that this anger was brought out of him after he had met yoko? Or was it a trait he tired to hide when in the Beatles I’d like to know your take on it
“I will make it jolly!’
Here’s John getting angry at a reporter during an interview at the Apple offices in December 1969. One of the things I love about John is he wasn’t afraid or cowed by anyone. Look how he glares at the reporter, pronouncing every word of his reply with confidence and firmness, jaw set in defiance. You wouldn’t want to get into an argument with John, would you?
I think there’s 2 things that are perhaps different in John’s interviews from the early sixties and the latter sixties. I don’t think it’s Yoko - she could maybe incite anger in a lot of people, but not often John (!). I think it’s down to these two things. First:
Whatever John may have said later about how he didn’t like the suits or he didn’t want to do this, that or the other, John did do what Brian asked him to. (Most of the time!) I’ve been looking at some of the other groups Brian managed recently, and sometimes it seems to me, they didn’t enjoy the same levels of success as the Beatles did because they didn’t always go along with what Brian told them to do. The Beatles did. Implicitly. Especially in the early days. They trusted Brian and his judgement and guidance completely, and part of that was how they conducted themselves in interviews. He insisted they spoke well, eloquently and politely - which they would have done anyway (plus see point 2 below) and I think John would be aware of Brian’s disapproval if he’d started arguing with someone. As the Beatles, they were usually a very polite and easy to get along with interviewee.
However, there were a few hostile interviews during the Beatles tenure. One which springs to mind is the Beatles press conference in Hamburg on 26th June 1966:
(This isn’t the full thing, of course). During this conference the Beatles get a bit frustrated at the mundanity and the nature of some of the questions. At one point someone asks, “What do you dream of when you sleep?“ Paul replies, “The same as anyone else dreams of. Standing in your underpants,’ and John says, “"What do you think we are? What do you dream of?” then adds under his breath, to the other Beatles, “Fucking hell!” Later, there’s this exchange:
FEMALE REPORTER: “Why are you all so horrid snobby?”
PAUL: “We’re not horrid snobby.”
FEMALE REPORTER: “Yes you are.”
JOHN: “That’s your version.”
GEORGE: “It’s only in your mind, we are.”
JOHN: “Because we’re not flattering you.”
PAUL: “You know… You expect, sort of, nice answers to ALL the questions. But if the questions aren’t nice questions, they don’t have to have nice answers. And if we don’t give nice answers, it doesn’t mean we’re snobby. It just means we’re natural.”
(other reporters respond with a large round of applause)
(Interview transcript from here).
John has a couple of quips, but I think his swearing to the other Beatles about it shows he could have certainly said a lot more, but he didn’t. He’s quite restrained. (This conference wasn’t all hostility though - it’s the interview which contains one of my favourite George quotes. He says, “It doesn’t matter where you dance, so long as you’re dancing.” Aw.)
The other factor and I think it’s the major difference between early and later sixties interviews - pop stars like the Beatles were only typically asked fluffy, daft questions in interviews in the early sixties. They were rarely, if at all, asked serious questions. There was also an assumption that pop stars didn’t have anything of value or intelligence to say about serious matters, and I think also, journalists often assumed pop stars were quite thick and stupid and treated them like that. This of course, particularly irked John.
“’Why are you dressed like a fag ass man? What’s with that. How old are you?’ Lennon was not joking. From the corner of my eye, I could see a look of revulsion on the face of Brian Epstein.
“Awkwardly, I retorted, ‘Well, it’s better than looking scruffy and messed up like you.’ I smiled but [John] didn’t. […]
“I shifted the theme and asked Lennon about the undeclared war in Vietnam. It was a strange question to ask, and it caught him by surprise. His face lit up, and he launched a scathing diatribe against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the escalating conflict. I was taken aback by the intensity of his anger and knowledge base, and also by the eloquence of his protest. […]
“As I walked back to my room […] came a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and John Lennon was there. He said, ‘Hey, really enjoyed the interview, ‘specially about the war in Asia. Liked the talk. Look forward to more stuff. Sorry about the clothes bullshit.’
“‘John, it was great meeting you,’ was all I said.”
[Ticket to Ride by Larry Kane]
I think Larry Kane could be the first journalist to twig onto the fact that if he talked to the Beatles like adults, he could get a lot better responses.
In the latter half of the sixties, and not entirely by his own volition, John set himself up for a fall with journalists somewhat. After about 1966, and definitely after Brian died in 1967, John became a lot more politically outspoken. He was sort of dragged into a political arena by the events of 1966 and the whole ‘bigger than Jesus’ furore, but certainly after Brian was gone, John became a lot more active politically and started to loan his name and support to various political causes. (If Brian had still been there, I think John would have still become political, but the way it was conducted may have been quite different).
I think the attitude among the media hadn’t changed a whole lot. They still thought of pop stars as unimportant and a bit thick, so when John starts saying a lot of political things, ‘they’ tend to think, ‘who do you think you are to say all this?!’ and John becomes a target, particularly from the ‘old establishment’ who view him and the Beatles as little more than ‘the problem youth’. In that interview right at the top of this post, John really becomes angry because the journalist is saying ‘who are you to do these things and say these things, you’re just a pop star,’ and John’s saying, “I’m not that moptop Beatle anymore.”
So to answer your question, I think the nature of the interviews changed - the questions became more serious and John became a target for journalists to pick on for various reasons, and that often inflamed his anger - coupled with that, the absence of anyone like Brian Epstein in his life meant John would speak his mind without restraint. He could get angry and frustrated in the earlier interviews at times too, but at least in a public arena, I think he was more likely to swallowed it down.
Thank you for your question! This was an interesting one!
