#john's interview

[ceofjohnlennon]

John Lennon: "I try to do it all right, but I s'pose I'll just turn out the same, and I'll - but I'm gonna try not to, y'know. At least I'm thinking about it now."

Q: "But with that much experience behind you now, would you like to have more children?"

John Lennon: "Yeah, I'd just - as many as - as come, y'know, let 'em roll out, I say."

Q: "Yes."

John Lennon: "I like large families, the idea of it."

— John Lennon interviewed by Brian Matthew on November 30, 1965.

[awesome-bamon]

I respect John’s views on Finn and Rey.  And I can make peace with Finn and Rey remaining good friends at the end of this trilogy.

[ceofjohnlennon]

Q: "Hello. Well, today I'm not in a studio, but in The Beatles' office in London. And the Beatle I have with me is John Lennon. Now, John, you have from time to time been criticized - attacked is probably a better word - on the basis that you just don't care about anything or anybody. I'm sure this isn't true, but would you tell us, what is the thing that you care most about?"

John Lennon: "Well, I mean, the thing - obviously, the first thing you think about is yourself and your family, that's the - so I care about them, so whoever said I didn't care about anybody is wrong for that. There's plenty of things I care about, but there's all the things I'm known for not caring about are things that a lot of people don't care about, and it's usually - y'know, a certain type of person that cares about them, and I'm one of the - y'know, just things in general that aren't important to me."

Q: "Yeah."

John Lennon: "That seem important to other people."

Q: "Yeah."

John Lennon: "Y'know, and it's not a sin or a crime."

Q: "No, I'm not suggesting that it is!"

John Lennon: "Yeah, I know but there - people think it is, y'know. Only I can't think of them 'cause they're so general. It's just that when I come across I realize that I don't care about 'em. 'Cause I've never thought of 'em before, y'know."

— John Lennon interviewed by Brian Matthew on November 30, 1965.

[ceofjohnlennon]

"When we arrived the next afternoon, September 18, John was walking around the room, humming what sounded like "Hold Me Tight" - just singing the song to the air. Old Fifties 45s were scattered about the floor, and John played Rosie and the Originals version of "Give Me Love." We talked about the lyrics of Gene Vincent's "Woman Love." In spite of having slept only two hours, John asked us to sit down on the floor and begin the interview. Any suspicions that John would be ornery, mean, cruel or brutish - feelings attributed to him and imagined by press reports and various paranoiac personalities - never arose even for the purpose of being pressed down. As John said simply about the interview: "There's nothing more fun than talking about your own songs and your own records. I mean, you can't help it, it's your bit, really. We talk about them together. Remember that."

ㅡ John Lennon first interview for Rolling Stone Magazine by Jonathan Cott, November 23, 1968.

[ceofjohnlennon]

Jonathan Cott: "How much do you think the songs go toward building up a myth of a state of mind?"

John Lennon: "I don't know. I mean, we got a bit pretentious. Like everybody, we had our phase and now it's a little change over to trying to be more natural, less 'newspaper taxis,' say. I mean, we're just changing. I don't know what we're doing at all, I just write them. Really, I just like rock & roll. I mean, these..." (pointing to a pile of Fifties records) "...are the records I dug then, I dig them now and I'm still trying to reproduce 'Some Other Guy' sometimes. or 'Be-Bop-A-Lula.' Whatever it is, it's the same bit for me. It's really just the sound."

ㅡ John Lennon first interview for Rolling Stone Magazine by Jonathan Cott, November 23, 1968.

[ceofjohnlennon]

Jonathan Cott: "For the cover, there's a photo of you and Yoko standing naked facing the camera. And on the backside are your backsides. What do you think people are going to think of the cover?"

John Lennon: "Well, we've got that to come. The thing is, I started it with a pure... it was the truth, and it was only after I'd got into it and done it and looked at it that I'd realized what kind of scene I was going to create. And then suddenly, there it was, and then suddenly you show it to people and then you know what the world's going to do to you, or try to do. But you have no knowledge of it when you conceive it or make it. Originally, I was going to record Yoko, and I thought the best picture of her for an album would be her naked. I was just going to record her as an artist. We were only on those kind of terms then. So after that, we got together, it just seemed natural for us, if we made an album together, for both of us to be naked. Of course, I've never seen me prick on an album or on a photo before: 'What-on-earth, there's a fellow with his prick out.' And that was the first time I realized me prick was out, you know. I mean, you can see it on the photo itself - we're naked in front of a camera - that comes over in the eyes, just for a minute you go!! I mean, you're not used to it, being naked, but it's got to come out."

Jonathan Cott: "How do you face the fact that people are going to mutilate you?"

John Lennon: "Well, I can take that as long as we can get the cover out. And I really don't know what the chances are of that."

Jonathan Cott: "You don't worry about the nuts across the street?

John Lennon: "No, no. I know it won't be very comfortable walking around with all the lorry drivers whistling and that, but it'll all die. Next year it'll be nothing, like miniskirts or bare tits. It isn't anything. We're all naked really. When people attack Yoko and me, we know they're paranoiac. We don't worry too much. It's the ones that don't know, and you know they don't know - they're just going round in a blue fuzz. The thing is, the album also says: 'Look, lay off will you? It's two people - what have we done?'"

ㅡ John Lennon first interview for Rolling Stone Magazine by Jonathan Cott, November 23, 1968.

[ceofjohnlennon]

Jonathan Cott: "You really had a place where you grew up!"

John Lennon: "Oh, yeah. Didn't you?"

Jonathan Cott: "Well, Manhattan isn't Liverpool.

John Lennon: "Well, you could write about your local bus station."

Jonathan Cott: "In Manhattan?"

John Lennon: "Sure, why not? Everywhere is somewhere."

ㅡ John Lennon first interview for Rolling Stone Magazine by Jonathan Cott, November 23, 1968.