“JOHN: George put out a book [I, Me, Mine] privately and I was hurt by it, so this message will go out to him. By glaring omission in the book, my influence on his life is absolutely zilch and nil. Not mentioned. In his book, which is purportedly this clarity of vision of each song he wrote and its influences, he remembers every two-bit sax player or guitarist he met in subsequent years. I’m not in the book. SHEFF: Why? JOHN: Because George’s relationship with me was one of young follower and older guy. He’s three or four years younger than me. It’s a love-hate relationship, and I think George still bears resentment toward me for being a daddy who left home. He would not agree with this, but that’s just my feeling about it. I was just hurt. I was just left out, as if I didn’t exist. I don’t want to be that egomaniacal, but he was like a disciple of mine when we started. I was already an art student when Paul and George were still in grammar school. There is a vast difference between being in high school and college, and I was already in college and already had sexual relationships, already drank and did a lot of things like that. When George was a kid, he used to follow me and my first girl friend, Cynthia—who became my first wife—around. Cynthia and I would come out of art school together and he’d be hovering around like one of those kids at the gates of the Dakota now. He was literally like that! Cyn and I would be going to the coffee shop or a movie and George would follow us down the street two hundred yards behind. And Cyn would say, as Yoko would say now, “Who is that guy? What’s he want?” I’d say, “He just wants to hang out. Should we take him with us?” She’d say, “Oh, okay, let’s take him to the movies with us.” So we’d allow him to come to the movies with us. And that’s the sort of relationship it was. He turned a little nasty later on. Maybe he saw I wasn’t the man he envisioned. Not mentioned once! I remember the day he called to ask for help on ‘Taxman’, one of his first songs. I threw in a few one-liners to help the song along, because that’s what he’d asked for. He came to me ’cause he couldn’t go to Paul, ’cause Paul wouldn’t have helped him at that period. I didn’t want to do it. I thought, “Oh, no, don’t tell me I have to work on George’s stuff. It’s enough doing my own and Paul’s.” But becaused I loved him and I didn’t want to hurt him when he called that afternoon and said, “Will you help me with this song?” I just sort of bit my tongue and said okay. It had been John and Paul for so long; he’d been left out ’cause he hadn’t been a songwriter up until then. As a singer we’d allow him one track on each album. If you listen to the English albums he gets a single track. The songs he and Ringo sang at first were the songs that used to be part of my repetoire in the dance halls. I used to pick easier songs for them to sing. So I am slightly resentful of George’s book. … I’d like to clarify that. You see, I am slightly resentful of George’s book, but don’t get me wrong—I still love those guys. The Beatles are over, but John, Paul, George, and Ringo go on. I mean, just because I am upset about George’s book doesn’t mean that’s all I feel. Do you understand? I like them and it’s over. Get it? (laughing) I don’t want to start another whole thing between me and George because of the way I feel today. Tomorrow I will feel absolutely differently. It’s not important anyway. I don’t feel that or anything only about him or any of them. It’s all very complicated and there are a lot of mixed emotions about all of them. That’s why it’s difficult to say anything. I don’t want to come off niggling. It’s stupid inasmuch as the repercussions are not worth some sort of off-handed remarks about each other.”
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