"Da adolescente ero un ragazzo di periferia che giocava
a fare la parte del rocker, era un trucco come un altro per sembrare un duro,
e così facendo allontanare le tremende paure di ogni giorno,le paure che ti
impediscono di VIVERE! Ho passato anni e anni a camminare tenendo le spalle
alte e portando degli occhiali scuri da completo idiota, soltanto per poter
avere una faccia da duro da mostrare al mondo."
"When I was about 12, I used to think I must be a
genius, but nobody's noticed. ...If there is such a thing as genius....I am
one, if there isn't I don't care." ~John
I always was a rebel...but on the other hand, I wanted to be loved and accepted...and
not just be a loudmouth, lunatic, poet, musician. But I cannot be what I am
not." ~John
"My defenses were so great. The cocky rock and roll hero who knows all the answers
was actually a terrified guy who didn't know how to cry. Simple." ~John
"If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or my music,
then in that respect you can call me that...I believe in what I do, and I'll
say it." ~John
"We've got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can't just
accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it's going to get on by
itself. You've got to keep on watering it. You've got to really look after it
and nurture it." ~John
"One has to completely humiliate oneself to be what the
Beatles were, and that's what I resent. I mean I did it,I didn't know, I didn't
foresee; it just happened, bit by bit, gradually, until this complete craziness
is surrounding you and you're doing exactly what you don't want to do with people
you can't stand, the people you hated when you were ten. And that's what I'm
saying with this album--I remember what it's all about now, you fuckers--fuck
you! That's what I'm saying, you don't get me twice." ~John: Rolling Stone Interview
"I've been baking bread and looking after the baby...Everyone else who has asked
me that question over the last few years says. 'But what else have you been
doing?' To which I say, 'Are you kidding? Because bread and babies, as every
housewife knows, is a full-time job. After I made the loaves, I felt like I
had conquered something. But as I watched the bread being eaten, I thought,
Well, Jesus, don't I get a gold record or knighted or nothing?" ~John
"My
role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what
we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader,
but as a reflection of us all."
"You make your own dream. That's the Beatles' story, isn't it? That's Yoko's
story . That's what I'm saying now. Produce your own dream. If you want to save
Peru, go save Peru. It's quite possible to do anything, but not to put it on
the leaders and the parking meters. Don't expect Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan
or John Lennon or Yoko Ono or Bob Dylan or Jesus Christ to come and do it for
you. You have to do it yourself. That's what the great masters and mistresses
have been saying ever since time began. They can point the way, leave signposts
and little instructions in various books that are now called holy and worshiped
for the cover of the book and not for what it says, but the instructions are
all there for all to see, have always been and always will be. There's nothing
new under the sun. All the roads lead to Rome. And people cannot provide it
for you. I can't wake you up. You can wake you up. I can't cure you. You can
cure you."
"You're just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You've
got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It's all down to you, mate."
"But nobody's perfect, etc., etc. Whether it's Janov or Erhardt or Maharishi
or a Beatle. That doesn't take away from their message. It's like learning how
to swim. The swimming is fine. But forget about the teacher. If the Beatles
had a message, it was that. With the Beatles, the records are the point, not
the Beatles as individuals. You don't need the package, just as you don't need
the Christian package or the Marxist package to get the message. People always
got the image I was an anti-Christ or antireligion. I'm not. I'm a most religious
fellow. I was brought up a Christian and I only now understand some of the things
that Christ was saying in those parables. Because people got hooked on the teacher
and missed the message. All this bit about electing a President. We pick our
own daddy out of a dog pound of daddies."
"If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd
be peace."
"I think the basic thing nobody asks is why do people takes drugs of any sort?
And that question has to be resolved before you can think, well, what can we
do for the poor drug addict? Why do we have to have these accessories to normal
living to live? I mean, is there something wrong with society that's making
us so pressurized, that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?"
"It's fear of the unknown. The unknown is what it is. And to be frightened of
it is what sends everybody scurrying around chasing dreams, illusions, wars,
peace, love, hate, all that--it's all illusion. Unknown is what it is. Accept
that it's unknown and it's plain sailing. Everything is unknown--then you're
ahead of the game. That's what it is. Right?"
"It just was a gradual development over the years. I mean last year was 'all
you need is love.' This year, it's 'all you need is love and peace, baby.' Give
peace a chance, and remember Love. The only hope for us is peace. Violence begets
violence. You can have peace as soon as you like if we all pull together. You're
all geniuses, and you're all beautiful. You don't need anyone to tell you who
you are. You are what you are. Get out there and get peace, think peace, and
live peace and breathe peace, and you'll get it as soon as you like."
"Once you're so depressed that you get into drugs, once you're on them, it's
very, very hard to see the light or to have any kind of hope. All you think
about is the drug, and it's no good to us preaching at people and saying don't
take them. Because that doesn't work. It's like the church telling you not to
drink or not to have sex when you're a kid. There's nothing on earth gonna do
it. But if people take any notice of what we say, we say we've been through
the drug scene, man, and there's nothing like being straight. You need hope,
and hope is something that you build within yourself and with your friends.
It's a very difficult situation, drugs ... The worst drugs are as bad as anybody's
told you. It's just a dumb trip, which I can't condemn people if they get into
it, because one gets into it for one's personal, social, emotional reasons.
It's something to be avoided if one can help it."
"Possession isn't nine-tenths of the law. It's nine-tenths of the problem."
"The pressures of being a parent are equal to any pressure on earth. To be a
conscious parent, and really look to that little being's mental and physical
health is a responsibility which most of us, including me, avoid most of the
time, because it's too hard. To put it loosely, the reason why kids are crazy
is because nobody can face the responsibility of bringing them up..."
"We've got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can't just
accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it's going to get on by
itself. You've got to keep on watering it. You've got to really look after it
and nurture it."
"You can't cheat kids. If you cheat them when they're children they'll make
you pay when they're sixteen or seventeen by revolting against you or hating
you or all those so-called teenage problems. I think that's finally when they're
old enough to stand up to you and say, 'What a hypocrite you've been all this
time. You've never given me what I really wanted, which is you."
"Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting
it that ruins it for me."
"As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.
"You don't need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what
you are!"
"I don't believe in killing whatever the reason!"
"If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliché that must have been left
behind in the Sixties, that's his problem. Love and peace are eternal."
"I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the
myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that
dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now? Reality leaves a lot
to the imagination."
"If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or my music.
then in that respect you can call me that. . . I believe in what I do, and I'll
say it."
"Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realised that the imagery
in my mind wasn't insanity. Surrealism to me is reality"
"Guilt for being rich, and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn't
enough and you have to go and get shot or something."-1980
"My defences were so great. The cocky rock and roll hero who knows all the answers
was actually a terrified guy who didn't know how to cry. Simple."
"Everything I've ever done is out. I don't have boxes of unreleased stuff. There's
nothing in the files. I can never keep anything unless I don't like the sound
of it or it didn't work. If I can sing it to an engineer, I can sing it to anyone..."
"For a long time I wasn't listening to music, to the rock and roll stuff on
the radio, because it would cause me to get sweaty. It would bring back memories
I didn't want to know about, or I would get that feeling that I'm not alive
'cause I'm not making it. And if it was good, I hated it 'cause I wasn't doing
it. And if it was bad, I was furious 'cause I could've done it better..."
"I always was a rebel...but on the other hand, I wanted to be loved and accepted...and
not just be a loudmouth, lunatic, poet, musician. But I cannot be what I am
not."
"I don't intend to be a performing flea any more. I was the dreamweaver, but
although I'll be around I don't intend to be running at 20,000 miles an hour
trying to prove myself. I don't want to die at 40."
"I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything.
I've always been a freak. So I've been a freak all my life and I have to live
with that, you know. I'm one of those people."
"I still don't know how to express the really delicate personal stuff. People
think that Plastic Ono is very personal, but there are some subtleties of emotions
which I cannot seem to express in pop music, and it frustrates me. Maybe that's
why I still search for other ways of expressing myself. Song writing is a limiting
experience in some ways - writing down words that have to rhyme."
"When real music comes to me - the music of the spheres, the music that surpasses
understanding - that has nothing to do with me, cause I'm just the channel.
The only joy for me is for it to be given to me, and to transcribe it like a
medium... those moments are what I live for."
"I've been baking bread and looking after the baby...Everyone else who has asked
me that question over the last few years says. 'But what else have you been
doing?' To which I say, 'Are you kidding?' Because bread and babies, as every
housewife knows, is a full-time job. After I made the loaves [of bread,] I felt
like I had conquered something. But as I watched the bread being eaten, I thought,
Well, Jesus, don't I get a gold record or knighted or nothing?"
"Nobody controls me. I'm uncontrollable. The only one who can control me is
me, and that's just barely possible. And that's the lesson I'm learning. If
someone's going to impress me, whether it be a Maharishi or Yoko, then there
comes a point where the emperor has no clothes 'cause I'm naive, but I'm not
stupid. For all you folks out there who think I'm having the wool pulled over
my eyes, well, that's an insult to me. But if you think you know me, or you
have some part of me because of the music, and then you think I'm being controlled
like a dog on a leash because I do things with her, then screw you, brother
or sister, you don't know what's happening. I'm not here for you, I'm here for
me and her, and now the baby"
"Rituals are important. Nowadays it's hip not to be married. I'm not interested
in being hip."
"Song writing is about getting the demon out of me. It's like being possessed.
You try to go to sleep, but the song won't let you. So you have to get up and
make it into something, and then you're allowed to sleep. It's always in the
middle of the night, or you're half-awake or tired, when your critical faculties
are switched off. So letting go is what the whole game is. Every time you try
to put your finger on it, it slips away. You turn on the lights and the cockroaches
run away. You can never grasp them."
"The first year I had this sort of feeling in the back of my mind that I ought
to [be doing music]. And I'd go through periods of panic, because I was not
in Billboard or being seen at Studio 54 with Mick and Bianca. I mean, I didn't
exist anymore. It would become like a paranoia, and then it would go away, because
I'd be involved with the baby. And I realized there was a life without it -
life after death."
"The idea of being a rock and roll musician sort of suited my talents and mentality.
The freedom was great, but then I found out I wasn't free. I'd got boxed in
...The whole Beatle thing is just beyond comprehension ... subconsciously I
was crying for help."
"They want to hold onto something they never had in the first place. Anybody
who claims to have some interest in me as an individual artist or even as part
of the Beatles has absolutely misunderstood everything I ever said if they can't
see why I'm with Yoko. And if they can't see that, they don't see anything.
They're just jacking off to - it could be anybody. Mick Jagger or somebody else.
Let them go jack off to Mick Jagger, okay? I don't need it."
"When you're thirty-five, you can't take as much booze ... and I always got
a little violent on drink...So it was kind of a self-destructive suicide side
of me, which is resolving itself for the better, I believe, because I never
enjoyed it..."
"In one way, I was always hip. I was hip in kindergarten. I was different from
the others. There was something wrong with me, I thought, because I seemed to
see things people didn't see. I always saw things in a hallucinatory way."
"If The Beatles or the 60's had a message, it was 'Learn to swim. And once you've
learned - swim!"
"It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. You'd wake up in a concert and
think, Wow, how did I get here?"
"I've always thought there was this underlying thing in Paul's 'Get Back.' When
we were in the studio recording it, every time he sang the line 'Get back to
where you once belonged," he'd look at Yoko."
"Now, in the sixties we were naive, like children. Everybody went back to their
rooms, and said, 'We didn't get a wonderful world of just flowers and peace
and happy chocolate, and it won't be just pretty and beautiful all the time,'
and just like babies everyone went back to their rooms and sulked. 'We're going
to stay in our rooms and play rock and roll and not do anything else, because
the world's a horrible place, because it didn't give us everything we cried
for.' Right?"
"The only time we took drugs was when we were without hope and the only way
we got out of it was with hope and if we can sustain the hope then we don't
need drugs, liquor or anything. But if we lose hope, what can you do? What is
there to do?"
"The writing of the Beatles, or John and Paul's contribution to the Beatles
in the late sixties - had a kind of depth to it, a more mature, more intellectual
approach. We were different people, we were older. We knew each other in all
kinds of different ways than when we wrote together as teenagers and in our
older twenties."
"Well, crying for it wasn't enough. The thing the sixties did was show us the
possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn't the answer.
It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility."
"We've been on our peace gig, as we call it, for a year solid. And people say,
'Do you think it's having any effect?' I can't answer that. It's like asking
me in the Cavern, 'Are you gonna make it?' In the back of my mind I thought,
I'm gonna make it, but I couldn't lay it on the line. And I think that peace
is more tangible than Beatles."
"We were all on this ship in the sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover
the New World. And the Beatles were in the crow's nest of that ship ... We were
part of it and contributed what we contributed. I can't designate what we did
and didn't do. It depends on how each individual was impressed by the Beatles
or how our shock wave went to different people. We were going through the changes,
and all we were saying was, it's raining up here, or there's land or there's
a sun or we can see a seagull. We were just reporting what was happening to
us."
"When I was a Beatle I thought we were the best fucking group in the goddamn
world, and believing that is what made us what we were."
"Before Yoko and I met, we were half a person. You know there's an old myth
about people being half and the other half being in the sky, or in heaven or
on the other side of the universe or a mirror image. But we are two halves,
and together we're a whole."
"Everything is clearer when you're in love"
"We've broken down a few barriers between us. which we had to do because we
had two big egos. two individual artists - and with love we overcame that."
"I'd never met a woman I considered as intelligent as me. That sounds bigheaded,
but every woman I met was either a dolly-chick, or a sort of screwed-up intellectual
chick. And of course, in the field I was in, I didn't meet many intellectual
people anyway. I always had this dream of meeting an artist, an artist girl
who would be like me. And I thought it was a myth, but then I met Yoko and that
was it."
"If [Sean] doesn't see me a few days or if I'm really, really busy, and I just
sort of get a glimpse of him, or if I'm feeling depressed without him even seeing
me, he sort of picks up on it. And he starts getting that way. So I can no longer
afford to have artistic depressions. If I start wallowing in a depression, he'll
start coming down with stuff, so I'm sort of obligated to keep up. And sometimes
I can't, because something will make me depressed and sure as hell he'll get
a cold or trap his finger in a door or something, and so now I have sort of
more reason to stay healthy or bright..."
"Because bread and babies, as every housewife knows, is a full-time job. After
I made the loaves, I felt like I had conquered something. But as I watched the
bread being eaten, I thought, Well, Jesus, don't I get a gold record or knighted
or nothing?"
"I was too scared to break away from the Beatles, which I'd been looking to
do since we stopped touring. And so I was sort of vaguely looking for somewhere
to go but didn't have the nerve to really step out into the boat myself, so
I sort of hung around, and when I met Yoko and fell in love, my God, this is
different than anything before. This is more than a hit record. It's more than
gold. It's more than everything...When I met Yoko is when you meet your first
woman, and you leave the guys at the bar, and you don't go play football anymore.
Once I found the woman, the boys became of no interest whatsoever, other than
they were like old school friends."
"Yoko looks upon men as assistants. . . . Of varying degrees of intimacy, but
basically assistants. And this one's going to take a pee." (Exits to the restrooms)
"Anybody who knows our history knows that we went through all hell together
- through miscarriages and terrible times."
"People want peace. And you've got to sell it and sell it and sell it. So we
do the bed-ins and they say, 'What? They're in bed? What's this?' And all we're
doing really is donating our holiday. We get tired and it's ... more convenient
for us to stay in one spot than go around doing press conferences."
"The joy is still there when I see Sean. He didn't come out of my belly, but
my God, I've made his bones, because I've attended to every meal, and how he
sleeps, and the fact that he swims like a fish because I took him to the ocean.
I'm so proud of all his things. But he is my biggest pride."
"We are both sensitive people and we were hurt a lot by it. I mean, we couldn't
understand it. When you're in love, when somebody says something like, 'How
can you be with that woman?' you say, 'What do you mean? I am with this goddess
of love, the fulfilment of my whole life. Why are you saying this? Why do you
want to throw a rock at her or punish me for being in love with her?' Our love
helped us survive it, but some of it was pretty violent. There were a few times
when we nearly went under, but we managed to survive it and here we are. [John
looks up] Thank you, thank you, thank you."
"We haven't been apart for more than one hour in two years. Everything we do
is together, and that's what gives us our strength."
"We're all in a bag, you know?... I was in a pop bag, going round and round,
in my own little clique. And she [Yoko] was in her own little avant-garde clique,
going round and round...So we just came up with the word. If you'd ask us what
bagism is, we'd say, 'We're all in a bag, baby."
"We've broken down a few barriers between us, which we had to do because we
had two big egos, two individual artists - and with love we overcame that."
"When I was cleaning the cat shit and feeding Sean, she [Yoko] was sitting in
rooms full of smoke with men in three-piece suits that they couldn't button."
"When [Yoko and I] got back together, we decided that this is our life. That
having a baby was important to us, and that everything else was subsidiary to
that, and therefore everything else had to be abandoned. I mean, abandonment
gave us the fulfillment we were looking for and the space to breathe."
"Why don't people believe us when we say we're simply in love?"
"With us it's a teacher - pupil relationship. That's what people don't understand.
She's the teacher and I'm the pupil. I'm the famous one. I'm supposed to know
everything. But she taught me everything I fucking know."
"Yoko was the only one who didn't put me down through that period, because
a) she knew I was suffering, and
b) she said, 'You didn't kill anyone. You didn't abuse anyone.' And I thought,
Okay, okay, she doesn't mind it, so I'm not going to give a damn whether the
reporter likes it or not."
"We all have Hitler in us, but we also have love and peace. So why not give
peace a chance for once?"
"I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically -- any woman. I was a hitter.
I couldn't express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why
I am always on about peace, you see. It is the most violent people who go for
love and peace."
Eerything's the opposite. But I sincerely believe in love and peace. I am a
violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence. I will
have to be a lot older before I can face in public how I treated women as a
youngster.
PLAYBOY:
The word is out: John Lennon and Yoko Ono are back in the studio, recording
again for the first time since 1975, when they vanished from public view. Let's
start with you, John. What have you been doing? LENNON:
I've been baking bread and looking after the baby. PLAYBOY:
With what secret projects going on in the basement? LENNON:
That's like what everyone else who has asked me that question over the last
few years says. "But what else have you been doing?" To which I say, "Are you
kidding?" Because bread and babies, as every housewife knows, is a full-time
job. After I made the loaves, I felt like I had conquered something. But as
I watched the bread being eaten, I thought, Well, Jesus, don't I get a gold
record or knighted or nothing? PLAYBOY:
Why did you become a househusband? LENNON:
There were many reasons. I had been under obligation or contract from the time
I was 22 until well into my 30s. After all those years, it was all I knew. I
wasn't free. I was boxed in. My contract was the physical manifestation of being
in prison. It was more important to face myself and face that reality than to
continue a life of rock 'n' roll -- and to go up and down with the whims of
either your own performance or the public's opinion of you. Rock 'n' roll was
not fun anymore.
I always asked why people did things and why society was like it was. I didn't
just accept it for what it was apparently doing. I always looked below the surface.
PLAYBOY:
On the subject of your own wealth, the New York Post recently said you admitted
to being worth over $150,000,000 (1980) and---- LENNON:
We never admitted anything. PLAYBOY:
The
Post said you had. LENNON:
What
the Post says -- OK, so we are rich; so what? PLAYBOY:
The question is, How does that jibe with your political philosophies? You're
supposed to be socialists, aren't you? LENNON:
In England, there are only two things to be, basically: You are either for the
labor movement or for the capitalist movement. Either you become a right-wing
Archie Bunker if you are in the class I am in, or you become an instinctive
socialist, which I was. That meant I think people should get their false teeth
and their health looked after, all the rest of it. But apart from that, I worked
for money and I wanted to be rich. So what the hell -- if that's a paradox,
then I'm a socialist. But I am not anything. What I used to be is guilty about
money. That's why I lost it, either by giving it away or by allowing myself
to be screwed by so-called managers.
"Newspaper people have a habit of putting you in the front pages to sell their
papers, and then after they've sold their papers and got big circulation's,
they say, 'Look at what we've done for you"
