When you came down what did you think?

I was pretty stoned for a month or two. The second time we had it was in L.A. We were on tour in one of those houses, Doris Day’s house or wherever it was we used to stay, and the three of us took it, Ringo, George and I. Maybe Neil and a couple of the Byrds — what’s his name, the one in the Stills and Nash thing, Crosby and the other guy, who used to do the lead. McGuinn. I think they came, I’m not sure, on a few trips. But there was a reporter, Don Short. We were in the garden, it was only our second one and we still didn’t know anything about doing it in a nice place and cool it. Then they saw the reporter and thought “How do we act?” We were terrified waiting for him to go, and he wondered why we couldn’t come over. Neil, who never had acid either, had taken it and he would have to play road manager, and we said go get rid of Don Short, and he didn’t know what to do.

Peter Fonda came, and that was another thing. He kept saying [in a whisper] “I know what it’s like to be dead,” and we said “What?” and he kept saying it. We were saying “For Christ’s sake, shut up, we don’t care, we don’t want to know,” and he kept going on about it. That’s how I wrote “She Said, She Said” — “I know what’s it’s like to be dead.” It was a sad song, an acidy song I suppose. “When I was a little boy”… you see, a lot of early childhood was coming out, anyway.

So LSD started for you in 1964: how long did it go on?

It went on for years, I must of had a thousand trips.

Literally a thousand, or a couple of hundred?

A thousand. I used to just eat it all the time. I never took it in the studio. Once I thought I was taking some uppers and I was not in the state of handling it, I can’t remember what album it was, but I took it and I just noticed… I suddenly got so scared on the mike. I thought I felt ill, and I thought I was going to crack. I said I must get some air. They all took me upstairs on the roof and George Martin was looking at me funny, and then it dawned on me I must have taken acid. I said, “Well I can’t go on, you’ll have to do it and I’ll just stay and watch.” You know I got very nervous just watching them all. I was saying, “Is it all right?” And they were saying, “Yeah.” They had all been very kind and they carried on making the record.

The other Beatles didn’t get into LSD as much as you did?

George did. In L.A. the second time we took it, Paul felt very out of it, because we are all a bit slightly cruel, sort of “we’re taking it, and you’re not.” But we kept seeing him, you know. We couldn’t eat our food, I just couldn’t manage it, just picking it up with our hands. There were all these people serving us in the house and we were knocking food on the floor and all of that. It was a long time before Paul took it. Then there was the big announcement.

Right.

So, I think George was pretty heavy on it; we are probably the most cracked. Paul is a bit more stable than George and I.

And straight?

I don’t know about straight. Stable. I think LSD profoundly shocked him, and Ringo. I think maybe they regret it.

Did you have many bad trips?

I had many. Jesus Christ, I stopped taking it because of that. I just couldn’t stand it.

You got too afraid to take it?

It got like that, but then I stopped it for I don’t know how long, and then I started taking it again just before I met Yoko. Derek came over and… you see, I got the message that I should destroy my ego and I did, you know. I was reading that stupid book of Leary’s; we were going through a whole game that everybody went through, and I destroyed myself. I was slowly putting myself together round about Maharishi time. Bit by bit over a two-year period, I had destroyed me ego.

I didn’t believe I could do anything and let people make me, and let them all just do what they wanted. I just was nothing. I was shit. Then Derek tripped me out at his house after he got back from L.A. He sort of said “You’re all right,” and pointed out which songs I had written. “You wrote this,” and “You said this” and “You are intelligent, don’t be frightened.”

The next week I went to Derek’s with Yoko and we tripped again, and she filled me completely to realize that I was me and that’s it’s all right. That was it; I started fighting again, being a loudmouth again and saying, “I can do this, “fuck it, this is what I want, you know, I want it and don’t put me down.” I did this, so that’s where I am now.

At some point, right between “Help” and “Hard Day’s Night,” you got into drugs and got into doing drug songs?

A “Hard Day’s Night,” I was on pills, that’s drugs, that’s bigger drugs than pot. Started on pills when I was 15, no, since I was 17, since I became a musician. The only way to survive in Hamburg, to play eight hours a night, was to take pills. The waiters gave you them — the pills and drink. I was a fucking dropped-down drunk in art school. “Help” was where we turned on to pot and we dropped drink, simple as that. I’ve always needed a drug to survive. The others, too, but I always had more, more pills, more of everything because I’m more crazy probably.

There’s a lot of obvious LSD things you did in the music.

Yes.

How do you think that affected your conception of the music? In general.

It was only another mirror. It wasn’t a miracle. It was more of a visual thing and a therapy, looking at yourself a bit. It did all that. You know, I don’t quite remember. But it didn’t write the music, neither did Janov or Maharishi in the same terms. I write the music in the circumstances in which I’m in, whether its on acid or in the water.

What did you think of “Hard Day’s Night,”?

The story wasn’t bad but it could have been better. Another illusion was that we were just puppets and that these great people, like Brian Epstein and Dick Lester, created the situation and made this whole fuckin’ thing, and precisely because we were what we were, realistic. We didn’t want to make a fuckin’ shitty pop movie, we didn’t want to make a movie that was going to be bad, and we insisted on having a real writer to write it.

Brian came up with Allan Owen, from Liverpool, who had written a play for TV called “No Trams to Lime St.” Lime Street is a famous street in Liverpool where the whores used to be in the old days, and Owen was famous for writing Liverpool dialogue. We auditioned people to write for us and they came up with this guy. He was a bit phony, like a professional Liverpool man — you know like a professional American. He stayed with us two days, and wrote the whole thing based on our characters then: me, witty; Ringo, dumb and cute; George this; and Paul that.

We were a bit infuriated by the glibness and shiftiness of the dialogue and we were always trying to get it more realistic, but they wouldn’t have it. It ended up O.K., but the next one was just bullshit, because it really had nothing to do with the Beatles. They just put us here and there. Dick Lester was good, he had ideas ahead of their times, like using Batman comic strip lettering and balloons.

My impression of the movie was that it was you and it wasn’t anyone else.

It was a good projection of one facade of us, which was on tour, once in London and once in Dublin. It was of us in that situation together, in a hotel, having to perform before people. We were like that. The writer saw the press conference.

“Rubber Soul” was…

Can you tell me whether that white album with the drawing by Voorman on it, was that before “Rubber Soul” or after?

After. You really don’t remember which?

No. Maybe the others do, I don’t remember those kind of things, because it doesn’t mean anything, it’s all gone.

“Rubber Soul” was the first attempt to do a serious, sophisticated complete work, in a certain sense.

We were just getting better, technically and musically, that’s all. Finally we took over the studio. In the early days, we had to take what we were given, we didn’t know how you can get more bass. We were learning the technique on “Rubber Soul.” We were more precise about making the album, that’s all, and we took over the cover and everything.

“Rubber Soul” that was just a simple play on…

That was Paul’s title, it was like “Yer Blues,” I suppose, meaning English Soul, I suppose, just a pun. There is no great mysterious meaning behind all of this, it was just four boys working out what to call a new album.

The Hunter Davies book, the “authorized biography,” says…

It was written in [London] Sunday Times sort of fab form. And no home truths was written. My auntie knocked out all the truth bits from my childhood and my mother and I allowed it, which was my cop-out, etcetera. There was nothing about orgies and the shit that happened on tour. I wanted a real book to come out, but we all had wives and didn’t want to hurt their feelings. End of that one. Because they still have wives.

The Beatles tours were like the Fellini film “Satyricon.” We had that image. Man, our tours were like something else, if you could get on our tours, you were in. They were “Satyricon,” all right.

Would you go to a town… a hotel…

Wherever we went, there was always a whole scene going, we had our four separate bedrooms. We tried to keep them out of our room. Derek’s and Neil’s rooms were always full of junk and whores and who-the-fuck-knows-what, and policemen with it. “Satyricon!” We had to do something. What do you do when the pill doesn’t wear off and it’s time to go? I used to be up all night with Derek, whether there was anybody there or not, I could never sleep, such a heavy scene it was. They didn’t call them groupies then, they called it something else and if we couldn’t get groupies, we would have whores and everything, whatever was going.

Who would arrange all that stuff?

Derek and Neil, that was their job, and Mal, but I’m not going into all that.

Like businessmen at a convention.

When we hit town, we hit it. There was no pissing about. There’s photographs of me crawling about in Amsterdam on my knees coming out of whore houses and things like that. The police escorted me to the places, because they never wanted a big scandal, you see. I don’t really want to talk about it, because it will hurt Yoko. And it’s not fair. Suffice to say, that they were “Satyricon” on tour and that’s it, because I don’t want to hurt their feelings, or the other people’s girls either. It’s just not fair.

Ono:

I was surprised, I really didn’t know things like that. I thought well, John is an artist, and probably he had two or three affairs before getting married. That is the concept you have in the old school. New York artists group, you know, that kind.

The generation gap.

Right, right, exactly.

Let me ask you about something else that was in the Hunter Davies book. At one point it said you and Brian Epstein went off to Spain.

Yes. We didn’t have an affair though. Fuck knows what was said. I was pretty close to Brian. If somebody is going to manage me, I want to know them inside out. He told me he was a fag.

I hate the way Allen is attacked and Brian is made out to be an angel just because he’s dead. He wasn’t, you know, he was just a guy.

What else was left out of the Hunter Davies book?

That I don’t know, because I can’t remember it. There is a better book on the Beatles by Michael Brown, “Love Me Do.” That was a true book. He wrote how we were, which was bastards. You can’t be anything else in such a pressurized situation and we took it out on people like Neil, Derek and Mal. That’s why underneath their facade, they resent us, but they can never show it, and they won’t believe it when they read it. They took a lot of shit from us, because we were in such a shitty position. It was hard work, and somebody had to take it. Those things are left out by Davies, about what bastards we were. Fuckin’ big bastards, that’s what the Beatles were. You have to be a bastard to make it, that’s a fact, and the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth.

Ono:

How did you manage to keep that clean image? It’s amazing.

Lennon:

Everybody wants the image to carry on. You want to carry on. The press around too, because they want the free drinks and the free whores and the fun; everybody wants to keep on the bandwagon. We were the Caesars; who was going to knock us, when there were a million pounds to be made? All the handouts, the bribery, the police, all the fucking hype. Everybody wanted in, that’s why some of them are still trying to cling on to this: Don’t take Rome from us, not a portable Rome where we can all have our houses and our cars and our lovers and our wives and office girls and parties and drink and drugs, don’t take it from us, otherwise you’re mad, John, you’re crazy, silly John wants to take this all away.

What was it like in the early days in London?

When we came down, we were treated like real provincials by the Londoners. We were in fact, provincials.

What was it like, say, running around London, in the discotheques, with the Stones, and everything?

That was a great period. We were like kings of the jungle then, and we were very close to the Stones. I don’t know how close the others were but I spent a lot of time with Brian and Mick. I admire them, you know. I dug them the first time I saw them in whatever that place is they came from, Richmond. I spent a lot of time with them, and it was great. We all used to just go around London in cars and meet each other and talk about music with the Animals and Eric and all that. It was really a good time, that was the best period, fame-wise. We didn’t get mobbed so much. It was like a men’s smoking club, just a very good scene.

What was Brian Jones like?

Well, he was different over the years as he disintegrated. He ended up the kind of guy that you dread when he would come on the phone, because you knew it was trouble. He was really in a lot of pain. In the early days, he was all right, because he was young and confident. He was one of them guys that disintegrated in front of you. He wasn’t sort of brilliant or anything, he was just a nice guy.

When he died?

By then I didn’t feel anything. I just thought another victim of the drug scene.

What do you think of the Stones today?

I think it’s a lot of hype. I like “Honky Tonk Woman” but I think Mick’s a joke, with all that fag dancing, I always did. I enjoy it, I’ll probably go and see his films and all, like everybody else, but really, I think it’s a joke.

Do you see him much now?

No, I never do see him. We saw a bit of each other around when Allen was first coming in — I think Mick got jealous. I was always very respectful about Mick and the Stones, but he said a lot of sort of tarty things about the Beatles, which I am hurt by, because you know, I can knock the Beatles, but don’t let Mick Jagger knock them. I would like to just list what we did and what the Stones did two months after on every fuckin’ album. Every fuckin’ thing we did, Mick does exactly the same — he imitates us. And I would like one of you fuckin’ underground people to point it out, you know “Satanic Majesties” is Pepper, “We Love You,” it’s the most fuckin’ bullshit, that’s “All You Need Is Love.”

I resent the implication that the Stones are like revolutionaries and that the Beatles weren’t. If the Stones were or are, the Beatles really were too. But they are not in the same class, music-wise or power-wise, never were. I never said anything, I always admired them, because I like their funky music and I like their style. I like rock and roll and the direction they took after they got over trying to imitate us, you know, but he’s even going to do Apple now. He’s going to do the same thing.

He’s obviously so upset by how big the Beatles are compared with him; he never got over it. Now he’s in his old age, and he is beginning to knock us, you know, and he keeps knocking. I resent it, because even his second fuckin’ record we wrote it for him. Mick said “Peace made money.” We didn’t make any money from Peace. You know.

Ono:

We lost money.

When “Sgt. Pepper” came out, did you know that you had put together a great album? Did you feel that while you were making it?

Yeah, yeah and “Rubber Soul,” too, and Revolver.

What did you think of that review in the New York Times of “Sgt. Pepper”?

I don’t remember it. Did it pan it?

Yes.

I don’t remember. In those days reviews weren’t very important, because we had it made whatever happened. Nowadays, I’m as sensitive as shit. But those days, we were too big to touch. I don’t remember the reviews at all, I never read them. We were so blas?©, we never even read the news clippings. It was a bore to read about us. I don’t even remember ever hearing about that review.

They’ve been trying to knock us down since we began, specially the British press, always saying, “What are you going to do when the bubble bursts?” That was the in-crowd joke with us. We’d go when we decided, not when some fickle public decided, because we were not a manufactured group. We knew what we were doing.

Of course, we’ve made many mistakes, but we knew instinctively that it would end when we decided, and not when NBC or ATV decides to take off our series, or anything like that. There were very few things that happened to the Beatles that weren’t really well-thought out by us — whether to do it or not, and what the reaction would be and would it last forever. We had an instinct for something like that.

But you got busted.

Yeah, but there are two ways of thinking: they are out to get us or it just happened that way. After I started Two Virgins and doing those kind of things, it seemed like I was fair game for the police. There was some myth about us being protected because we had an MBE. I don’t think that it was true, it was just that we never did anything. The way Paul said the acid thing… I never got attacked for it, I don’t know whether that was protection, because it was openly admitting that we had drugs. I just think nobody really bothered about us.

Why can’t you be alone without Yoko?

I can be, but I don’t wish to be. There is no reason on earth why I should be without her. There is nothing more important than our relationship, nothing. We dig being together all the time, and both of us could survive apart, but what for? I’m not going to sacrifice love, real love, for any fuckin’ whore, or any friend, or any business, because in the end, you’re alone at night. Neither of us want to be, and you can’t fill the bed with groupies. I don’t want to be a swinger. Like I said in the song, I’ve been through it all, and nothing works better than to have somebody you love hold you.

You said at one point, you have to write songs that can justify your existence.

I said a lot of things. I write songs because that’s the thing I chose to do. And I can’t help writing them, that’s a fact. Sometimes I felt as though you worked to justify your existence, but you don’t; you work to exist, and vice versa, and that’s it, really.

You say you write songs because you can’t help it.

Yeah, creating is a result of pain, too. I have to put it somewhere, and I write songs. But when I was hiding in Weybridge (1968) I used to think I wasn’t working there. I made 20 or 30 movies, just 8mm stuff but still movies, and many, many hours of tape of different sounds, just not rocking. I suppose you would call them avant-grade. That’s how Yoko met me. There were very few people I could play those tapes to, and I played them to her, and then we made Two Virgins a few hours later.

How are you going to keep from going overboard on things again?

I think I’ll be able to control meself. “Control” is the wrong word. I just won’t get involved in too many things, that’s all. I’ll just do whatever happens. It’s silly to feel guilty that I’m not working, that I’m not doing this or that, it’s just stupid. I’m just going to do what I want for meself and for both of us.

You say on your record that “The freaks on the phone won’t leave me alone, so don’t give me that brother, brother.”

Because I’m sick of all these aggressive hippies or whatever they are, the “Now Generation,” being very up-tight with me. Either on the street or anywhere, or on the phone, demanding my attention, as if I owed them something.

I’m not their fucking parents, that’s what it is. They come to the door with a fucking peace symbol and expect to just sort of march around the house or something, like an old Beatle fan. They’re under a delusion of awareness by having long hair, and that’s what I’m sick of. They frighten me, a lot of uptight maniacs going around, wearing fuckin’ peace symbols.

What did you think of Manson and that thing?

I don’t know what I thought when it happened. A lot of the things he says are true: he is a child of the state, made by us, and he took their children it when nobody else would. Of course, he’s cracked all right.

What about “Piggies” and “Helter Skelter”?

He’s balmy, like any other Beatle-kind of fan who reads mysticism into it. We used to have a laugh about this, that or the other, in a light-hearted way, and some intellectual would read us, some symbolic youth generation wants to see something in it. We also took seriously some parts of the role, but I don’t know what “Helter Skelter” has to do with knifing somebody. I’ve never listened to the words, properly, it was just a noise.

Everybody spoke about the backwards thing on “Abbey Road.”

That’s bullshit. I just read that one about Dylan, too. That’s bullshit.

The rumor about Paul being dead?

I don’t know where that started, that’s balmy. You know as much about it as me.

Were any of those things really on the album that were said to be there? The clues?

No. That was bullshit, the whole thing was made up. We wouldn’t do anything like that. We did put in like “tit, tit, tit” in “Girl,” and many things I don’t remember, like a beat missing or something like that could be interpreted like that. Some people have got nothing better to do than study Bibles and make myths about it and study rocks and make stories about how people used to live. It’s just something for them to do. They live vicariously.

Is there a point at which you decided you and Yoko would give up your private life?

No. We decided that if we were going to do anything, like get married or like this film we are going to make now, that we would dedicate it to peace and the concept of peace. During that period, because we are what we are, it evolved that somehow we ended up being responsible to produce peace. Even in our own heads we would get that way. That’s how it is. Peace is still important and my life is dedicated to living — just surviving is what it’s about — really from day to day.

What do you think the effects were?

I don’t know. I can’t measure it. Somebody else has to tell us what the reaction is.

What happened in Denmark? During the Peace Festival scene? There was a doctor.

Hamrick was brought over by Tony, because he said this was a great doctor — he hadn’t mentioned the flying saucers until he was on his way — and he was going to hypnotize us so we would stop smoking.

Ono:

We felt it was very practical.

Lennon:

We thought “great.” Tony said it really worked, because it worked on him and it was easy. So this big guy comes in who seemed to be primaling all the time — he was always crying a lot, and talking — and then he tried it and it didn’t work. He talked like crackers and then he said he would put us back into our past life. We were game for anything then, it’s like going to a fortune teller — so we said all right, do it.

He was mumbling, pretending to hypnotize us; we’re lying there, and he’s making up all of these Walt Disney stories about past lives, which we didn’t believe. But he was such a nice guy in a way. I was more into it then than Yoko; she’s not quite as silly as I am. But I was thinking, “You never know, do you” — I had this thing: believe everything until it is disproved — it came from giving up ciggies and he was going on about how he had been on a space ship, so I said, come on, tell us more, I was suspicious, but I wouldn’t stop the stories coming out. But they were obviously all insane people, and then these other two came with him…. Actually, we went there to talk to Kyoko, and it was really a case of “brothers” and all that.

What do you think rock and roll will become?

Whatever we make it. If we want to go bullshitting off into intellectualism with rock and roll then we are going to get bullshitting rock intellectualism. If we want real rock and roll, it’s up to all of us to create it and stop being hyped by the revolutionary image and long hair. We’ve got to get over that bit. That’s what cutting hair is about. Let’s own up now and see who’s who, who is doing something about what, and who is making music and who is laying down bullshit. Rock and roll will be whatever we make it.

Why do you think it means so much to people?

Because the best stuff is primitive enough and has no bullshit. It gets through to you, it’s beat, go to the jungle and they have the rhythm. It goes throughout the world and it’s as simple as that, you get the rhythm going because everybody goes into it. I read that Eldridge Cleaver said that Blacks gave the middle class whites back their bodies, and put their minds and bodies together. Something like that. It gets through; it got through to me, the only thing to get through to me of all the things that were happening when I was 15. Rock and roll then was real, everything else was unreal. The thing about rock and roll, good rock and roll — whatever good means and all that shit — is that it’s real and realism gets through to you despite yourself. You recognize something in it which is true, like all true art. Whatever art is, readers. OK. If it’s real, it’s simple usually, and if it’s simple, it’s true. Something like that. Rock and roll finally got through to Yoko.

Ono:

Classical music was basically 4-4 and then it went into 4, 3, 2, which is just a waltz rhythm and all of that, but it just went further and further away from the heartbeat. Heartbeat is 4-4. Rhythm became very decorative, like Schoenberg, Webern. It is highly complicated and interesting — our minds are very much like that — but they lost the heartbeat.

I went to see the Beatles’ session in the beginning, and I thought, Oh well. So I said to John, “Why do you always use that beat all the time? The same beat, why don’t you do something a bit more complicated?

Lennon:

If somebody starts playing that intellectual on me, I’m going to start thinking. I’m a very shy person; if somebody attacks, I shrink. Yoko is an intellectual, a supreme intellectual, so I really know what I’m talking about; they have to have sort of a math formula.

You feel basically the same way about rock and roll at 30 as you did at 15.

Well, it will never be as new and it will never again do what it did to me then, but like “Tutti Fruitti” or “Long Tall Sally” is pretty avant garde. A friend of Yoko’s in the village was talking about Dylan and “the One Note” as though he just discovered it. That’s about as far out as you can get.

The Blues are beautiful because it’s simpler and because it’s real. It’s not perverted or thought about: It’s not a concept, it is a chair; not a design for a chair but the first chair. The chair is for sitting on, not for looking at or being appreciated. You sit on that music.

How would you describe “Beatle music”?

It means a lot of things. There is not one thing that’s Beatle music. How can they talk about it like that? What is Beatle music? “Walrus” or “Penny Lane?” Which? It’s too diverse: “I Want to Hold Your Hand” or “Revolution Number Nine?”

What was it in your music that turned everyone on at first? Why was it so infectious?

We didn’t sound like everybody else. We didn’t sound like the black musicians because we weren’t black and we were brought up on an entirely different type of music and atmosphere. So “Please, Please Me” and “From Me To You” and all of those were our version of the chair. We were building our own chairs, that’s all, and they were sort of local chairs.

The first gimmick was the harmonica. There had been “Hey, Baby” with a harmonica and there was a terrible thing called “I Remember You” in England. All of a sudden we started using it on “Love Me Do.” The first set of tricks was double tracking on the second album. I would love to remix some of the early stuff, because it is better than it sounds.

What do you think of those concerts like the Hollywood Bowl?

It was awful, I hated it. Some of them were good, but I didn’t like Hollywood Bowl. Some of those big gigs were good, but not many of them.<

In an interview with Jon Cott a year or so ago, you said something about your favorite song being “Ticket to Ride.”

Yeah, I liked it because it was a slightly new sound at the time. But it’s not my favorite song.

In what way was it new?

It was pretty fuckin’ heavy for then. It’s a heavy record, that’s why I like it. I used to like guitars.

In “Glass Onion” you say, “The Walrus is Paul,” yet in the new album you admit that you were the Walrus.

“I Am the Walrus” was originally the B side of “Hello Goodbye”! I was still in my love cloud with Yoko and I thought, well, I’ll just say something nice to Paul: “It’s all right, you did a good job over these few years, holding us together.” He was trying to organize the group, and organize the music, and be an individual and all that, so I wanted to thank him. I said “the Walrus is Paul” for that reason. I felt, “Well, he can have it. I’ve got Yoko, and thank you, you can have the credit.”

But now I’m sick of reading things that say Paul is the musician and George is the philosopher. I wonder where I fit in, what was my contribution? I get hurt, you know, sick of it. I’d sooner be Zappa and say, “Listen, you fuckers, this is what I did, and I don’t care whether you like my attitude saying it.” That’s what I am, you know, I’m a fucking artist, and I’m not a fucking P.R. Agent or the product of some other person’s imagination. Whether you’re the public or whatever, I’m standing by my work whereas before I would not stand by it.

That’s what I’m saying: I was the Walrus, whatever that means. We saw the movie “Alice in Wonderland” in L.A. and the Walrus is a big capitalist that ate all the fuckin’ oysters. If you must know, that’s what he was even though I didn’t remember this when I wrote it.

What did you think of “Abbey Road”?

I liked the “A” side but I never liked that sort of pop opera on the other side. I think it’s junk because it was just bits of songs thrown together. “Come Together” is all right, that’s all I remember. That was my song. It was a competent album, like “Rubber Soul.” It was together in that way, but “Abbey Road” had no life in it.

What was it like recording “Instant Karma” with Phil? It was the first thing you did together.

It was great. I wrote it in the morning on the piano. I went to the office and sang it many times. So I said “Hell, let’s do it,” and we booked the studio, and Phil came in, and said, “How do you want it?” I said, “You know, 1950’s.” He said, “right,” and boom, I did it in about three goes or something like that. I went in and he played it back and there it was. The only argument was that I said a bit more bass, that’s all; and off we went.

You see Phil is great at that; he doesn’t fuss about with fuckin’ stereo or all the bullshit. Does it sound all right? Then let’s have it, no matter whether something’s prominent or not prominent. If it sounds good to you as a layman or a human, take it, don’t bother whether this is like that or the quality of this, just take it.

When did you first become aware of the idea of stereo, being able to work with stereo?

Oh, some time or other. There was a period when we started realizing that you could go and remix it yourself. We started listening to them and started saying, “Well, why can’t you do that?” We’d be just standing by the board saying, “Well, what about that?” And George Martin would say, “Well, how do you like this?” In the early days, they just would present us with finished product. We would ask what happened to the bass or something. And they would say “oh, that’s how it is, you can’t…” That kind of thing. It must have been a gradual thing.

What do you think of “Give Peace A Chance?”

As a record?

Yes.

The record was beautiful.

Did you ever see Moratorium Day in Washington, D.C.?

That is what it is for, you know. I remember hearing them all sing it — I don’t know whether it was on the radio or TV — it was a very big moment for me. That’s what the song was about.

You see, I’m shy and aggressive so I have great hopes for what I do with my work and I also have great despair that it’s all pointless and it’s shit. You know, how can you beat Beethoven or Shakespeare or whatever? In me secret heart I wanted to write something that would take over “We Shall Overcome.” I don’t know why. The one they always sang, and I thought, “Why doesn’t somebody write something for the people now, that’s what my job and our job is.”

I have the same kind of hope for “Working Class Hero.” It’s a different concept, but I feel it’s a revolutionary song.

In what respect?

It’s really just revolutionary. I think its concept is revolutionary, and I hope it’s for workers and not for tarts and fags. I hope it’s what “Give Peace A Chance” was about, but I don’t know. On the other hand, it might just be ignored.

I think it’s for the people like me who are working class — whatever, upper or lower — who are supposed to be processed into the middle classes, through the machinery, that’s all. It’s my experience, and I hope it’s just a warning to people. I’m saying it’s a revolutionary song; not the song itself but that it’s a song for the revolution.

[Here we took a break, during which John and Allen Klein went out to discuss the possibility of a single. We began talking again, alone with Yoko, about that.]

Do you have a feeling for a Number One record?

I keep thinking “Mother” is a commercial record, because all the time I was writing it, it was the one I was singing the most, it’s the one that seemed to catch on in my head. I’m convinced that “Mother” is a commercial record.

I agree.

You agree? Well, thank you, but you said “God.”

No, I didn’t.

They’re all playing “God” or “Isolation.”

Well, you’re right about “Mother” because it’s the one I have in my head most of the time.

It’s the politics in it, too. Politics will prepare the ground for my album, same as “My Sweet Lord” prepared the ground for George’s. I’m not going to get hits just like that; people are not just going to buy my album just because Rolling Stone liked it, or because they’re going to play it tonight, or because Pete’s a good pusher. People have got to be hyped in a way, they’ve got to have it presented to them in all the best ways that are possible. Maybe “Love” is the best way. I like the song “Love”; I like the melody and the words and everything, I think its beautiful, but I’m more of a rocker. I originally conceived of “Mother” and “Love” as being a single, but now, I think that “Mother” is too heavy. Maybe Allen’s right. “Love” will do me more good.

I don’t think so. I think “trust your own instinct.” The thing with “Mother” is that’s what the album’s about. What will stay in your head the longest?

I’m opening a door for John Lennon, not for music or for the Beatles or for anybody or anything.

Capitol is now trying to say that this is John Lennon, one of the Beatles and therefore, it’s a different deal. When they were on the McCartney bandwagon, which they were on, and they thought that I was just an idiot pissing about with a Japanese broad, they didn’t want to put out the music we were making like “Toronto” because they didn’t like the idea. They were content to let me be a “Plastic Ono Band” and give me a special release I have to get, because the Beatles are tied up as Beatles.

What are the implications?

The implications are all money — all of it is money, man. They’ve been hinting around, they’ve been saying “Well, now, this looks like a John Lennon album, not Plastic Ono,” well, to me it’s Plastic Ono or I wouldn’t put it out like that.

I’m going to think about “Love.” The original feeling was that there weren’t enough things on the album to put out a single, only ten songs, only nine if you don’t count “Mummy” and that means there’s nothing to buy then. To me, it sounds like there are 40 songs on there. There’s that side of the market and I’m not going to disregard it.

I mean to sell as many albums as I can, because I’m an artist who wants everybody to love me, and everybody to buy my stuff. I’ll go for that.

There is no great shakes to the idea of putting out something that’s commercial to get people to buy the album; the question is which is most commercial, “Love” or “Mother”?

How quick do you get to Number One? The thing is “Love” would attract more people, because of the message, man! There are many, many people who would not like “Mother.” It hurts them. The first thing that happens to you when you get the album is you can’t take it. Everybody’s reacted exactly the same. They think “fuck.” That’s how everybody is. The second time they start saying oh, there’s a little… So if I laid “Mother” on them it confirms the suspicion that something nasty is going on with that John Lennon and his broad again.

People aren’t that hip; students aren’t that aware; they’re just like anybody else. “Oh, misery! Don’t tell me that’s what it’s about, its really awful. Be a good boy, now, John, you had a hard time, but me, me and my mother…” So there’s all that to go through. “Love” I wrote in a spirit of love for Yoko, and it has all that. It’s a beautiful melody, and I’m not even known for writing melody. You’ve got to think of that. If it goes, it’ll do me good.

Did you write most of the stuff in this album on guitar or on piano?

The ones on which I play guitar, I wrote on guitar; the ones on which I play piano, I wrote on piano.

What are the differences to you when you write them?

Because I can play the piano even worse than I play the guitar — a limited palette, as they call it — I surprise myself. I have to think in terms of going from “C” to “A”, and I’m not quite sure where I am half the time. When I’m holding a chord on the guitar it’s only a sixth or seventh or something like that; on the piano, I don’t know what it is. It’s got that kind of feel about it. I know such a lot about the guitar, that with it I can be buskin’; if I want to write just a rocker, I have to play guitar, because I can’t play piano well enough to inspire me to rock. That’s the difference, really.

What do you think are your best songs that you have written?

Ever? The one best song?

Have you ever thought of that?

I don’t know. If somebody asked me what is my favorite song, is it “Stardust” or something, I can’t answer. That kind of decision-making I can’t do. I always liked “Walrus,” “Strawberry Fields,” “Help,” “In My Life,” those are some favorites.

Why “Help”?

Because I meant it — it’s real. The lyric is as good now as it was then. It is no different, and it makes me feel secure to know that I was that aware of myself then. It was just me singing “Help” and I meant it.

I don’t like the recording that much; we did it too fast trying to be commercial. I like “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” We wrote that together, it’s a beautiful melody. I might do “I Want To Hold Your Hand” and “Help” again, because I like them and I can sing them. “Strawberry Fields” because it’s real, real for then, and I think it’s like talking, “You know, I sometimes think no…” It’s like he talks to himself, sort of singing, which I thought was nice.

I like “Across the Universe,” too. It’s one of the best lyrics I’ve written. In fact, it could be the best. It’s good poetry, or whatever you call it, without chewin’ it. See, the ones I like are the ones that stand as words, without melody. They don’t have to have any melody, like a poem, you can read them.

That’s your ultimate criterion?

No, that’s just the ones I happen to like. I like to read other people’s lyrics too.

So what happened with “Let It Be”?

It was another one like “Magical Mystery Tour.” In a nutshell, it was time for another Beatle movie or something; Paul wanted us to go on the road or do something. He sort of set it up, and there were discussions about where to go, and all of that. I had Yoko by them, and I would just tag along. I was stoned all the time and I just didn’t give a shit. Nobody did. It was just like it was in the movie; when I got to do “Across the Universe” (which I wanted to rerecord because the original wasn’t very good), Paul yawns and plays boogie. I merely say, “Anyone want to do a fast one?” That’s how I am. Year after year, that begins to wear you down.

How long did those sessions last?

Oh, fuckin’ God knows how long. Paul had this idea that he was going to rehearse us. He’s looking for perfection all the time, and had these ideas that we would rehearse and then make the album. We, being lazy fuckers — and we’d been playing for 20 years! We’re grown men, for fuck’s sake, and we’re not going to sit around and rehearse, I’m not, anyway — we couldn’t get into it.

We put down a few tracks, and nobody was in it at all. It just was a dreadful, dreadful feeling in Twickenham Studio, being filmed all the time, I just wanted them to go away. We’d be there at eight in the morning. You couldn’t make music at eight in the morning in a strange place, with people filming you, and colored lights flashing.

So how did it end?

The tape ended up like the bootleg version. We didn’t want to know about it anymore, so we just left it to Glyn Johns and said, “Here, mix it.” That was the first time since the first album that we didn’t want to have anything to do with it. None of us could be bothered going in. Nobody called anybody about it, and the tapes were left there. Glyn Johns did it. We got an acetate in the mail and we called each other and said, “What do you think?”

We were going to let it out in really shitty condition. I didn’t care. I thought it was good to let it out and show people what had happened to us, we can’t get it together; we don’t play together any more; you know, leave us alone. The bootleg version is what it was like, and everyone was probably thinking they’re not going to fucking work on it. There were 29 hours of tape, so much that it was like a movie. Twenty takes of everything, because we were rehearsing and taking everything. Nobody could face looking at it.

When Spector came around, we said, “Well, if you want to work with us, go and do your audition.” He worked like a pig on it. He always wanted to work with the Beatles, and he was given the shittiest load of badly recorded shit, with a lousy feeling toward it, ever. And he made something out of it. He did a great job.

When I heard it, I didn’t puke; I was so relieved after six months of this black cloud hanging over me that this was going to go out.

I had thought it would be good to let the shitty version out because it would break the Beatles, break the myth. It would be just us, with no trousers on and no glossy paint over the cover, and no hype: This is what we are like with our trousers off, would you please end the game now?

But that didn’t happen. We ended up doing “Abbey Road” quickly, and putting out something slick to preserve the myth. I am weak as well as strong, you know, and I wasn’t going to fight for “Let It Be” because I really couldn’t stand it.

Finally, when “Let It Be” was going to be released, Paul wanted to bring out his album.

There were so many clashes. It did come out at the same time or something, didn’t it? I think he wanted to show he was the Beatles.

Were you surprised when you heard it, at what he had done?

Very. I expected just a little more. If Paul and I are sort of disagreeing, and I feel weak, I think he must feel strong, you know, that’s in an argument. Not that we’ve had much physical argument, you know.

What do you think Paul will think of your album?

I think it’ll probably scare him into doing something decent, and then he’ll scare me into doing something decent, like that.

I think he’s capable of great work and I think he will do it. I wish he wouldn’t, you know, I wish nobody would, Dylan or anybody. In me heart of hearts, I wish I was the only one in the world or whatever it is. But I can’t see Paul doing it twice.

What was it like to go on tour? You had cripples coming up to you.

That was our version of what was happening. People were sort of touching us as we walked past, that kind of thing. Wherever we went we were supposed to be not like normal and we were supposed to put up with all sorts of shit from Lord Mayors and their wives, be touched and pawed like “Hard Day’s Night,” only a million more times, like at the American Embassy or the British Embassy in Washington here or wherever it was when some bloody animal cut Ringo’s hair. I walked out of that, swearing at all of them. I’d forgotten but you tripped me off into that one. What was the question?

The cripples.

Wherever we went on tour, in Britain and everywhere we went, there were always a few seats laid aside for cripples and people in wheelchairs. Because we were famous, we were supposed to have epileptics and whatever they are in our dressing room all the time. We were supposed to be sort of “good,” and really you wanted to be alone. You don’t know what to say, because they’re usually saying “I’ve got your record” or they can’t speak and just want to touch you. It’s always the mother or the nurse pushing them on you, they themselves would just say hello and go away, but the mothers would push them at you like you were Christ or something, as if there were some aura about you which would rub off on them. It just got to be like that and we were very sort of callous about it. It was just dreadful: you would open up every night, and instead of seeing kids there, you would just see a row full of cripples along the front. It seemed that we were just surrounded by cripples and blind people all the time, and when we would go through corridors, they would be all touching us and things like that. It was horrifying.

You must have been still fairly young and naive at that point.

Yeah, well, as naive as “In His Own Write.”

Surely that must have made you think for a second.

Well, I mean we knew what the game was.

It didn’t astound you at that point, that you were supposed to be able to make the lame walk and the blind see?

It was the “in” joke that we were supposed to cure them; it was the kind of thing that we would say, because it was a cruel thing to say. We felt sorry for them, anybody would, but there is a kind of embarrassment when you’re surrounded by blind, deaf and crippled people. There is only so much we could say, you know, with the pressure on us, to do and to perform.

The bigger we got, the more unreality we had to face; the more we were expected to do until, when you didn’t sort of shake hands with a Mayor’s wife, she would start abusing you and screaming and saying “How dare they?”

There is one of Derek’s stories in which we were asleep after the show in the hotel somewhere in America, and the Mayor’s wife comes and says, “Get them up, I want to meet them.” Derek said, “I’m not going to wake them.” She started to scream, “You get them up or I’ll tell the press.” There was always that — they were always threatening that they would tell the press about us, if we didn’t see their bloody daughter with her braces on her teeth. It was always the police chief’s daughter or the Lord Mayor’s daughter, all the most obnoxious kids — because they had the most obnoxious parents — that we were forced to see all the time. We had these people thrust on us.

The most humiliating experiences were like sitting with the Mayor of the Bahamas, when we were making “Help” and being insulted by these fuckin’ junked up middle-class bitches and bastards who would be commenting on our work and commenting on our manners. I was always drunk, insulting them. I couldn’t take it. It would hurt me. I would go insane, swearing at them. I would do something. I couldn’t take it.

All that business was awful, it was a fuckin’ humiliation. One has to completely humiliate oneself to be what the Beatles were, and that’s what I resent. I didn’t know, I didn’t foresee. It 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 in 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.