Playboy Interview 1980
Page 16
Yoko: Or read the newspaper or
magazines or watch TV? No.
Playboy: The inevitable question, John. Do you listen to your records?
John: Least of all my own.
Playboy: Even your classics?
John: Are you kidding? For pleasure, I would never listen to them. When I hear
them, I just think of the session - it's like an actor watching himself in an
old movie. When I hear a song, I remember the Abbey Road studio, the session,
who fought with whom, where I was sitting, banging the tambourine in the
corner...
Yoko: In fact, we really don't enjoy listening to other people's work much. We
sort of analyze everything we hear.
Playboy: Yoko, were you a Beatles fan?
Yoko: No. Now I notice the songs, of course. In a restaurant, John will point
out, "Ahh, they're playing George" or something.
Playboy: John, do you ever go out to hear music?
John: No, I'm not interested. I'm not a fan, you see. I might like Jerry Lee
Lewis singing "A Whole Lot a Shakin'" on the record, but I'm not
interested in seeing him perform it.
Playboy: Your songs are performed more than most other songwriters'. How does
that feel?
John: I'm always proud and pleased when people do my songs. It gives me pleasure
that they even attempt them, because a lot of my songs aren't that doable. I go
to restaurants and the groups always play "Yesterday." I even signed a
guy's violin in Spain after he played us "Yesterday." He couldn't
understand that I didn't write the song. But I guess he couldn't have gone from
table to table playing "I am the Walrus."
Playboy: How does it feel to have influenced so many people?
John: It wasn't really me or us. It was the times. It happened to me when I
heard rock 'n' roll in the Fifties. I had no idea about doing music as a way of
life until rock 'n' roll hit me.
Playboy: Do you recall what specifically hit you?
John: It was "Rock Around the Clock," I think. I enjoyed Bill Haley,
but I wasn't overwhelmed by him. It wasn't until "Heartbreak Hotel"
that I really got into it.
Yoko: I am sure there are people whose lives were affected because they heard
Indian music or Mozart or Bach. More than anything, it was the time and the
place when the Beatles came up. Something did happen there. It was a kind of
chemical. It was as if several people gathered around a table and a ghost
appeared. It was that kind of communication. So they were like mediums, in a
way. It's not something you can force. It was the people, the time, their youth
and enthusiasm.
Playboy: For the sake of argument, we'll maintain that no other contemporary
artist or group of artists moved as many people in such a profound way as the
Beatles.
John: But what moved the Beatles?
Playboy: You tell us.
John: All right. Whatever wind was blowing at the time moved the Beatles, too.
I'm not saying we weren't flags on the top of a ship; but the whole boat was
moving. Maybe the Beatles were in the crow's-nest, shouting, "Land
ho," or something like that, but we were all in the same damn boat.
Yoko: The Beatles themselves were a social phenomenon not that aware of what
they were doing. In a way...
John: [Under his breath] This Beatles talk bores me to death.
Yoko: As I said, they were like mediums. They weren't conscious of all they were
saying, but it was coming through them.
Playboy: Why?
John: We tuned in to the message. That's all. I don't mean to belittle the
Beatles when I say they weren't this, they weren't that. I'm just trying not to
overblow their importance as separate from society. And I don't think they were
more important than Glenn Miller or Woody Herman or Bessie Smith. It was our
generation, that's all. It was Sixties music.
Playboy: What do you say to those who insist that all rock since the Beatles has
been the Beatles redone?
John: All music is rehash. There are only a few notes. Just variations on a
theme. Try to tell the kids in the Seventies who were screaming to the Bee Gees
that their music was just the Beatles redone. There is nothing wrong with the
Bee Gees. They do a damn good job. There was nothing else going on then.
Playboy: Wasn't a lot of the Beatles' music at least more intelligent?
John: The Beatles were more intellectual, so they appealed on that level, too.
But the basic appeal of the Beatles was not their intelligence. It was their
music. It was only after some guy in the "London Times" said there
were Aeolian cadences in "It Won't Be Long" that the middle classes
started listening to it - because somebody put a tag on it.
Playboy: Did you put Aeolian cadences in "It Won't Be Long?"
John: To this day, I don't have any idea what they are. They sound like exotic
birds.
Playboy: How did you react to the misinterpretations of your songs?
John: For instance?
Playboy: The most obvious is the "Paul is dead" fiasco. You already
explained the line in "Glass Onion." What about the line in "I am
the Walrus" - "I buried Paul"?
John: I said "Cranberry sauce." That's all I said. Some people like
ping-pong, other people like digging over graves. Some people will do anything
rather than be here now.
Playboy: What about the chant at the end of the song: "Smoke pot, smoke
pot, everybody smoke pot"?
John: No, no, no. I had this whole choir saying, "Everybody's got one,
everybody's got one." But when you get 30 people, male and female, on top
of 30 cellos and on top of the Beatles' rock-'n'-roll rhythm section, you can't
hear what they're saying.
Playboy: What does "everybody got"?
John: Anything. You name it. One penis, one vagina, one asshole - you name it.