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Post by lucy on Dec 4, 2012 12:10:41 GMT -5
Most certainly Elvis in Germany had a great deal to do with brainwashing and the significance in the difference in Elvis' appearance AND public image after returning from the "service". Elvis came out as a "rock-a-billy" type of performer and style that came from the "Sun" session, which may be a play on paganism "sun" worship and Sam Philips being a low level programmer, though I had not addressed that particular area and "sound" as being part of some bigger "thing". However it has come to my recent research that Theo Adorno had been experimenting in Germany with young children through music and he was sent to England and lived under the covering of the Windsors. This came from Dr. John Coleman, though I didn't research him at this time, but basically was listening to some of what he had to say on some radio program via YouTube. I mention Dr. Coleman's name, but I am not saying at this time I wholeheartedly subscribe to what he's written about or has spoken in public. I'm scratching the surface on anything about this particular man. He wrote a book about the Committee of 3oo, and he's not the first person I had discovered that "group" to research. So I don't know if he's really an exposer of these hidden things or a disinfo agent. So I am not mentioning him as a reliable source at this time, but if someone would like to further research or look into some of his writings or discources on the subject of mind control and Tavistock. We have discussed Tavistock, Theo Adorno and most definitely mind control here all the time. But Dr. Coleman has not been the subject, but perhaps one of our members can see if there's any credibility to this man for themselves. When I have time permitting, I may be doing that as well. The forum I was referring to was not clearly PID, but a firm believer that Paul was replaced. Some posters believe Paul's still alive somewhere "out there"...but I'm certainly not of that. I don't know if most of the people involved with this particular forum are of the mindset that the other Beatles had been replaced as well. So if they only feel that Paul had been replaced, much of what we discuss would be thrown out, because the others' being replaced would contribute to mind control and something significant about Hamburg, Germany, or that they were even in Hamburg, and that is just a "story" to cover up the fact that while in "Germany" they were being set up. Now it had been some time ago researching that Hamburg itself was a mind control center and I didn't come up with anything to support that, but also not saying that it wasn't. It's just not addressed. Which doesn't mean that it isn't true, but it's just not displayed for others to read. But Hamburg being a rough place much like Liverpool, would make it sound like a great place to go to "play", but again, why would they have to go to Germany to perform in "red light" districts??? Seriously, I'm sure there were enough "seedy" places in Liverpool itself, but also other seaport areas of Great Britain, as well as "red light" areas in places such as London...duh... Why were they in Germany, that's the thing that needs to be addressed? There couldn't be all night "gigs" in England?
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Post by lucy on Dec 4, 2012 12:28:29 GMT -5
I did a quickie google on military and "De-briefing" and Germany and different cities came up such as Heidelberg, and where the illuminati was "born" in Bavaria... It's little surprise that the military and Germany are linked as places for "debriefing".....and that Tavistock itself was headed by a German psychologist. duh....no surprise there. So connect the dots, military mind control used to handle their "soldiers" as well as a good experiment on the general population through entertainment and other "media'...little wonder if they would mind control their puppets in the fine are of "entertainment"? I'll let the reader determine for themselves if there was not more to "Germany" than just a place to perform.... What made Brian Epstein some person of influence on the music scene, what qualified a record store owner, so they say, to be a "manager" for a group? And who or what made George Martin so influential in the recording studio? Pete Best was supposedly replaced by Ringo because he wasn't a good enough drummer, but if history bears record of itself, the original "Ringo" was not that talented of a drummer, you look at vintage footage of what was supposed to be the Beatles during the mop top era, and he's not that great, and he only had, what 3 drums to his kit??? He wasn't that great, the drummer in the latter era of "Beatles" post 66, was better, but was that really "Fingo", or some session musician? ? I never really understood how much of a better drummer Ringo to Best...to me they seemed about the same, average, not great, but okay for the "sound" they needed at that time. As they got more complex, then a better drummer required, whether it was Fingo's actual ability or again, a session drummer, I don't know, but in the later years, the drumming was much better. But the personality of RIngo to "Fingo" the latter was not a charming as Ringo..
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Post by beatlies on Dec 4, 2012 21:08:47 GMT -5
Another piece of the puzzle: Yoko Ono's younger sister, and Fohn Fennon sister-in-law, Setsuko Ono, who is virtually never discussed in the media, or literature about Lennon/Fennon or the Beatles. Setsuko Ono is also an artist, like Yoko, and has settled in the United States. She is mentioned briefly in the book "Dakota Days" (1983) by John Green (real name?), who had been Yoko's tarot card reader and occult advisor. Setsuko was also a big wheel at the World Bank of the United Nations, which is quite interesting and probably a terrible conflict of interest, given her family's founding and ownership of the enormous, Axis war criminal Yasuda Bank, which post-war became Fuji Bank, and was then renamed Mizuho Holdings, the world's largest bank. Setsuko Ono is said by John Green to have married a white, Western diplomat. He does not name the diplomat, nor his country, and I have so far been unable to find it. Like Yoko, sister Setsuko profiles as a spy, a high-level covert operative. www.setsuko-ono.com/about/images/Setsuko_cv.pdfSetsuko's web site: www.setsuko-ono.comSetsuko Ono with Fidel Castro Photo of Setsuke and her steel sculpture, the Baltimore SunA younger Setsuko Setsuko's resemblance to Yoko is more apparent in this photo
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Post by beatlies on Dec 4, 2012 22:27:13 GMT -5
[1980] Playboy Interview: John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Continued
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"Yoko was playing Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' on the piano. Suddenly, I said, 'Can you play that backward?' Then I wrote 'Because.'"
Photography by Tom Zuk
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ONO: John and I got together and I separated from my ex-husband [Tony Cox]. He took Kyoko away. It became a case of parent kidnaping and we tried to get her back.
LENNON: It was a classic case of men being macho. It turned into me and Allen Klein trying to dominate Tony Cox. Tony's attitude was, "You got my wife, but you won't get my child." In this battle, Yoko and the child were absolutely forgotten. I've always felt bad about it. It became a case of the shoot-out at the O.K. Corral: Cox fled to the hills and hid out and the sheriff and I tracked him down. First we won custody in court. Yoko didn't want to go to court, but the men, Klein and I, did it anyway.
ONO: Allen called up one day, saying I won the court case. He gave me a piece of paper. I said, "What is this piece of paper? Is this what I won? I don't have my child." I knew that taking them to court would frighten them and, of course, it did frighten them. So Tony vanished. He was very strong, thinking that the capitalists, with their money and lawyers and detectives, were pursuing him. It made him stronger.
LENNON: We chased him all over the world. God knows where he went. So if you're reading this, Tony, let's grow up about it. It's gone. We don't want to chase you anymore, because we've done enough damage.
ONO: We also had private detectives chasing Kyoko, which I thought was a bad trip, too. One guy came to report, "It was great! We almost had them. We were just behind them in a car, but they sped up and got away." I went hysterical. "What do you mean you almost got them? We are talking about my child!"
LENNON: It was like we were after an escaped convict.
PLAYBOY: Were you so persistent because you felt you were better for Kyoko?
LENNON: Yoko got steamed into a guilt thing that if she wasn't attacking them with detectives and police and the FBI, then she wasn't a good mother looking for her baby. She kept saying, "Leave them alone, leave them alone," but they said you can't do that.
ONO: For me, it was like they just disappeared from my life. Part of me left with them.
PLAYBOY: How old is she now?
ONO: Seventeen, the same as John's son.
PLAYBOY: Perhaps when she gets older, she'll seek you out.
ONO: She is totally frightened. There was a time in Spain when a lawyer and John thought that we should kidnap her.
LENNON: [Sighing] I was just going to commit hara-kiri first.
ONO: And we did kidnap her and went to court. The court did a very sensible thing -- the judge took her into a room and asked her which one of us she wanted to go with. Of course, she said Tony. We had scared her to death. So now she must be afraid that if she comes to see me, she'll never see her father again.
LENNON: When she gets to be in her 20s, she'll understand that we were idiots and we know we were idiots. She might give us a chance.
ONO: I probably would have lost Kyoko even if it wasn't for John. If I had separated from Tony, there would have been some difficulty.
LENNON: I'll just half-kill myself.
ONO: [To John] Part of the reason things got so bad was because with Kyoko, it was you and Tony dealing. Men. With your son Julian, it was women -- there was more understanding between me and Cyn.
PLAYBOY: Can you explain that?
ONO: For example, there was a birthday party that Kyoko had and we were both invited, but John felt very uptight about it and he didn't go. He wouldn't deal with Tony. But we were both invited to Julian's party and we both went.
LENNON: Oh, God, it's all coming out.
ONO: Or like when I was invited to Tony's place alone, I couldn't go; but when John was invited to Cyn's, he did go.
LENNON: One rule for the men, one for the women.
ONO: So it was easier for Julian, because I was allowing it to happen.
LENNON: But I've said a million Hail Marys. What the hell else can I do?
PLAYBOY: Yoko, after this experience, how do you feel about leaving Sean's rearing to John?
ONO: I am very clear about my emotions in that area. I don't feel guilty. I am doing it in my own way. It may not be the same as other mothers, but I'm doing it the way I can do it. In general, mothers have a very strong resentment toward their children, even though there's this whole adulation about motherhood and how mothers really think about their children and how they really love them. I mean, they do, but it is not humanly possible to retain emotion that mothers are supposed to have within this society. Women are just too stretched out in different directions to retain that emotion. Too much is required of them. So I say to John----
LENNON: I am her favorite husband----
ONO: "I am carrying the baby nine months and that is enough, so you take care of it afterward." It did sound like a crude remark, but I really believe that children belong to the society. If a mother carries the child and a father raises it, the responsibility is shared.
PLAYBOY: Did you resent having to take so much responsibility, John?
LENNON: Well, sometimes, you know, she'd come home and say, "I'm tired." I'd say, only partly tongue in cheek, "What the f**k do you think I am? I'm 24 hours with the baby! Do you think that's easy?" I'd say, "You're going to take some more interest in the child." I don't care whether it's a father or a mother. When I'm going on about pimples and bones and which TV shows to let him watch, I would say, "Listen, this is important. I don't want to hear about your $20,000,000 deal tonight!" [To Yoko] I would like both parents to take care of the children, but how is a different matter.
ONO: Society should be more supportive and understanding.
LENNON: It's true. The saying "You've come a long way, baby" applies more to me than to her. As Harry Nilsson says, "Everything is the opposite of what it is, isn't it?" It's men who've come a long way from even contemplating the idea of equality. But although there is this thing called the women's movement, society just took a laxative and they've just farted. They haven't really had a good sh*t yet. The seed was planted sometime in the late Sixties, right? But the real changes are coming. I am the one who has come a long way. I was the pig. And it is a relief not to be a pig. The pressures of being a pig were enormous.
I don't have any hankering to be looked upon as a sex object, a male, macho rock-'n'-roll singer. I got over that a long time ago. I'm not even interested in projecting that. So I like it to be known that, yes, I looked after the baby and I made bread and I was a househusband and I am proud of it. It's the wave of the future and I'm glad to be in on the forefront of that, too.
ONO: So maybe both of us learned a lot about how men and women suffer because of the social structure. And the only way to change it is to be aware of it. It sounds simple, but important things are simple.
PLAYBOY: John, does it take actually reversing roles with women to understand?
LENNON: It did for this man. But don't forget, I'm the one who benefited the most from doing it. Now I can step back and say Sean is going to be five years old and I was able to spend his first five years with him and I am very proud of that. And come to think of it, it looks like I'm going to be 40 and life begins at 40 -- so they promise. And I believe it, too. I feel fine and I'm very excited. It's like, you know, hitting 21, like, "Wow, what's going to happen next?" Only this time we're together.
ONO: If two are gathered together, there's nothing you can't do.
PLAYBOY: What does the title of your new album, "Double Fantasy," mean?
LENNON: It's a flower, a type of freesia, but what it means to us is that if two people picture the same image at the same time, that is the secret. You can be together but projecting two different images and either whoever's the stronger at the time will get his or her fantasy fulfilled or you will get nothing but mishmash.
PLAYBOY: You saw the news item that said you were putting your sex fantasies out as an album.
LENNON: Oh, yeah. That is like when we did the bed-in in Toronto in [ALERT: FENNON WRONG MEMORY GIVEAWAY HERE---THE BED-IN WAS IN MONTREAL , NOT TORONTO!---beatlies]. They all came charging through the door, thinking we were going to be screwing in bed. Of course, we were just sitting there with peace signs.
PLAYBOY: What was that famous bed-in all about?
LENNON: Our life is our art. That's what the bed-ins were. When we got married, we knew our honeymoon was going to be public, anyway, so we decided to use it to make a statement. We sat in bed and talked to reporters for seven days. It was hilarious. In effect, we were doing a commercial for peace on the front page of the papers instead of a commercial for war.
PLAYBOY: You stayed in bed and talked about peace?
LENNON: Yes. We answered questions. One guy kept going over the point about Hitler: "What do you do about Fascists? How can you have peace when you've got a Hitler?" Yoko said, "I would have gone to bed with him." She said she'd have needed only ten days with him. People loved that one.
ONO: I said it facetiously, of course. But the point is, you're not going to change the world by fighting. Maybe I was naive about the ten days with Hitler. After all, it took 13 years with John Lennon. [She giggles]
PLAYBOY: What were the reports about your making love in a bag?
ONO: We never made love in a bag. People probably imagined that we were making love. It was just, all of us are in a bag, you know. The point was the outline of the bag, you know, the movement of the bag, how much we see of a person, you know. But, inside, there might be a lot going on. Or maybe nothing's going on.
PLAYBOY: Briefly, what about the statement on the new album?
LENNON: Very briefly, it's about very ordinary things between two people. The lyrics are direct. Simple and straight. I went through my Dylanesque period a long time ago with songs like "I am the Walrus:" the trick of never saying what you mean but giving the impression of something more. Where more or less can be read into it. It's a good game.
PLAYBOY: What are your musical preferences these days?
LENNON: Well, I like all music, depending on what time of day it is. I don't like styles of music or people per se. I can't say I enjoy the Pretenders, but I like their hit record. I enjoy the B-52s, because I heard them doing Yoko. It's great. If Yoko ever goes back to her old sound, they'll be saying, "Yeah, she's copying the B-52s."
ONO: We were doing a lot of the punk stuff a long time ago.
PLAYBOY: Lennon and Ono, the original punks.
ONO: You're right.
PLAYBOY: John, what's your opinion of the newer waves?
LENNON: I love all this punky stuff. It's pure. I'm not, however, crazy about the people who destroy themselves.
PLAYBOY: You disagree with Neil Young's lyric in "Rust Never Sleeps" -- "It's better to burn out than to fade away...."
LENNON: I hate it. It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out. I don't appreciate worship of dead Sid Vicious or of dead James Dean or of dead John Wayne. It's the same thing. Making Sid Vicious a hero, Jim Morrison -- it's garbage to me. I worship the people who survive. Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo. They're saying John Wayne conquered cancer -- he whipped it like a man. You know, I'm sorry that he died and all that -- I'm sorry for his family -- but he didn't whip cancer. It whipped him. I don't want Sean worshiping John Wayne or Sid Vicious. What do they teach you? Nothing. Death. Sid Vicious died for what? So that we might rock? I mean, it's garbage, you know. If Neil Young admires that sentiment so much, why doesn't he do it? Because he sure as hell faded away and came back many times, like all of us. No, thank you. I'll take the living and the healthy.
PLAYBOY: Do you listen to the radio?
LENNON: Muzak or classical. I don't purchase records. I do enjoy listening to things like Japanese folk music or Indian music. My tastes are very broad. When I was a housewife, I just had Muzak on -- background music -- 'cause it relaxes you.
PLAYBOY: Yoko?
ONO: No.
PLAYBOY: Do you go out and buy records?
ONO: Or read the newspaper or magazines or watch TV? No.
PLAYBOY: The inevitable question, John. Do you listen to your records?
LENNON: Least of all my own.
PLAYBOY: Even your classics?
LENNON: 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----
ONO: 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?
ONO: 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?
LENNON: 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?
LENNON: 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?
LENNON: 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?
LENNON: 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.
ONO: 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.
LENNON: But what moved the Beatles?
PLAYBOY: You tell us.
LENNON: 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.
ONO: The Beatles themselves were a social phenomenon not that aware of what they were doing. In a way----
LENNON: [Under his breath] This Beatles talk bores me to death. Turn to page 196.
ONO: As I said, they were like mediums. They weren't conscious of all they were saying, but it was coming through them.
PLAYBOY: Why?
LENNON: 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?
LENNON: 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?
LENNON: 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?"
LENNON: 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?
LENNON: 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"?
LENNON: 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"?
LENNON: 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"?
LENNON: Anything. You name it. One penis, one vagina, one assh*le -- you name it.
PLAYBOY: Did it trouble you when the interpretations of your songs were destructive, such as when Charles Manson claimed that your lyrics were messages to him?
LENNON: No. It has nothing to do with me. It's like that guy, Son of Sam, who was having these talks with the dog. Manson was just an extreme version of the people who came up with the "Paul is dead" thing or who figured out that the initials to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" were LSD and concluded I was writing about acid.
PLAYBOY: Where did "Lucy in the Sky" come from?
LENNON: My son Julian came in one day with a picture he painted about a school friend of his named Lucy. He had sketched in some stars in the sky and called it "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," Simple.
PLAYBOY: The other images in the song weren't drug-inspired?
LENNON: The images were from "Alice in Wonderland." It was Alice in the boat. She is buying an egg and it turns into Humpty Dumpty. The woman serving in the shop turns into a sheep and the next minute they are rowing in a rowing boat somewhere and I was visualizing that. There was also the image of the female who would someday come save me -- a "girl with kaleidoscope eyes" who would come out of the sky. It turned out to be Yoko, though I hadn't met Yoko yet. So maybe it should be "Yoko in the Sky with Diamonds."
PLAYBOY: Do you have any interest in the pop historians analyzing the Beatles as a cultural phenomenon?
LENNON: It's all equally irrelevant. Mine is to do and other people's is to record, I suppose. Does it matter how many drugs were in Elvis' body? I mean, Brian Epstein's sex life will make a nice "Hollywood Babylon" someday, but it is irrelevant.
PLAYBOY: What started the rumors about you and Epstein?
LENNON: I went on holiday to Spain with Brian -- which started all the rumors that he and I were having a love affair. Well, it was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was never consummated. But we did have a pretty intense relationship. And it was my first experience with someone I knew was a homosexual. He admitted it to me. We had this holiday together because Cyn was pregnant and we left her with the baby and went to Spain. Lots of funny stories, you know. We used to sit in cafs and Brian would look at all the boys and I would ask, "Do you like that one? Do you like this one?" It was just the combination of our closeness and the trip that started the rumors.
PLAYBOY: It's interesting to hear you talk about your old songs such as "Lucy in the Sky" and "Glass Onion." Will you give some brief thoughts on some of our favorites?
LENNON: Right.
PLAYBOY: Let's start with "In My Life."
LENNON: It was the first song I wrote that was consciously about my life. [Sings] "There are places I'll remember/all my life though some have changed. . . ." Before, we were just writing songs a la Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly -- pop songs with no more thought to them than that. The words were almost irrelevant. "In My Life" started out as a bus journey from my house at 250 Menlove Avenue to town, mentioning all the places I could recall. I wrote it all down and it was boring. So I forgot about it and laid back and these lyrics started coming to me about friends and lovers of the past. Paul helped with the middle eight.
PLAYBOY: "Yesterday."
LENNON: Well, we all know about "Yesterday." I have had so much accolade for "Yesterday." That is Paul's song, of course, and Paul's baby. Well done. Beautiful -- and I never wished I had written it.
PLAYBOY: "With a Little Help from My Friends."
LENNON: This is Paul, with a little help from me. "What do you see when you turn out the light/I can't tell you, but I know it's mine ..." is mine.
PLAYBOY: "I am the Walrus."
LENNON: The first line was written on one acid trip one weekend. The second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko. Part of it was putting down Hare Krishna. All these people were going on about Hare Krishna, Allen Ginsberg in particular. The reference to "Element'ry penguin" is the elementary, naive attitude of going around chanting, "Hare Krishna," or putting all your faith in any one idol. I was writing obscurely, a la Dylan, in those days.
PLAYBOY: The song is very complicated, musically.
LENNON: It actually was fantastic in stereo, but you never hear it all. There was too much to get on. It was too messy a mix. One track was live BBC Radio -- Shakespeare or something -- I just fed in whatever lines came in.
PLAYBOY: What about the walrus itself?
LENNON: It's from "The Walrus and the Carpenter." "Alice in Wonderland." To me, it was a beautiful poem. It never dawned on me that Lewis Carroll was commenting on the capitalist and social system. I never went into that bit about what he really meant, like people are doing with the Beatles' work. Later, I went back and looked at it and realized that the walrus was the bad guy in the story and the carpenter was the good guy. I thought, Oh, sh*t, I picked the wrong guy. I should have said, "I am the carpenter." But that wouldn't have been the same, would it? [Singing] "I am the carpenter...."
PLAYBOY: How about "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window?"
LENNON: That was written by Paul when we were in New York forming Apple, and he first met Linda. Maybe she's the one who came in the window. She must have. I don't know. Somebody came in the window.
PLAYBOY: "I Feel Fine."
LENNON: That's me, including the guitar lick with the first feedback ever recorded. I defy anybody to find an earlier record -- unless it is some old blues record from the Twenties -- with feedback on it.
PLAYBOY: "When I'm Sixty-Four."
LENNON: Paul completely. I would never even dream of writing a song like that. There are some areas I never think about and that is one of them.
PLAYBOY: "A Day in the Life."
LENNON: Just as it sounds: I was reading the paper one day and I noticed two stories. One was the Guinness heir who killed himself in a car. That was the main headline story. He died in London in a car crash. On the next page was a story about 4000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire. In the streets, that is. They were going to fill them all. Paul's contribution was the beautiful little lick in the song "I'd love to turn you on." I had the bulk of the song and the words, but he contributed this little lick floating around in his head that he couldn't use for anything. I thought it was a damn good piece of work.
PLAYBOY: May we continue with some of the ones that seem more personal and see what reminiscences they inspire?
LENNON: Reminisce away.
PLAYBOY: For no reason whatsoever, let's start with "I Wanna Be Your Man."
LENNON: Paul and I finished that one off for the Stones. We were taken down by Brian to meet them at the club where they were playing in Richmond. They wanted a song and we went to see what kind of stuff they did. Paul had this bit of a song and we played it roughly for them and they said, "Yeah, OK, that's our style." But it was only really a lick, so Paul and I went off in the corner of the room and finished the song off while they were all sitting there, talking. We came back and Mick and Keith said, "Jesus, look at that. They just went over there and wrote it." You know, right in front of their eyes. We gave it to them. It was a throwaway. Ringo sang it for us and the Stones did their version. It shows how much importance we put on them. We weren't going to give them anything great, right? That was the Stones' first record. Anyway, Mick and Keith said, "If they can write a song so easily, we should try it." They say it inspired them to start writing together.
PLAYBOY: How about "Strawberry FieldsForever?"
LENNON: Strawberry Fields is a real place. After I stopped living at Penny Lane, I moved in with my auntie who lived in the suburbs in a nice semidetached place with a small garden and doctors and lawyers and that ilk living around -- not the poor slummy kind of image that was projected in all the Beatles stories. In the class system, it was about half a class higher than Paul, George and Ringo, who lived in government-subsidized housing. We owned our house and had a garden. They didn't have anything like that. Near that home was Strawberry Fields, a house near a boys' reformatory where I used to go to garden parties as a kid with my friends Nigel and Pete. We would go there and hang out and sell lemonade bottles for a penny. We always had fun at Strawberry Fields. So that's where I got the name. But I used it as an image. Strawberry Fields forever.
PLAYBOY: And the lyrics, for instance: "Living is easy---- "
LENNON: [Singing] "With eyes closed. Misunderstanding all you see." It still goes, doesn't it? Aren't I saying exactly the same thing now? The awareness apparently trying to be expressed is -- let's say in one way I was always hip. I was hip in kindergarten. I was different from the others. I was different all my life. The second verse goes, "No one I think is in my tree." Well, I was too shy and self-doubting. Nobody seems to be as hip as me is what I was saying. Therefore, I must be crazy or a genius -- "I mean it must be high or low," the next line. There was something wrong with me, I thought, because I seemed to see things other people didn't see. I thought I was crazy or an egomaniac for claiming to see things other people didn't see. As a child, I would say, "But this is going on!" and everybody would look at me as if I was crazy. I always was so psychic or intuitive or poetic or whatever you want to call it, that I was always seeing things in a hallucinatory way.
It was scary as a child, because there was nobody to relate to. Neither my auntie nor my friends nor anybody could ever see what I did. It was very, very scary and the only contact I had was reading about an Oscar Wilde or a Dylan Thomas or a Vincent van Gogh -- all those books that my auntie had that talked about their suffering because of their visions. Because of what they saw, they were tortured by society for trying to express what they were. I saw loneliness.
PLAYBOY: Were you able to find others to share your visions with?
LENNON: Only dead people in books. Lewis Carroll, certain paintings. Surrealism had a great effect on me, because then I realized that my imagery and my mind wasn't insanity; that if it was insane, I belong in an exclusive club that sees the world in those terms. Surrealism to me is reality. Psychic vision to me is reality. Even as a child. When I looked at myself in the mirror or when I was 12, 13, I used to literally trance out into alpha. I didn't know what it was called then. I found out years later there is a name for those conditions. But I would find myself seeing hallucinatory images of my face changing and becoming cosmic and complete. It caused me to always be a rebel. This thing gave me a chip on the shoulder; but, on the other hand, I wanted to be loved and accepted. Part of me would like to be accepted by all facets of society and not be this loudmouthed lunatic musician. But I cannot be what I am not.
Because of my attitude, all the other boys' parents, including Paul's father, would say, "Keep away from him." The parents instinctively recognized what I was, which was a troublemaker, meaning I did not conform and I would influence their kids, which I did. I did my best to disrupt every friend's home I had. Partly, maybe, it was out of envy that I didn't have this so-called home. But I really did. I had an auntie and an uncle and a nice suburban home, thank you very much. Hear this, Auntie. She was hurt by a remark Paul made recently that the reason I am staying home with Sean now is because I never had a family life. It's absolute rubbish. There were five women who were my family. Five strong, intelligent women. Five sisters. One happened to be my mother. My mother was the youngest. She just couldn't deal with life. She had a husband who ran away to sea and the war was on and she couldn't cope with me, and when I was four and a half, I ended up living with her elder sister. Now, those women were fantastic. One day I might do a kind of "Forsyte Saga" just about them. That was my first feminist education.
Anyway, that knowledge and the fact that I wasn't with my parents made me see that parents are not gods. I would infiltrate the other boys' minds. Paul's parents were terrified of me and my influence, simply because I was free from the parents' strangle hold. That was the gift I got for not having parents. I cried a lot about not having them and it was torture, but it also gave me an awareness early. I wasn't an orphan, though. My mother was alive and lived a 15-minute walk away from me all my life. I saw her off and on. I just didn't live with her.
PLAYBOY: Is she alive?
Continued
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Reprinted from Playboy, Janury 1981 Copyright ©1980 Playboy Enterprises, Inc. No part of this article may be produced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means--electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise--without the written permission of the copyright owner.
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