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John Lennon interview
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 12:08 pm
by Rob
On radio four tomorrow night is a taped interview with Lennon.
19:00
Archive Hour
3 December 2005
An in depth portrait of John Lennon, told through the original audio of Jann Wenner's seminal 1970 New York interview with Lennon for Rolling Stone magazine.
The most famous interview Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner ever did was an extensive interrogation, on tape, of Lennon shortly after the Beatles had broken up. Lennon and Ono had already given the magazine a blessing of sorts by posing nude for its first anniversary issue in late 1968. Theirs was a relationship of trust. An edited version of Wenner's interview went to press in 1971, and the two issues in which it appeared both sold out overnight.
The Lennon interview remains one of the most important ever done with a popular musician. Lennon himself regarded it as definitive. It documented the Beatles' career and split with painstakingly emotional (at times excruciating) detail, and served as a major, and controversial, point of exorcism for Lennon in his coming to terms with the '60s, the legacy of the Beatles and particularly his ruptured relationship with Paul McCartney.
He holds forth throughout on the subjects of art and politics, his own musical genius, his love for Yoko, drugs, primal therapy and mysticism.
It was the last interview in which he spoke with such candour. He's on terrific form - acidly sharp, furious and funny, philosophical, exuding confidence, at times disarmingly vulnerable. The audio archive for the programme centres exclusively on Wenner's own tapes. It also contains new interviews with both Yoko, who sat beside John throughout, and Jann, who look back on the interview and Lennon's state of mind at the time.
Part of the BBC's John Lennon season
Rob
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 2:27 pm
by Guest
" his own musical genius" ???
I Just saw the song "give peace a chance" on VH1
Is this a musical genius, is it even modest work?
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 4:19 pm
by Shane
I agree with the Guest. I never saw genius in the work of any of the Beatles.
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 4:27 pm
by lizzytysh
I think genius can be underrated, as it can make things appear so simple, so obvious; yet, those perspectives are always in retrospect.
~ Lizzy
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 6:00 pm
by Shane
I think one must be carefull labeling things genius, for overuse diminishes the real meaning of the word.
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 6:11 pm
by lizzytysh
I agree with that, Shane; yet, when I refer to Diane's description of it, I feel it fits the songwriting of the Beatles, the same as it does Leonard's writing.
Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 9:15 pm
by Tchocolatl
I am no one to say if there is genius in music, I don't have the skill for this.
They did pretty good music though.
I also think that the most "genius" thing in their work whas the timing of them being a band. It was at the beginning of the star system (now there is so much pop stars , real and fake, that we are blinded, it seems that they can not shine as much as the first ones - light pollution they call it for the real stars) this with the support of mass media machine.
It is a well known phenomenon that popularity generates popularity.
I saw the pictures of the two nakes. Sad pictures. Here are two naturally attractive charismatic persons, and the nudes of them have absolutely not a trace of this. No genious in them while they could have been soooooo beautiful. This is really sad. I wonder who did take those shots. Hum...
John Lennon Interview
Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2005 4:59 am
by Squidgy
The genius in the Beatles was George Harrison, IMO. Listen to the guitar work in "Here Comes the Sun" "I Saw Her Standing There" "Can't Buy Me Love" "Mr. Kite" "Paperback Writer" "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and all the rest...and then say it isn't so. That this young white kid from Liverpool, barely twenty years old, managed to digest American Negro blues and transform it into an entirely new genre, virtually inventing what came to be called the "four/four beat" or the "Mersey beat" bespeaks genius, pure and simple.
Lennon was exceptionally bright, literarily speaking, but arrogant, and more than anything else a politically correct product of the times. He set himself and his wife up as intentional spokespeople for the generation to feed their own egos.
McCartney, IMO, is one of the least talented rich rock stars ever. His latest release is just plodding drivel, musically and lyrically. I wonder, who buys his stuff, and why???
Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2005 9:30 pm
by Tchocolatl
It must have been very difficult for an ego not to go into a dangerous inflation under the star system of the time. Or any star system. Many died of it in a way or another. Lennon sang "The way things are going, they're going to crucify me" (ey.... words are loaded like guns sometimes... ) and much before this, he was caught by technology means of the time saying that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus" you know this kind of thing one could say and forgot about it, if only nobody would have taped it and people kept playing it, but it gives a picture of the ego, you know. Looks like the Titanic history by some sides.
The only after Beatles music I like was the one of McCartney and the wings - Band on the run and Blue Bird. I guess it was not so genial, though.
To say the truth even if you probably are right about the genius of the cutest of the Beatles I did never particularly like what he made alone after this. The four of them had this peculiar energy they never had alone (or with others).