John Lennon, Conservative

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The social Liberal liked wealth and didn’t believe in “saving the world on stage” nor that the world can even be saved

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The following are excerpts from a Playboy magazine interview by David Sheff with John Lennon and Yoko Ono made in September 1980 (3 months before Lennon’s death) and published in its January 1981 issue:

PLAYBOY: “Just to finish your favorite subject, what about the suggestion that the four of you put aside your personal feelings and regroup to give a mammoth concert for charity, some sort of giant benefit?”

LENNON: “I don’t want to have anything to do with benefits. I have been benefited to death.”

PLAYBOY: “Why?”

LENNON: “Because they’re always rip-offs. I haven’t performed for personal gain since 1966, when the Beatles last performed. Every concert since then, Yoko and I did for specific  charities, except for a Toronto thing that was a rock ‘n roll revival. Every one of them was a mess or a rip-off. So now we give money to who we want. You’ve heard of tithing?”

PLAYBOY: “That’s when you give away a fixed percentage of your income.”

LENNON: “Right. I am just going to do it privately. I am not going to get locked into that business of saving the world on stage. The show is always a mess and the artist always comes off badly.”

 John Lennon was an unabashed capitalist and believer in self-sufficiency

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PLAYBOY: “What about the Bangladesh concert, in which George and other people such as Dylan performed?”

LENNON: “Bangladesh was ca-ca.”

PLAYBOY: “You mean because of all the questions that were raised about where the money went?”

LENNON: “Yeah, right. I can’t even talk about it, because it’s still a problem. You’ll have to check with Mother (Yoko) because she knows the ins and outs of it, I don’t. But it’s all a rip-off. So forget about it. All of you who are reading this, don’t bother sending me all that garbage about, ‘Just come and save the Indians, come and save the blacks, come and save the war veterans,’ Anybody I want to save will be helped through our tithing, which is ten percent of whatever we earn.”

PLAYBOY: “But that doesn’t compare with what one promoter, Sid Bernstein, said you could raise by giving a world-wide televised concert… playing separately, as individuals, or together, as the Beatles. He estimated you could raise over $200,000,000 in one day.”

LENNON: “That was a commercial for Sid Bernstein written with Jewish schmaltz and showbiz and tears, dropping on one knee. It was Al Jolson. OK. So I don’t buy that. OK?”

PLAYBOY: “But the fact is, $200,000,000 to a poverty-stricken country in South America…”

LENNON: “Where do people get off saying the Beatles should give $200,000,000 to South America? You know, America has poured billions into places like that. It doesn’t mean a damn thing. After they’ve eaten that meal, then what? It lasts for only a day. After the $200,000,000 is gone, then what? It goes round and round in circles. You can pour money in forever. After Peru, then Harlem, then Britain. There is no one concert. We would have to dedicate the rest of our lives to one world concert tour, and I’m not ready for it. Not in this lifetime, anyway.”

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PLAYBOY: “On the subject of your own wealth, the New York Post recently said you admitted to being worth over $150,000,000 and…”

LENNON: “We never admitted anything.”

PLAYBOY: “The Post said you had.”

LENNON: “What the Post says… OK, so we are rich; so what?”

PLAYBOY: “The question is, How does that jibe with your political philosophies? You’re supposed to be socialists, aren’t you?”

LENNON: “In England, there are only two things to be, basically: You are either for the labor movement or for the capitalist movement. Either you become a right-wing Archie Bunker if you are in the class I am in, or you become an instinctive socialist, which I was. That meant I think people should get their false teeth and their health looked after, all the rest of it. But apart from that, I worked for money and I wanted to be rich. So what the hell… if that’s a paradox, then I’m a socialist. But I am not anything. What I used to be is guilty about money. That’s why I lost it, either by giving it away or by allowing myself to be screwed by so-called managers.”

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PLAYBOY: “John, do you really need all those houses around the country?”

LENNON: “They’re good business.”

PLAYBOY: “Why does anyone need $150,000,000? Couldn’t you be perfectly content with $100,000,000? Or $1,000,000?”

LENNON: “What would you suggest I do? Give everything away and walk the streets? The Buddhist says, ‘Get rid of the possessions of the mind.’ Walking away from all the money would not accomplish that. It’s like the Beatles. I couldn’t walk away from the Beatles. That’s one possession that’s still tagging along, right? If I walk away from one house or 400 houses, I’m not gonna escape it.”

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PLAYBOY: “What is the Eighties’ dream to you, John?”

LENNON: Well, you make your own dream. That’s the Beatles’ story, isn’t it? That’s Yoko’s story. That’s what I’m saying now. Produce your own dream. If you want to save Peru, go save Peru. It’s quite possible to do anything, but not to put it on the leaders and the parking meters. Don’t expect Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan or John Lennon or Yoko Ono or Bob Dylan or Jesus Christ to come and do it for you. You have to do it yourself. That’s what the great masters and mistresses have been saying ever since time began. They can point the way, leave signposts and little instructions in various books that are now called holy and worshiped for the cover of the book and not for what it says, but the instructions are all there for all to see, have always been and always will be. There’s nothing new under the sun. All the roads lead to Rome. And people cannot provide it for you. I can’t wake you up. You can wake you up. I can’t cure you. You can cure you.”

 


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