Playboy Interview 1980
Page 18
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?
John: 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?
John: 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?
John: 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?
John: 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?
John: 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?
John: Right.
Playboy: Let's start with "In My Life."
John: 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."
John: 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."
John: 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."
John: 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.
John: 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?