Playboy Interview 1980
Page 22
John: No, it's not about heroin. A gun
magazine was sitting there with a smoking gun on the cover and an article that I
never read inside called "Happiness Is a Warm Gun." I took it right
from there. I took it as the terrible idea of just having shot some animal.
Playboy: What about the sexual puns: "When you feel my finger on your
trigger"?
John: Well, it was at the beginning of my relationship with Yoko and I was very
sexually oriented then. When we weren't in the studio, we were in bed.
Playboy: What was the allusion to "Mother Superior jumps the gun"?
John: I call Yoko Mother or Madam just in an offhand way. The rest doesn't mean
anything. It's just images of her.
Playboy: "Across the Universe."
John: The Beatles didn't make a good record of "Across the Universe."
I think subconsciously we - I thought Paul subconsciously tried to destroy my
great songs. We would play experimental games with my great pieces, like
"Strawberry Fields," which I always felt was badly recorded. It
worked, but it wasn't what it could have been. I allowed it, though. We would
spend hours doing little, detailed cleaning up on Paul's songs, but when it came
to mine - especially a great song like "Strawberry Fields" or
"Across the Universe" - somehow an atmosphere of looseness and
experimentation would come up.
Playboy: Sabotage?
John: Subconscious sabotage. I was too hurt... Paul will deny it, because he has
a bland face and will say this doesn't exist. This is the kind of thing I'm
talking about where I was always seeing what was going on and began to think,
Well, maybe I'm paranoid. But it is not paranoid. It is the absolute truth. The
same thing happened to "Across the Universe." The song was never done
properly. The words stand, luckily.
Playboy: "Getting Better."
John: It is a diary form of writing. All that "I used to be cruel to my
woman, I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved" was
me. I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically - any woman. I was a hitter.
I couldn't express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I
am always on about peace, you see. It is the most violent people who go for love
and peace. Everything's the opposite. But I sincerely believe in love and peace.
I am not violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence.
I will have to be a lot older before I can face in public how I treated women as
a youngster.
Playboy: "Revolution."
John: We recorded the song twice. The Beatles were getting really tense with one
another. I did the slow version and I wanted it out as a single: as a statement
of the Beatles' position on Vietnam and the Beatles' position on revolution. For
years, on the Beatle tours, Epstein had stopped us from saying anything about
Vietnam or the war. And he wouldn't allow questions about it. But on one tour, I
said, "I am going to answer about the war. We can't ignore it." I
absolutely wanted the Beatles to say something. The first take of
"Revolution" - well, George and Paul were resentful and said it wasn't
fast enough. Now, if you go into details of what a hit record is and isn't
maybe. But the Beatles could have afforded to put out the slow, understandable
version of "Revolution" as a single. Whether it was a gold record or a
wooden record. But because they were so upset about the Yoko period and the fact
that I was again becoming as creative and dominating as I had been in the early
days, after lying fallow for a couple of years, it upset the apple cart. I was
awake again and they couldn't stand it?
Playboy: Was it Yoko's inspiration?
John: She inspired all this creation in me. It wasn't that she inspired the
songs; she inspired me. The statement in "Revolution" was mine. The
lyrics stand today. It's still my feeling about politics. I want to see the
plan. That is what I used to say to Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. Count me out
if it is for violence. Don't expect me to be on the barricades unless it is with
flowers.
Playboy: What do you think of Hoffman's turning himself in?
John: Well he got what he wanted. Which is to be sort of an underground hero for
anybody who still worships any manifestation of the underground. I don't feel
that much about it anymore. Nixon, Hoffman, it's the same. They are all from the
same period. It was kind of surprising to see Abbie on TV, but it was also
surprising to see Nixon on TV. Maybe people get the feeling when they see me or
us. I feel, What are they doing there? Is this an old newsreel?
Playboy: On a new album, you close with "Hard Times Are Over (For a
While)." Why?
John: It's not a new message: "Give Peace a Chance" - we're not being
unreasonable, just saying, "Give it a chance." With
"Imagine," we're saying, "Can you imagine a world without
countries or religions?" It's the same message over and over. And it's
positive.
Playboy: How does it feel to have people anticipate your new record because they
feel you are a prophet of sorts? When you returned to the studio to make
"Double Fantasy," some of your fans were saying things like,
"Just as Lennon defined the Sixties and the Seventies, he'll be defining
the Eighties."
John: It's very sad. Anyway, we're not saying anything new. A, we have already
said it and, B, 100,000,000 other people have said it, too.
Playboy: But your songs do have messages.