The Playboy Interviews With John Lennon and Yoko Ono: The complete texts plus unpublished conversations and Lennon's song-by-song analysis of his music

My favorite Lennon quote comes not from this book, but from the Beatle's set during the Royal Variety Performance for the British Royal Family in 1963: "Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry." I love that, though I've been told you need to be raised in the British class-consciousness to fully appreciate the insolence of that. I grabbed this book just out of curiosity, as a Beatles fan and a Lennon fan in particular. I read in a review that Lennon goes through the whole catalog of Beatles songs and comments on them. I thought that would be interesting to read. Yoko Ono was the least of my concerns, but they were and are a package deal. I bought into the popular cultural conception of Yoko as the villainess who broke up the Beatles. So the first thing that struck me, reading these interviews, is what an intelligent, sympathetic, and likeable figure she is, when heard in her own words, in the comforts of her home base. And the two of them together actually seem like a nice, well-matched couple, decent people who- against the odds- had found contentment amid the surreal circumstances of their lives. No doubt that they are eccentric in some ways, and some of their philosophizing has that post-Hippie, flaky, dated feel, as you might expect. They are artists after all. But at the same time, they surprised me at times at how level-headed they came off. Despite the near deification of the Beatles, it is John who continuously reminds us that they were just a rock and roll band that was in the right place at the right time and wrote some good songs. And they are able to honestly talk about the strain on their relationship caused by their celebrity. With all the typical defiant talk about letting people think whatever they are going to think, Yoko admits to the heartache of bad press: "It's a very strange thing that society can do that much to a relationship, but it does because we're social animals. We're social beings. A relationship is not isolated from society." "Society can break an individual. That is what happened." John, too, often displays the vulnerability buried within the armor of the iconoclast: "We're both sensitive people and we were both hurt by a lot of it." Enough time has passed for them to analyze the hostility garnered by Yoko, as a woman, when she began managing John's business affairs. John talks about the attitude towards Yoko at these meetings where she was the only woman, "They're all male, you know, just big and fat, vodka lunch, shouting males, like trained dogs, trained to attack all the time." Yoko is wonderful, chiming in with "I was emasculated." Then launching into her formulation of male aggressiveness, "you must have the womb-envy thing," she speculates. Men are aggressive to mask their intimidation and jealousy. After all, she notes, "we give life." The most valuable part of this book, in which John systematically goes

Right before his death in 1980, John Lennon gave his most open and candid interviews. In 1980, Lennon was out of the public limelight for 5 years, was happily married, had a son, and his comeback album Double Fantasy was selling well. Previous interviews were usually marred by his overhwelming sense of anger, cynicusm anbd political activism that almost got him deported in the early 70s. With that behind him, Lennon was ready to move forward with life, and candidly talked about his troubled youth, his inspiration from rock and roll, his time with the Beatles, his solo career, Yoko, and his plans for the future. You read htis and think "oh how nice, he has finally found himself, and he's finally happy," but then unfortunately you feel sad at the same time, considering the events that happened right after these interviews. It's very sad and a letdown because he was so optimistic with quotes like "and I'll continue to do what I'm doing until I'm dead which hopefully won't be for a very long time." Even though his bliss was tragically cut short, these interviews with John Lennon serve as a good epitaph of his life, and even serve him better than most of his uneven solo career.

Actually I have the original version of this book, The Playboy Interviews, but since I'm an avid collector of "all things Lennon" I'll probably buy this newer version as well. But man! What a great read this book is! I learned so much about John here in his own words. Do people remember when he was shot, and the current issue of Playboy had just come out with the John & Yoko interview? Man, I clutched that thing like a bible in those sad sad days of December 1980. That interview turned out to be just a portion of the whole interview, and now that is published in this book. A cautionary note: reading this book can re-awaken your love and feelings for John and the Beatles, and this can lead to some pretty serious melancholia. Twenty-plus years later! I still ponder the what-ifs of it all, if John had been allowed to live - for instance, how would that Beatles Anthology thing on Tee Vee had been with a living John? And would there have ever been a Beatles reunion? ( I doubt it.) Not to mention how the politics of the Reagan-80s if John had been there to help out! Anyway, buy this book. It is still very valid and even timeless in its depth and scope.

Drew Barrymore, who is not someone I'd particularly credit with a great deal of intelligence, said something a few months ago in Rolling Stone that I think is close to profound. She said that if you have a question for the universe, put it out there and a John Lennon song will answer you back. As we all know, this is true, and if you ever need reminding, here's the book that will do it. It's the real insider's scoop - during these interviews you get the feeling that Lennon was really trying to set the record straight on quite a few things: and not by making nice all the time, either. Just by being frank and honest and egoless about his life. Here is a man who went through a lot of heartbreak and withstood it. Not only did he survive - he survived it without a lot of baggage. He came out the other end happy, and these interviews let you in on how he did it. Inevitably sad, since we know what's about to hit him, this book is ultimately very inspiring.

John Lennon gave two interviews in particular that were extraordinary for their length, depth, and honesty. One was his famous "Lennon Remembers" interviews with Rolling Stone in 1970, and the other was this one, shortly before his death in 1980. Lennon was a complex man, and it is interesting to compare his attitudes among the two milestone interviews. Yet this one (conducted over several days) stands alone for its insights into Lennon's personal life, his relationship with Yoko, his philosophising, and his song-by-song discussion of his work, both with the Beatles and afterwards. It offers an unprecedented glimpse into his mindset and outlook at the time of his death, filled with the usual engaging Lennon wit and wisdom. Lennon comes across not just as a vital source of information about his own life and career but as an interesting conversationalist, period. We are also treated to Sheff's brief glimpses of Lennon and Ono at work on their "Double Fantasy" album. This book is an important document for anyone interested in the man or his music.