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"One has to completely humiliate oneself
to be what the Beatles were . . . . It happened bit by bit,
until . . . you're doing exactly what you don't want to do
with people you can't stand -- the people you hated when
you were ten."
"And Paul hits this chord and I turn to him and say,
'That's it! Do that again!' In those days, we really used
to absolutely write like that - both playing into each other's
noses."
"People think the Beatles know what's going on. We
don't. We're just doing it."
"We were a band who made it very, very big. That's
all."
"I am not the Beatles. I'm me. Paul isn't the Beatles...The
Beatles are the Beatles. Separately, they are separate."
Reporter: "The French have not made up their minds
about the Beatles; what do you think of them?"
John Lennon: "Oh, we like the Beatles, they're gear."
"We reckoned we could make it because there were four of
us. None at us would've made it alone, because Paul wasn't
quite strong enough, I didn't have enough girl-appeal, George
was too quiet, and Ringo was the drummer. But we thought
that everyone would be able to dig at least one of us, and
that's how it turned out."
"You have to be a bastard to make it, and that's a
fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth."
"When I was a Beatle I thought we were the best f*cking
group in the goddamn world, and believing that is what made
us what we were."
Reporter : "Where did you get the idea for the haircuts?"
John Lennon : "Where'd you get the idea for yours?"
"It ( In My Life ) was the first song that
I wrote that was really, consciously about my life.... up
until then, it had been all glib and throwaway."
John Lennon: "When The Beatles were depressed, thinking,
the group is going nowhere, and this is a sh*tty deal, and
we're in a sh*tty dressing room...I'd say, 'Where are we
going, fellas?' They'd go, 'To the top, Johnny!' And I'd
say, 'Where's that, fellas?' and they'd say, 'To the toppermost
of the poppermost!' and I'd say, 'Right!' Then we'd all cheer
up."
"We never write anything with themes. We just write
the same rubbish all the time."
"'Oh! Darling' was a great one of Paul's that he didn't
sing too well. I always thought I could have done it better—it
was more my style than his. He wrote it, so what the hell,
he's going to sing it."
John Lennon, 1980 interview with Playboy magazine
"I don't mind people putting us down, because if everybody
really liked us, it would be a bore. You've got to have people
putting you down. It doesn't give any edge to it if everybody
just falls flat on their face saying, 'You're great.' We
enjoy some of the criticisms as well, they're quite funny;
some of the clever criticisms, not the ones that don't know
anything, but some of the clever ones are quite fun."
"It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. You'd
wake up in a concert and think, Wow, how did I get here?"
"From our earliest days in Liverpool, George and I
on the one hand and Paul on the other had different musical
tastes. Paul preferred 'pop type' music and we preferred
what is now called 'underground'. This may have led to arguments,
particularly between Paul and George, but the contrast in
tastes, I'm sure, did more good than harm, musically speaking,
and contributed to our success."
"The thing is, in America, it just seemed ridiculous
-- I mean, the idea of having a hit record over there, ...
It was just something you could never do."
"The world went mad and used us as an excuse."
“It was my Fat Elvis period. I was eating and drinking
like a pig. I was depressed and I was crying out for help.
It’s real. And I meant it."
About his 1965 song "Help"
Reporter: "Why do you think you're so popular all of
a sudden?"
John Lennon: "I don't know, it must be the weather."
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