John Lennon Hilton Amsterdam 1969 interview in English – part 2

Posted on 30/03/2023 by Martin Mayhew

On 28th March 1969, just days after their wedding in Gibraltar, Konstantin Miles spent three hours interviewing John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the Hilton Amsterdam Hotel during their first bed-in for peace. This interview was published in the Yugoslav weekly TV, radio and entertainments magazine Studio (similar to the BBC’s Radio Times) over three issues starting on 12th April 1969. Part 2 was featured in issue 263 published on 19th April 1969 – see below.

This interview has never been available in English, so I salvaged all the relevant magazines and translated it.

Official photographs of the meeting are online here – although there is no mention of Konstantin, and the photos are dated to 25th March – yet in the interview Miles says he met Lennon on a Friday – which would have been the 28th.

This is part 2 of the 10,000+ word interview… part 1 is here…. part 3 …

First page of part 2 of the Lennon interview in Studio magazine.

Hilton Amsterdam Hotel

Interview by the editor of Izbor Konstantin MILES with the most famous Beatle John LENNON (part 2)

THE WORLD IS A BIG “PARTY” (continued from the last issue)

“Starting over with Yoko!”

K. MILES: — And now a tired, cheesy, overused question: What has in fact been the key to your success? What do you think: could you do it again?

J. LENNON: — But I’m in the process of repeating it with Yoko right now. I still don’t know if it will work for me. Time with tell.

K. MILES: — Does this mean you’re starting all over again? You know the system: sponge in hand, erase everything that was and start from the very beginning.

J. LENNON: — What I’m doing with Yoko is like starting from the very beginning, as if nothing existed before. And it’s not easy. Well, we only just got our joint record Two Virgins out on Apple itself, where people reacted very violently against it. At least at the start. Now they don’t think so. And then the things that Yoko and I create together… these things are so ahead of their time… so to speak… so “crazy” in the positive sense of the word… that even the power I supposedly have in our organisation is not enough for me to do everything the way I want. And that’s why I feel like I’m starting all over again because I have to fight my way through. Of course, it’s all very exciting and fun. Yoko and I have started a new career together. Us two.

K. MILES: — Good. And the other Beatles?

J. LENNON: — Each of them is doing something individually… for example, Ringo is making a film… However, we will continue to create as a group, as The Beatles, because The Beatles are a power, and that means influence. I have joined up with Yoko. I have started a completely new career. And it’s just like what you mentioned in your question: I’m starting all over again. Admittedly (he laughs), I’m starting from scratch, but as a child of rich parents.

K. MILES (addressing Lennon’s wife): — I have to give you a slightly double-edged and somewhat old-fashioned compliment. From the context, you will see that I am sincere and well-intentioned. So, you’re simply not photogenic. You are actually an attractive and beautiful woman, even very pretty, and in the photographs, you look… better that I don’t say what you look like. There, I couldn’t resist telling you that.

YOKO ONO: — That’s very nice of you to say that. Thank you.

J. LENNON: — You know, some photographs of Yoko are good, but there are very few.

K. MILES: — I have to admit, as harsh as it may seem, that I haven’t seen a single one of those good photos. At least not in the papers and publications that pass through my hands, and there are a lot. (Turning again to Yoko Lennon). We have to come to terms with the fact that you are simply not photogenic.

J. LENNON (relentless): — I have seen a few of her beautiful photos, but only a few.

K. MILES: — So, Mr Lennon, I really have no words to praise your artistic achievements. I admire you, honestly, I really do. You, yourself, said that words are too clumsy a communication tool, and even more so because I have to communicate in English. However, I must repeat that I admire you. What you’ve done in music is fantastic, magnificent. Don’t think that I like to throw around empty compliments, but I can’t resist comparing you to Picasso in one thing: like him, you also have a fantastic ability not to repeat yourself, to constantly introduce something new into your creativity, to constantly surprise people. You let the pack follow you, chase you, but when your competitors seem to have caught up with you, you come out with something completely new and unexpected. Let’s throw overboard (as the English say) false modesty and similar philistine stunts. Let’s talk openly, with cards on the table. So try to explain to me (after all we talked about communication difficulties)… try to explain to me how you actually create. There is a nice joke about it. “Lennon whistles to McCartney, and McCartney whistles back to Lennon. That’s the whole secret.” That quip reminds me of something Johann Sebastian Bach said about the secret of his masterful organ playing: “It’s very easy for you. You just have to press the right key at the right time!” Come on, tell me how you create: for you, for example, is the act of creation a process of the intellect (that is, something deliberate) or an emotional, perhaps even instinctive, impulsive process?

Centre spread of issue 263 of Studio magazine, 1969.

J. LENNON: — You know, there are certainly intellectual moments. We all suffer from intellectualism. However, my main opus is primitive. Picasso needed forty years to become a primitive painter. I was born a natural primordial primitive, and so was Yoko. And so was Paul. We were born primitives, but at one stage we almost didn’t become intellectuals. The greatest part of our music is emotional. It is written music… how can I say… “from the air,” you know. I listen, I hear, I think, and then I create…

K. MILES: — Please, say that again. That is very important.

J. LENNON: — I lie down and I listen. I hear some melody and then I work it out. The best music is created when it comes to you by itself, when it comes naturally. However, of course, if I have… as you journalists say… a “deadline”… let’s say when I just have to write three songs by Monday… then I’ll come up with them. Or, more often, I have certain vague, hazy ideas in my head, ideas that I have collected, songs that I’ve “heard” but have not set to music. So if, let’s say, a “deadline” is coming, I look at what I have in the archives of my head, so I can easily “cobble together” two or three songs at a time if I really have to. Sometimes such songs are good. But the best are the ones that come to me “out of thin air.”

K. MILES: — You never say to yourself, for example, something like this: “Let me create something completely new! Let me shock the audience!”?

J. LENNON: — No, absolutely not, not at all! For me, what is new comes naturally, by itself… I mean, I never set out to create something new. I open something, and then it comes out as new or it doesn’t come out. There, that’s it.

K. MILES: — You are an excellent poet. Your poetry would hold up even without music. Do you think the audience understands you? What happens to your sense of humour when, for example, you read the pompous dissertations of professors, mostly from American universities, who swarm over your poetry like moles and discover some hidden messages in it?

J. LENNON: — It’s certainly fun to read how these “professors” talk about some kind of hidden messages that they deciphered in my songs, it’s a shame that they don’t study adverts or texts on toilet paper rolls as carefully, because I’m sure they would have discovered all kinds of hidden messages there too. About my songs and their messages, and also about my music, I think this: every song I write, every song I compose can mean to each person what he himself finds in it, so it can mean something different to each person. Of course, if you really look for it and if you’ve got it in your head, you can find hidden intellectual messages in each of them. Just like, if you put in the effort, you can find symbols in every, most banal, room. If you get it into your head, you will find them. However, if you don’t look for them, you won’t find them. You either see them or you don’t: it doesn’t depend on me but on you. Why do these professors see them, these American professors, why them exactly? Because they imagined that they liberated themselves from their snobbery, their intellectual snobbery, they think they are no longer snobs. But they’re wrong. They are still snobs. What’s going on with them? Some simply pretend just to make themselves important. The others are looking to justify themselves for liking The Beatles’ music or for being attracted to our poetry. Only, as intellectual snobs, they cannot stomach that music and poetry as pop music or as folk music or as primitive music. No, they have to find another, more worthy justification. And they find it. They say: “This music is essentially intellectualistic: this music, in fact, means so-and-so, it has a so-and-so (certainly intellectualist) message!” They don’t have the strength to say: “I simply like this music, just like any fourteen-year-old child likes it!” They are looking for an excuse to be able to enjoy an art that is new to them.

K. MILES: — They join in like 100% “squares” (something like philistines). And that’s why in your poetry and music there are elements that are “square.”

J. LENNON: — Yes, that’s it, that’s it.

K. MILES: — One more tired question: What is the bank balance of your success? If you add up all the positives that success has brought you and subtract all the negatives — what’s left?

Happy are those with money and those without it – the rest live in hell

J. LENNON: — So, it is positive that I have an influence and that I can use that influence for things that I like, that attract me… to try to influence the youth, for example. Various small things act negatively, for example, I can’t walk down the street like an ordinary person, and so on, things like that. Of course, the positive sides of success far outweigh the others. But there was a time, there was a phase… when it seemed like The Beatles were going round and round… there was a time when it seemed like all that success, everything we’d achieved, was a waste of time. We discovered then that money was not the answer to what we were looking for, for what we cared about. We discovered that not even fame was the answer. It seemed that neither fame nor money had any meaning to us except that they represented something that we had longed for before and then it disappointed us. We got what we wanted to get, and then it suddenly lost its meaning, you understand.

K. MILES: — This is a very old truth, at least when it comes to money, and to fame.

J. LENNON: — Money was not very important to me even when I didn’t have it. I wasn’t unhappy not to have it. And when I got to it, I suddenly realised that it doesn’t make sense by itself, you understand. Now I see that money and fame can make sense, because they allow you to do things like this, to exploit them for propaganda. They allow you to be free. My philosophy is this… that is, my point of view, my experience, if you will: people who have a lot of money are free, and those who have no money at all are also free. Whilst those in between… they live in hell.

K. MILES: — Judging by your own story, and the story of the other Beatles… there is something almost… how should I say… something almost eerie about The Beatles. You almost seem to exist as one body with four heads or perhaps as four bodies with one head. Please don’t think that I’m trying to be sarcastic…

J. LENNON: — I don’t think that.

K. MILES: — Allegedly, you don’t even talk, but communicate without words, using a coded speech of small, invisible to other people, signs…

J. LENNON: — Yes, almost like that.

K. MILES: — I guess I’m too stupid to get it, isn’t that another joke, more Beatles’ tomfoolery?

J. LENNON: — No, not at all. We communicate without many words as musicians and as friends. Of course, we also talk a lot. But you have to take into consideration that we’ve been playing and singing together for more than ten years. Right on the musical level, it is enough for me to just look, in a certain way, let’s take to Paul, so that he understands clearly as back of his hand, that this and that will happen, that he needs to do this and that. And vice versa. Otherwise, when it’s not about music, we really have nothing to talk about, again because we’ve known each other for so long, you know. Everything else is just talking, gossiping, not communicating. I don’t really think there are many things worth communicating about. We repeat ourselves countless times in front of each other, which is also a second-rate type of communication. Otherwise, I can safely say that between us, The Beatles, precisely because we spent so many years together, a kind of telepathy was created. Certainly, the fact that we stayed together for so long means that there is something between us, not just a common success that would bind us. There must be something more. Because otherwise, if you put five (sic) people in a room and keep them there for five years, they’re going to go crazy or kill themselves, and that didn’t happen with us. That’s why the connection, which you described as a deep connection between us, exists, it certainly exists. Maybe it’s about empathy. I discovered the existence of such a deep, primal bond between me and Yoko too. The connection between us is also telepathic and almost magical: we literally do not have to use words to understand each other, to communicate. When one of us two says something, to the other or the other also thinks the same. And my relationship with The Beatles is also like that. We all think alike, and not only in the field of music. I think that is very good.

Telepathy, or vibrations or waves of emotions

K. MILES: — You were recently interviewed by David Frost on independent London TV. I was not in London at the time, but I did read an abridged transcript of the interview. You tried to explain your views on vibrations, “waves of emotion” as you said. You said that everyone emits such invisible waves and radiations. Is this some kind of telepathy? In any case, you are very excited about it.

J. LENNON: — I, you know, could not give it any specific name. I think telepathy is a nice word, but only because most people can understand it, because they can use it to get some sort of idea of what it’s about. When it comes to “vibrations,” I cannot find a term to describe this phenomenon. It’s just like someone asking you to describe electricity. You know that it exists, so if you put a light bulb in a lamp and turn on the switch, it will glow, so electricity is there, it exists. That can still be explained somehow. But if I try to describe my electricity that is radiating towards you as I speak or your electricity that is radiating towards me… or if I try to describe the electricity that occurs between me and Yoko… or those invisible radiations that everyone’s spirit emits… if I try to explain, I become powerless. And that’s the only reason I use words like telepathy, or vibrations, or waves of emotions… because it’s so elusive that it can’t be described in words. I know it exists because I’ve experienced it, but I can’t describe it. Just like I can’t describe the taste of chocolate.

K. MILES: — Yes, yes, I understand you completely. But, do you feel my vibrations? Answer that question as sarcastically as you want.

J. LENNON: — Yes, of course, I feel them, of course. And I believe that you feel my vibrations too. You know, for me it is a very fascinating, exciting subject. Here’s what I think about it: the world is a big community, a big “party,” gathered in one single room, do you understand? The world is, therefore, one big community that has gathered in one room, and it’s just a very sad community, unhappy. And what am I trying to do? What am I striving for? I trying to be that happy guy, that good-humoured, cheerful guy, who shows up at that sad “party,” where everyone is grumpy, the guy who shows up anywhere with a funny, fake nose or starts cracking jokes. What happens when a guy like that turns up? The atmosphere immediately changes, it gets more cheerful. But it could also be a different situation. Someone comes to a good mood company — moody or aggressive, you understand. Someone comes in that kind of mood and I immediately feel their vibes. Not just by his face, his scowling face, because there are cunning guys who know how to hide their true emotions so that they don’t show them on their faces. But you feel the coldness that emanates from them. There, that’s what vibrations are for me.

K. MILES: — In that same interview with David Frost, you presented some interesting thoughts about art. You and Yoko. Would you now explain them to the Yugoslav readers who, of course, did not have the opportunity to see the television show?

J. LENNON: — I can’t remember exactly what I was talking about then. I remember the important thing, which was what Yoko said, something that I deeply believe in and keep repeating. Art is communication, and communication is art. Everything is art, and art is everything. Usually, “art” is, so to speak, a word from journalistic jargon, a label, but it seems that human beings feel some kind of deep, primordial need for labels, they like to be told: “This is art!” “This is poetry!” I think such labels make no sense. I think that everything is art, that every communication is art. That’s why a copy of a newspaper is also a work of art, as is your interview… and that’s because it’s communication.

K. MILES: — Would you describe yourself as a happy man? I’m not asking that inanely. For example, there is the question of the picture on the cover of Sergeant Pepper’s (The Beatles are standing over a grave, and below it is written “The Beatles are dead!”). But, of course, it’s not just about that. Maybe it was just a “stunt” or that’s how you wanted to say that one phase in your history has passed and a new one is coming, that you have become new, different Beatles. It’s about something else. For example, about the change that can be seen on your face. Whilst I was preparing for this interview, I made an effort to look at your old photographs. At that time you all looked kind of cheerful, almost mischievous. Now your face is sad, somehow melancholic. Maybe I’m wrong…

The only true happiness – meeting Yoko

J. LENNON: — I think I am much happier now today than I was in the Sergeant Pepper phase. And the photographs taken before that, before Sergeant Pepper, those photographs should not fool you. They were taken and chosen like that because we had to look happy and cheerful in them. These were simply photographs intended for publicity, and at that time, our publicity machine wanted us to look cheerful. Even then, we didn’t like to “fool,” to pretend, but we had to. And that’s why we even tried to look happy and cheerful whenever we saw a photographer nearby. In the first photographs, I even had a somewhat boyish face, and the photographers seemed to like it, so they highlighted it everywhere. And now about happiness. I’m happier today than I’ve ever been, because I’m in love for the first time in my life and because I’m having a wonderful time with my wife, you know. And I am happy because of the work I do and because of the actions I’m doing, such as, for example, this action for world peace. Today, in fact, I am happier than I have ever been, I can honestly say that. However, I still believe in the saying that “those who do not know are happy, that ignorance is the greatest happiness.” Because the more I think about what the world is like today, how difficult it is to even survive as a human being in it, let alone be happy when I think about it, I become sad. Maybe it’s the sadness that comes with age, ageing, so again something you have to think about. That is why my claim that I am happier today than ever should be taken with caution because it does not mean that I am completely happy, you understand: I am just happier than I have ever been or I am less unhappy. People once said: “Oh, how happy The Beatles are! How lovely it is for them!” And I tell you that the only real happiness I’ve had in my life was meeting Yoko. Everything else was what I had to do, everything else was hard work.

K. MILES: – I see that you are a very honest and open man. That’s why I have to ask you one question related to this marriage of yours. Tell me: don’t you have the impression that the fact that you got married, that it was a “square” act, huh?

(To be continued)

Issue 263 of Studio magazine featured Croatian singer-songwriter Ibrica Jušić on the cover.

Konstantin Miles interviewed John and Yoko once more in 1971 here., and Ringo Starr in early 1970 here.

(Of course my translation will not be a perfect representation of Konstantin’s original transcript/audio recording since this has seemingly been lost.) Apparently Konstantin did send a final draft of the interview to John for approval – see below:

In July 1985 the interviewer Konstantin Miles was interviewed by Denis Kuljiš in Studio magazine:-

DK: Surely your most famous interview was with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

KM: I had two interviews with them. The first was when I found out through some fellow journalists in London that Lennon was travelling to Amsterdam with his wife. I was just about to buy a Burberry coat, but instead, I spent that money on a plane ticket and went to the Netherlands. I was asked for a visa at the airport there, but I didn’t have one. They took me to a supervisor who was a civilized native of Papua, very kind, who allowed me to stay. I found Lennon in a hotel, through his press manager, who allowed me to stay for ten minutes and talk about the act of lying in bed by which John Lennon and Yoko Ono were protesting for world peace… However, I stayed for three hours. I somehow managed to get a very good vibe from him, he was a very bright, and actually very handsome man. When I told him he was a pantheist, he didn’t hesitate at all to ask what that was. Yoko Ono was lying in her nightgown, and he was in his pyjamas, we were talking, whilst the head of the press kept winking at me to go out… Then Lennon threw him out of the room.

DK: When did you have the next interview?

KM: The Beatles had just split up, and Lennon had bought a house in Epson. In the beautiful ambiance, there was a white piano – Lennon played on it with one finger and sang to me. I intended to go and meet him in New York, for a third interview, but he was murdered in the meantime. He was pleased with our first conversation, he had said that it was one of the best he had given for a newspaper. I did send him a translation of the interview, it was about 40-50 pages long…

DK: Has everything been published?

KM: Only one part.

DK: Did you ever think of publishing a book of your interviews?

KM: Nobody made me an offer, and I didn’t want to. I’m quite lazy.

(Konstantin Miles died in 1989, he had no heirs because his son and daughter died before he did, both committing suicide. Konstantin’s widow died in 2017)

On a lighter note, in 1969 John and Yoko posted 2 acorns to Yugoslavia’s President Tito (1 of 50 world leaders at the time) to be planted as part of their quest for world peace.

John Lennon Hilton Amsterdam 1969 interview in English – part 1

Posted on 23/03/2023 by Martin Mayhew

This interview has never been available in English, so I salvaged all the relevant magazines and translated it.

This is part one of the 10,000+ word interview… part 2… part 3.

The first page of the interview in *Studio* magazine with John Lennon and Yoko Ono by Konstantin Miles in the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel on 28th March 1969.

INTERVIEW BY KONSTANTIN MILES

Editor of Izbora Konstantin Miles recently had an interview with John Lennon in Amsterdam, the most prominent of The Beatles. K. Miles is the first journalist from any socialist country to interview The Beatles.

A CONVERSATION WITH JOHN LENNON

I had prepared for this interview for a full four months. It was promised to me right away during my first attempt to do it back in November of last year when I first visited the headquarters of The Beatles, Apple Corps. However, at that time, The Beatles were not giving any interviews to anyone, absolutely no one, for some reasons that were convincingly explained to me and which I accepted as being personal.

At the end of January, I again visited Derek Taylor, the all-powerful Beatles’ press officer. I had only come to make arrangements for a later meeting. At that time Taylor told me: “Do you want to meet John today? You know, he’s thrilled with the idea of being interviewed by a communist journalist.” I said no. “I don’t want to do just anything.” I phoned Taylor in mid-March, a few days after returning from Paris. I said that I would be in London again in the last week of March.

However, when I arrived at Apple I was in for a shock. Lennon had suddenly decided to get married and travelled from England to Gibraltar, whilst Taylor’s wife gave birth to their seventh (sic) child the night before I arrived. At Apple, only the regular secretaries remained on the scene, and they could not tell me when Lennon would return to London. The next day I got Lennon’s message from Taylor saying that I should wait for him in London or that I should fly to Amsterdam. I decided to travel to Birmingham the following day, for a day, for an interview with Richard Chamberlain, the former Doctor Kildare, and the day after that I took an English plane to Amsterdam. That was on Thursday. On Friday, around four o’clock in the afternoon, I found Lennon in an apartment in the Hilton Hotel, the only large building that uglifies beautiful Amsterdam.

Lennon surprised me. He has a very sharp and intelligent look, a voice as if made for some kind of political tribune, a voice that amazes with its energy and penetration, but that did not surprise me, but something else: his unusually mild appearance. At times, Lennon turns into an almost curious boy. This man with no complexes does not hesitate to ask such questions that might give the impression that he is ignorant. Only, he can afford it. Both as a brilliant composer and as an excellent poet. And (if it even matters) as one of the most famous people on our planet.

KONSTANTIN MILES: — A few months ago, London’s Daily Telegraph published the results of a poll about the most influential British people today. It wasn’t just some run-of-the-mill survey with hundreds of thousands of readers, but with the most prominent journalists, sociologists and publicists who were questioned. That poll showed that The Beatles are the most influential, by far the most influential British people today… influential where it is felt, where it counts: influencing the way of life and thinking. Far behind you, the famous television interviewer David Frost took second place. Harold Wilson was, I think, ninth or tenth, I don’t remember exactly. This is, let’s say, detail number 1. Detail number 2: the American weekly Time (and you or I can think what we want about it) wrote: “Only Hitler has affected people this way. When The Beatles speak, hundreds of millions listen.” Detail number 3: a few months ago, you published a photograph of yourself and your current wife on the album cover of Two Virgins. You were both naked, from the front and the back. Of course, these three details are not connected, but still… I’d like to ask you my first burst of questions. The first question would be something like this. The result of the Daily Telegraph poll actually represents what the English call an “understatement”… let’s say a half-truth… because you are amongst the most influential people on our planet.

JOHN LENNON: — Thank you.

K. MILES: — I know or I assume that you are not consciously trying to be influential. So when that’s the case, tell me how your sense of humour reacted to the results of that British poll and the article in Time (if you read any of it)?

J. LENNON: — So it’s really funny to be compared to Hitler. On the other hand, it’s not at all wrong for me to have that influence that you’re talking about… right now. Because I definitely want and try to use it… right now, specifically now, for the cause of peace. But otherwise, no offence, don’t pay too much attention to what your colleagues write…

K. MILES: — I certainly can’t accuse myself of harbouring any illusions about…

J. LENNON: — You know, one week they write one thing, the next week another. Maybe in a few days, they will start writing that we are the most unpopular and least influential people in the world.

K. MILES: — But, what about you, John Lennon, what about you as a person — or as an artist or as a global figure… what pleases you the most… what do you like the most about the influence you have? Of course, you cannot deny that influence.

J. LENNON: — I don’t deny it. I also don’t deny that I use it, you know. I like that I have it, and I like it because it, that influence, gives me the possibility to use it to achieve some things that I consider good.

K. MILES: — One is the fight to preserve world peace, I know that. But I guess there are also other things that you are fighting for with your influence?

J. LENNON: — I think peace is the most important thing of all. And after peace, there are some things, some other goals.

K. MILES: — For example?

J. LENNON: — Some social things. That, first of all, that.

K. MILES: — More precisely, please. What for example?

J. LENNON: — Well, for example, I would like to change the way people eat and to change the education system. In the old days, in the past, people in power kept the people in submission in such a way that they did not educate them. Today they oppress them in other ways. For example, they oppress them by feeding them bad food and so prevent the development of human abilities, human intellect, and spirit. Maybe the bigwigs don’t know that the capacity of the human spirit can be increased with a better diet, maybe they know it, but they won’t increase it, because they want to keep people in submission. However, if one day they realise that if they feed people properly instead of feeding them with chemicals, production will increase… maybe they will do something to improve the diet of the masses.

K. MILES: — However, you didn’t tell me how that poll in The Daily Telegraph affected your sense of humour… the English humour, whose first rule is that no one should take themselves too seriously. I was thinking about that.

J. LENNON: — That struck a nerve with my sense of humour, especially when I heard that comparison to Hitler.

K. MILES: — And now we come to the famous photograph. I saw it… I even saw a huge enlargement of it on the wall of an office at Apple, at Derek Taylor’s. So, it seems to me that there is something almost… let’s say… something almost philosophical about that photograph (which I don’t consider lascivious at all, because you both look so ordinary, so everyday, so average, that the photograph seems almost modest). So, I think that this photograph has a message, a very primal message, connected to a deep-rooted human instinct… one real universal instinct: a primal man shows his contempt for ‘X’ or ‘Y’ by showing them his bare backside, to “photograph” him as our children say. But, in today’s photo-sexual escalation, the buttocks are no longer interesting at all. That’s why you took the photograph of the two of you from the front… to show contempt, defiance… isn’t it?

J. LENNON: It is obvious that a living person can be photographed in many ways. It is also obvious that everything that you do can be interpreted in a hundred ways. Let’s say, you can be photographed like this or like that… let’s take it like we did… and then let it be known: “Shame on you who think this is an obscene photograph!” Do you understand? I don’t think that photograph was obscene. It only became that in the eyes and heads of those who are themselves obscene. On the other hand, in it, in that photograph, there is indeed contempt, you noticed it exactly, absolutely right. It in there is contempt for the philistine attitudes towards nudity. In it there is contempt for human stupidity and prejudices. And that means… therefore… that in it there is contempt for the “Establishment” (the ruling class) because the Establishment also thinks dirty.

K. MILES: — But also, when we’re already talking about your enormous influence, I have to quote you something that you won’t really like. It’s about something that I read about you in Ramparts, one of the few American magazines that I respect. Only, I’m afraid you won’t like this quote.

J. LENNON: — Just read it nicely.

K. MILES: — So Ramparts writes: “The Beatles come out in front of the world with their whining sayings of their harmless values — All You Need is Love — whilst the kids are building barricades in the streets, and cops are smashing their heads in with truncheons and rifle butts!”

J. LENNON: — We’re telling the protesting youth that we do not believe in violence, physical violence, that we do not believe in a revolution that is created by violence. There have been various revolutions so far in history. They achieved certain successes, they helped people to improve their standard of living in a certain way, to a certain extent. But, at the same time that was not all. From a spiritual view, they did not achieve what they might have wanted to achieve. In fact, I don’t think that any revolution has achieved exactly what it set out to achieve, what it was carried out for. That’s why I say to the youth of the world: If you are already protesting, and you have to protest, do it in a peaceful way, without violence. My role models are Gandhi, Dr Martin Luther King and Christ… and some others. I believe in the law of action and reaction, one of the fundamental laws of nature and the world. I believe that the motivations of the children who are erecting barricades in the streets, I believe that their motivations are good and noble, absolutely correct, and I am completely on their side. I’m on their side, and I’m not sure that I wouldn’t have done the same if I were in their situation. But, I believe that violence begets violence… and if the violence is not started by cops, someone in the crowd will start it. I think like this: the ruling system needs to be changed, but by infiltrating it and draining it from the inside. Don’t break it… er… don’t tear it down, smash it, break it, because this generation can’t afford to spend half of its life or more building what’s broken. It is necessary to act from the inside, inside the system. After all, most of the people who make up the Establishment today will be dead in 15 to 20 years, and then we, us, will be the Establishment, and we will rule. And because of that, what sense does it make to build barricades, and break pavements to get projectiles, what sense does it make to riot against the cops when the main goal, the main target of the fight, is the system itself? The system and common way of thinking of most people. That needs to change. By that, I don’t mean to say that the way people dress or live or spend their leisure time should be changed. These are all just superficial things. The way people think needs to change, the spirit of the people needs to change, you have to get into the Establishment, infiltrate it, and then from there start building a new world. (Editor’s note: Perhaps with this Lennon explained why the Establishment accepted and even supported The Beatles).

K. MILES: — I think I understood you. I just have to warn you about something. There is no real revolution without violence, without the use of violence. Everything else is just an illusion. What you said about revolutions, it can pass… only revolutions do not bear fruit to the first generation, but to the second, the third. But, we were talking about the cops, the police. In connection with them, I must ask you to explain to me a somewhat strange phenomenon. In the last few months, the cops have been frequent, almost regular visitors to your London flat…

J. LENNON (laughing): — Oh yeah, yeah, that’s right…

K. MILES: — …so the cops come regularly to your flat, but also the flats of the other three Beatles. They come with their dogs that then sniff through your home looking for cannabis…

J. LENNON: — Yeah, they sniff, damned sniffing (laughing).

K. MILES: — So, they sniff around looking for cannabis and most of the time they find nothing…

J. LENNON: — Well, it can’t really be said, they sometimes find something too… albeit a little, very little (laughing).

K. MILES: — Yes, I read: a gram, or so. OK. But how do you explain these frequent visits to yourself, ha? Did it occur to you that these police officers might actually be your secret but passionate admirers, cops who are simply taking advantage of their position and their rights to get close to their heroes, ha?

J. LENNON (laughing): — Of course, you’re joking. No, I don’t think that this new phenomenon has such a nice and funny explanation, although your theory is by no means “irrelevant.” I think it’s about something deeper. You know, to tell you the truth, the cops and whoever from the Establishment commands them… er… they have known for a long time that we take drugs. It was never any kind of secret. We’ve said it publicly, clearly and loudly. And yet, nothing happened to us. Someone in the command chain, someone was protecting us… of course for some reason of their own and some motives of their own. And then that protection that we enjoyed, that protection from the top that allowed us to publicly admit that we were taking drugs without anyone calling on us… then that protection was suddenly suspended, quashed, lifted. Why did it happen? Because we showed them our real flag! And now about the cops who come to us as regular visitors. It’s really about the same cops, but maybe that’s because they only have ten cops who know something about cannabis and only two dogs that can smell it. In the whole of the police force: ten cops and two dogs. We already know these cops and the dogs well. But let’s get back to your theory. I think that the main cop who is chasing and hunting us, I think that the main cop is one of those cops who collect scalps, that he is a scalp hunter. He’s got the Rolling Stones’ scalp. He wants people to say about him: “He catches them all, they can’t escape him.” He only chases scalps. He doesn’t care what happens to us after he’s caught us. The main thing for him is that he caught you, that he has just caught you. He gets fame as the bounty hunter of famous people.

K. MILES: — You know, when I asked you this question, I actually wanted to paraphrase something that the late Brian Epstein had said to the press when you didn’t want to perform in the Philippines at an event organised by the president of the republic there. Epstein had then said: “Uh, these statesmen! Those guys only care about making themselves important in front of their kids by knowing The Beatles and how they talked to them!” I wanted to paraphrase what Epstein had said and relate it to the cops who so regularly… let’s say… visit you.

J. LENNON: — Yeah, it’s a similar thing. Because those cops are really hunting for scalps, the scalps of famous people. There are plenty of people who smoke cannabis in London, and the cops know it well. However, for the policemen, it’s better to arrest John Lennon or George Harrison, you know. He becomes more famous that way.

“OK! We opened the windows and created a draught…”

K. MILES (laughing): — But let’s get back to your great, huge influence. No one, not even your worst enemies… but you actually have no enemies, because even the Establishment loves and adores you…

J. LENNON: — Hey, easy, you’re not right there!

K. MILES: — How am I not right?

J. LENNON: — There are many people who hate us and who would prefer to liquidate us, who can’t wait to get rid of us.

K. MILES: — OK, there are plenty of people who hate you. But still, even your greatest enemy cannot deny that the changes that you have brought about through your influence are substantial, indeed great. At the very least (and I’m leaving your music aside) you freed the youth from the shackles of social traditions, you brought refreshing suspicion and doubt towards the God-given authorities, you taught the youth to despise conventions, to fight against hypocrisy. Let’s be clear: a moment ago I actually quoted an American, to put it mildly, conservative magazine. In fact, and these are my words, I think it could almost be said that: The Beatles opened the windows and brought in the fresh air of social change, but they didn’t even touch the building itself. It would almost be said that you were afraid of your own influence and that’s why you fled to Indian philosophy, to guruism, to transcendental meditation, to some… I must say… crazy projects about buying some Greek island… and that… please… after a colonel’s coup d’état. In your semi-official biography, someone said about you: “The biggest change in John is the drop in his aggressiveness.” Maybe this question isn’t fair, maybe it will seem mean to you, but I don’t think I can pass it by.

J. LENNON: — So, that’s a hell of a big question, by God! Let me think. What was that at the beginning…

K. MILES: — I was saying that with your influence you’ve helped the youth to free themselves…

J. LENNON: — OK. So, we opened the windows…

K. MILES: —… but you didn’t even touch the building…

J. LENNON: — Yes. I think you noticed that correctly. Only, it is consistent with our policy of infiltrating enemy structures rather than demolishing them. OK, let’s go back. So, we opened the windows, created a draught, so that the fresh air of change enters the house. OK! We also opened the door and let all the people, the young people, enter the house after us. OK. However, after some time, after a period, after we made a good draught, the wind caught us and carried us in a circle. That lasted several years. And then we stood still for two years, we were static, you understand? That happened to us… yeah… that happened to us. And that’s when it was the most dangerous for us. That we almost got lost in the Establishment… that we almost let them suffocate us… suffocate us as people, as individuals, do you understand? You need to know this to understand the incident with the Maharishi and the search for islands to buy and live on: we were doing all of this just to find ourselves again. Because we were lost in everything that happened with us when we became a concept, a global concept, as The Beatles, do you understand? And so that’s how we were searching for ourselves. We didn’t run away from anyone or anything. We could have found ourselves simply by looking in the mirror, but we didn’t want to. We looked for ourselves elsewhere, searched alone for ourselves, followed our sense of smell, our nose. And that took us to India. You know… no matter what was said and written… India benefited us a lot. Granted, George and I were the only two Beatles who actually stayed there. The other two didn’t. They just visited us and then went home, you know. George and I stayed there for three full months during which we meditated for hours and hours every day. And that turned out to be useful. No, it cannot be denied that it was a great spiritual exercise for both of us. Besides that, it taught me many things, which I did not know before. First of all, I learned that everyone is their own “guru”… you know: “guru” means “teacher”… so, everyone is their own teacher. After all, didn’t Christ and Muhammad… if I’m not mistaken… didn’t they say, teach something similar: that everyone can be a prophet? Yes, we are all prophets, we the people. OK. So, I had an excellent spiritual time in India, staying in my room for hours every day and meditating. It was great after two years of furiously rushing around. I came home spiritually refreshed, and then I met Yoko and, as you know, I began a new career.

The difference between The Beatles and The Stones

K. MILES: — When I asked my question, I was actually interested in some other things. However, it doesn’t matter. This is how I found out some interesting information about you, and we will come back to that later, when we talk about The Rolling Stones. However, you’ve started having a falling out with the authorities, that is, with the Establishment, only recently. Just a few years ago, Paul McCartney was the announcer at a concert attended by the Queen. In his announcement, he said something very nice: “Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands, and the rest of you if you’d just rattle your jewellery!”

J. LENNON: — Paul didn’t say that. I said that.

K. MILES: — In any case, it was a great “stunt.” That’s how those who were asked to rattle their jewellery understood it. They just enjoyed it! You were their darlings, their pets, and if you had bored them, they would take it as something extremely witty and great. On the other hand, The Rolling Stones were brutally persecuted from the very beginning. They are, I know, your friends. Come on, honestly: why the difference? Why were The Rolling Stones pariahs, “outcasts” from the very beginning, and you weren’t?

J. LENNON: — In fact, in the beginning, no one persecuted The Rolling Stones. They appeared a short time behind us and were met with more or less the same reaction. At that time, we were also called “long-haired,” “shaggy,” and “grubby,” do you understand? However, we infiltrated the Establishment stronger and deeper than they did, or if you will, we made greater compromises… in order to gain more power, do you understand? You know: we’re not The Stones. We are different, you know. The Stones are perhaps street fighters. I am not, you know. That was the basic difference between us. And so the Stones performed their moves in front of the public, you know. Only, they don’t do it like they used to. Trust me… although it may not look so… but they always used to play their cards, they knew how to play them, just like us. This is exactly why they should be thankful that they are still on the scene, that the Establishment did not manage to liquidate them. In any case, they expertly used all the publicity that it brought them. If today you compare The Stones with, let’s say, Jim Morrison, if you compare American and English bands today, The Stones come out as — reactionaries. Why? Because those bands came after them. So it happened that we looked slightly more reactionary than The Stones because they came a little after us. And everyone who appeared after The Stones made The Stones look like reactionaries compared to them, you understand?