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The Zoo 4: Stomachs
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The Zoo 4 - Stomachs (Disk 2 of 2).adf
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*!EOM
188
1619Y00F05roman16Y00C1NMiles Apple `69 Interview
1601Nwith John & Yoko
1601NPart 1
1218Y00F04ruby12Y00C3NBy Miles
0819Y00F05prime08Y00C5N
0801NMiles: Abbey Road, then. Does Come Together relate to you getting more
0801Ninvovled with the so-called underground in the last year or so?
0801N
0801NJohn Lennon: I don't know about the underground - I don't believe it exists.
0801NLeary was saying, "Write me a song" for his campaign. And his campaign
0801Nslogan was "Come Together". But obviously Come Together is not a good
0801Ncampaign song. It didn't work out - it ended up like that, a funky bit of
0801Nrock. I've got another one for him.
0801N
0801NMiles: Something?
0801N
0801NLennon: That's George. A great song, I think. Possibly s single in the
0801NStates. If I can get Come Together on the backside I will be very pleased.
0801NJust so I can listen to it without listening to the whole album.
0801N
0801NMiles: Maxwell's Silver Hammer?
0801N
0801NLennon: That's McCartney, as you might know. We don't really write together
0801Nany more. We haven't written together for two years. Not really, you know.
0801NJust occasional bits we help.
0801N
0801NMiles: How does that affect you when you're playing then?
0801N
0801NLennon: It doesn't make any odds who writes them. It's when The Beatles
0801Nperform that makes it into Beatle music. It's a long time since we've sat
0801Ndown and written together for many reasons, because we used to write together
0801Nmainly on tour. Then there was a valid reason for it. It got false - "Come
0801Nround to our house and we'll write some songs" - it doesn't work any more.
0801N
0801NMiles: You still go into a studio - isn't that a great ideas place?
0801N
0801NLennon: With Come Together I just said to them, "I've got no arrangement for
0801Nyou, but you know how I want it. Give me something funky." And they play
0801Nlike that. I think that's partly because we've played together for a long
0801Ntime. I'll set a beat maybe and they'll all just join in.
0801N
0801NMiles: Octopus' Garden?
0801N
0801NLennon: That's Ringo - we all sing on that and we all helped on the
0801Narrangement or whatever.
0801N
0801NMiles: What's your attitude towards heavy blues?
0801N
0801NLennon: I love it, you know. I've always liked it. We used to play it at
0801Ncollege. We were allowed to play rock `n` roll by infiltrating, by playing
0801Nblues at art school, because they would only let you play trad jazz on the
0801Nart school record player. So I got myself voted onto the committee so that
0801Nwe could play rock `n` roll. We could get the snobs by playing them blues -
0801Nwhich was all right. All that Leadbelly, Bo Diddley...
0801N
0801NMiles: There seems to be a whole range of music on Abbey Road.
0801N
0801NLennon: I suppose it's because I do what I like, Paul does what he likes,
0801Nand George and Ringo. We just divide the album up between ourselves. It's
0801Nmore apparant on the double album. It's always been that really, and the
0801Ncombination of the music is what we call pure Beatle. Like It's Getting
0801NBetter where we've all written it and we've all turned into pure Beatle.
0801N
0801N I want to sound like Come Together and I Want You all the time, which I
0801Nalways did and I always do - Dizzy Miss Lizzy and whatever, I wanted to be
0801Nthat guy. And Paul wants to be whoever it is he wants to be. And George.
0801NSo when the combination does it, we come out with what we term Beatle music.
0801N
0801NMiles: Do you no longer have a direction that the whole group is going in?
0801N
0801NLennon: We never did. I mean, it was just whoever was pushing the limits of
0801Nthe bag at the time. You know, we often all pushed at the same point. There
0801Nwas never, "This is the way we are going".
0801N
0801NMiles: No, but there seemed to be atype of music one could identify as
0801NBeatle music which had elements of all four personalities in it.
0801N
0801NLennon: Well does that no longer exist? I don't know, you see, I can't
0801Nreally be objective about it.
0801N
0801NMiles: On this album I thought probaly it didn't.
0801N
0801NLennon: Well, did it exist on The Beatles double album?
0801N
0801NMiles: To a greater extent, and even more on Sgt. Pepper.
0801N
0801NLennon: As far as we're concerned, this album is more Beatle than the double
0801Nalbum. Because that was just saying, "This is my song, we'll do it this way.
0801NThat's your song, you do it that way."
0801N
0801NMiles: How do you concieve of an album these days? Do you have a vast array
0801Nof material?
0801N
0801NLennon: There's an awful lot of songs. It's pretty hard trying to fit three
0801Nguys' music onto one album, that's why we did a double. It's hard to bring
0801Nout double albums all the time, it takes us a long time. So we probably
0801Noutlet them in other things like Plastic Ono, or George gets Jesus and the
0801Nsomething else. That's the only way we can do it really. We don't have
0801Nconceptions of albums. I think Paul has conceptions of albums - or attempts
0801Nit. Like he concieved the medley thing. I'm not interested in the
0801Nconception of an album. All I'm interested in is the sound. I like it to be
0801Nwhatever happens. I'm not interested in making the album into a show. I
0801Njust put 14 rock songs on.
0801N
0801NMiles: The idea of the track at the very end...
0801N
0801NLennon: We like gags, you know, we always have. We like little jokes and
0801Nsuprises at the end of things.
0801N
0801NMiles: There seems to be a bit of stage act...
0801N
0801NLennon: We've got a bit of that too...
0801N
0801NMiles: Do you long for those days?
0801N
0801NLennon: I don't long for them, no. We stopped doing it because it was a
0801Ndrag. But I dug performing in Toronto and I didn't have that Beatles
0801Nmystique to live up to, which is the drag about performing with The Beatles.
0801NYou've got to be The Beatles. But performing is a groove, I enjoyed it like
0801Nmad, even if I did have to sing Dizzy Miss Lizzy and Money again because
0801Nthey're the only things I know! It was just the performance was good. With
0801Na different band it was very good.
0801N
0801NMiles: Do you think you will do anything else like that again?
0801N
0801NLennon: Yes, sure. I'm bound to now I've had a taste of it. Not going out
0801Nas a Beatle. Nothing's expected of John and Yoko or the Plastic Ono. They
0801Ncould be anything or perform anything. So with that sort of freedom there's
0801Nno hang-ups.
0801N
0801NMiles: How much do you think Yoko's influenced you?
0801N
0801NLennon: Well, a lot. She's now 50 per cent of me.
0801N
0801NYoko Ono: We influence each other.
0801N
0801NMiles: How about the stuff you write for The Beatles as opposed to the stuff
0801Nyou do solo...
0801N
0801NLennon: (interrupting) I don't write for The Beatles, I write for myself.
0801NSo I'm influenced by whatever's going on at the time. I'm in love and that's
0801Nthe end of it. So every time I pick up the guitar I sing about Yoko and
0801Nthat's how I'm influenced. I am obviously influenced by her ideas and her
0801Ncoming from that other field, so-called avant garde or underground or
0801Nwherever she came from. She came in through the bathroom window. She
0801Nencouraged the freak in me.
0801N
0801NOno: He had all these things in him that were just a little bit outside the
0801Nframe of Beatles. It was all there. We stimulated each other, woke each
0801Nother up.
0801N
0801NMiles: How did that affect The Beatles?
0801N
0801NLennon: Well you'll have to ask them...
0801N
0801NMiles: As one quarter of them...
0801N
0801NLennon: I can't say how. I know it has affected us, obviously, me getting
0801Nmarried to Yoko, and Paul getting married to Linda. Everything affects them,
0801Nbut how I don't know.
0801N
0801NMiles: The things you're doing don't seem to have given rise to new subjects
0801Nfor your songs yet.
0801N
0801NLennon: What is there to sing about? On the album I sing about Mean Mr
0801NMustard and Polythene Pam, but they are only finished bits of crap that I
0801Nwrote in India. But when I get down to it, I'm only interested in Yoko and
0801Npeace, so if I can sing about them again and again - it's only like I'm going
0801Nthrough my blue period as a painter. And I'll do that 'til I get tired. I
0801Ncan always write Mr Kite and those songs any time of day. But when I get
0801Ndown to it, I like funky music. I like rock or blues or whatever you call
0801Nit. On 24 Hours [TV show transmitted in 1969 that followed the Lennons about
0801Ntheir daily life] they sardonically read out I Want You - "I want you, she's
0801Nso heavy". That's all it says but to me that's a damn sight better lyric
0801Nthan Walrus or Eleanor Rigby because it's progression to me. And if I want
0801Nto write songs with on words or one word... maybe that's Yoko's influence.
0801N
0801N When it get's down to it, awopbobaloola et cetera is great, and that's
0801Nwhat I'm getting round to. I remember in the early meetings with Dylan,
0801NDylan was always saying to me "Listen to the words, man". And I said, "I
0801Ncan't be bothered, I just like listening to the sound of it, the sound of the
0801Noverall things." And then I reversed that and started being a words man. I
0801Nam naturally, playing with words anyway. That's when I made a conscious
0801Neffort to be wordy, à la Dylan. But now I've relieved myself of that burden
0801Nand I'm only interested in pure sound.
0801N
0801NContinued In Part 2
*!EOF