JOHN´S FINAL INTERVIEW WITH ‘ROLLING STONE’

On January 22, 1981, Rolling Stone published the last ever print interview with John Lennon.

The interview was conducted on December 5, 1980, just 3 days before he was shot.

Naturally, the January issue became a tribute to Lennon. It featured highlights of the interview, with writer Jonathan Cott, and a photo of Lennon naked, curled up in a fetal position around his clothed wife, Yoko Ono, on the cover.

The original published interview only featured excerpts from Cott’s 9-hour interview with Lennon. The full interview was released 30 years later – more on that later.

The main focus was the upcoming album, Double Fantasy, that he was working on with Yoko. Cott followed the couple into the studio as they remixed several songs for the album.

Cott wrote the piece with a retrospective eye, recalling his interactions with Lennon from their first meeting, in 1968, when Rolling Stone was a small, “impoverished, San Francisco-based magazine,” to this last interview.
 

30 years later, Cott re-discovered his interview tapes. The full interview was released in a 30th anniversary memorial issue of Rolling Stone. Cott told the magazine,

“Earlier this year I was cleaning up to find some files in the recesses of my closet when I came across two cassette tapes marked ‘John Lennon, December 5th, 1980.’ It had been 30 years since I listened to them, and when I put them on, this totally alive, uplifting voice started speaking on this magical strip of magnetic tape.”

(A fan holds a copy of the RS cover at a tribute for the 20th anniv of John’s death, Dec 8,2000)

An 18-minute clip from the interview was released for free on iTunes, along with several other interviews that John Lennon did with Rolling Stone over the years.

The clip reveals a different side of Lennon from the originally published interview. In it, he discusses the fans who were angry at him for taking a hiatus from music to raise his son, and he was very angry at them.

“They only like people when they’re on their way up. I cannot be on the way up again… What they want is dead heroes, like Sid Vicious and James Dean. I’m not interested in being a dead f—ing hero … so forget ‘em, forget ‘em.”

Rather ironic that a dead hero is exactly what he became a mere few days later.

John also revealed that he was considering going back out on the road. Unfortunately, that tour would never come to be. Many of Lennon’s words still ring true today. This quote particularly caught my ear, discussing how society idolizes people in very public positions,

“They pick a President, they put him up there, and then they set fire to him because he couldn’t solve their problems, because they’re always looking for somebody else to provide for them.”

John went on to discuss Bruce Springsteen and Mick Jagger, but I couldn’t help but think of President Barack Obama.

Overall, the interview emphasized Lennon’s message of peace. After all he went through, he still believed wholeheartedly in love over hate, but he was very humble about all he had done.

“I’ve never claimed divinity,” he said. “I’ve never claimed purity of soul.”