Best Bit from John Lennon's 1970 Rolling Stone Interview used in Tony Hendra/Christopher Guests "Magical Misery Tour"

Inevitably cut off:

1. i resent performing for you fuckers!
tell me, what do you know? 
a lot of faggot middle-class kids 
wearing long hair and trendy clothes.

2. look, i'm not your fucking parents 
and i'm sick of uptight hippies coming knocking at me door 
with a fucking peace symbol 
get this, got that i don't owe you fuckers anything. 
and all i've got to say is "fuck you!"

3. and mick jagger 
i think that mick's a joke with all his stupid faggot dancing 
i always did. 
wiggling his ass, you know, its just a lot of bullshit. 


4. and where does he come off saying all those tarty things about the beatles? 
when every fucking thing we ever did 
mick tried to copy 
and you know we even wrote his second fucking record for him 


5. no, the stones aren't the same in class as the beatles, either music-wise or power-wise; 
they never ever were.

6. paul said he hated yoko 
tell me, why should yoko have to take that kind of shit - 
shit from those fucking sons of bitches? 


7. george said she gave off evil vibes 
i should have beat the fucking shit right out of him, 
him with his fucking hari krishnas.

8. me auntie she tore up me fucking poems 
she just threw the bastards out. 
i can't forgive her 'cause she didn't treat me like a fucking genius. 


9. look, you bastards, i'm a genius! 
like shakespeare and beethoven and van gogh. 
don't you dare criticize my work! 
"don't worry kyoko" is one of the fucking best rock and roll records ever made! 


10. i'm a fucking artist! 
i'm sensitive as shit! 
i throw up before i go on stage! 
i could make a guitar speak! 
if i could be a fisherman, i would, 
but i can't because i'm a fucking genius!

11. i was the walrus - 
paul wasn't the walrus! 
i was just saying that to be nice, but i was actually the walrus! 
you know that rubbish he's been singing?

12. eastman was an animal! 
a fucking stupid middle-class pig! 
i won't let fucking animals like that near me! 


13. yoko is a supreme intellectual! 
i'll tell you why nobody likes her music 
it's because she's a woman, 
and she's oriental, that's why

walrus will prob take this

That is an awesome line, but I love "
if i could be a fisherman, i would, 
but i can't because i'm a fucking genius!" so much.

2 or 10

2, but the whole 'I hate Mick' screed is hilarious - I can imagine all the people

Mick Jagger laughing in Lennon's face.

Holy shit! Is this real? Is that really Lennon??? How does nobody know about this???

Damn... I thought that was really him for a minute.

He did actually say all of these things in a single interview.

So unlike the homelife of our own dear Noel

10. i'm a fucking artist! 
i'm sensitive as shit! 
i throw up before i go on stage! 
i could make a guitar speak! 
if i could be a fisherman, i would, 
but i can't because i'm a fucking genius!

This is one of the greatest things ever. Just the way it keeps piling the invective up on top of itself, it's the bit that killed me the most.

http://beatpatrol.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/jann-s-wenner-john-lennon-the-rolling-stone-interview-1971/

7. george said she gave off evil vibes 
i should have beat the fucking shit right out of him, 
him with his fucking hari krishnas.

cracked me up

yeah, voted for the George part

"evil vibes" was the key part

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Voted "Mick." Might be obvious but if you've ever seen the video of him dueting with Muddy Waters...

I thought this was actually Lennon as well for the first minute or so and thought "Right, my new favourite thing the guy ever did." Amazing.

it's definitely my favorite thing that Tony Hendra ever did, and that includes his performance in Spinal Tap

http://www.zuguide.com/image/Tony-Hendra-This-Is-Spinal-Tap.9.jpg

my vote goes to 'Turn Left At Iceland'

Um, isn't it "Turn left at Greenland"?

Surprised that this fooled some people. It's not a bad impression, but it doesn't really sound like it is actually him.

My favourite bit of the Wenner interview, that hasn't been parodied here, was where John was complaining that George had told Yoko that Dylan said that she "had a bad name in New York".

So unlike the homelife of our own dear Noel

― sonofstan, Sunday, 19 December 2010 17:01 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha so true you could take half of those and change the names and post straight into the NG thread.

I voted for 7 because of "
him with his fucking hari krishnas."

the whole thing is hysterically funny, especially the part where he calls van gogh 'van goff,' but i voted for the george part.

these quotes are all the funnier for being interrupted

like, I imagine Jann Wenner yanking John offstage with a big cane.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

He did actually say all of these things in a single interview.

― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Sunday, December 19, 2010 4:47 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

kind of, but mostly these are all heavily paraphrased, edited and lined up largely out of context. so don't mistake the 'quotes' where he's really piling it on as anything but comedy. still, yeah, for the first no-holds barred interview after the break up of the beatles, he really just let himself say anything! it's a great read, the illustrations in the paperback version Wenner put out later are hilarious; Lennon keeps mentioning Fellini's Satyricon as the only way to describe what it was like backstage at the early US tours, and so they helpfully include a still from the film of a group of topless women wading in a pool surrounded by hundreds of candles

for instance, it is impossible to find the original 'quote' for the poll winner because it's pulled from too many different sections but here is the original bit the poll runner-up was constructed from

How would you characterize George’s, Paul’s and Ringo’s reaction to Yoko?
Lennon: It’s the same. You can quote Paul, it’s probably in the papers, he said it many times at first he hated Yoko and then he got to like her. But, it’s too late for me. I’m for Yoko. Why should she take that kind of shit from those people? They were writing about her looking miserable in the Let It Be film, but you sit through 60 sessions with the most bigheaded, up-tight people on earth and see what its fuckin’ like and be insulted — just because you love someone — and George, shit, insulted her right to her face in the Apple office at the beginning, just being ‘straight-forward,’ you know that game of ‘I’m going to be up front,’ because this is what we’ve heard and Dylan and a few people said she’d got a lousy name in New York, and you give off bad vibes. That’s what George said to her! And we both sat through it. I didn’t hit him, I don’t know why.

I was always hoping that they would come around. I couldn’t believe it, and they all sat there with their wives, like a fucking jury and judged us and the only thing I did was write that piece (Rolling Stone, April 16th, 1970) about “some of our beast friends” in my usual way — because I was never honest enough, I always had to write in that gobbly-gook — and that’s what they did to us.

Ringo was all right, so was Maureen, but the other two really gave it to us. I’ll never forgive them, I don’t care what fuckin’ shit about Hare Krishna and God and Paul with his “Well, I’ve changed me mind.” I can’t forgive ‘em for that, really. Although I can’t help still loving them either.

some of the best stuff in that interview didn't even make it to the song, like:

And when we got here (America), you were all walking around in fuckin’ bermuda shorts, with Boston crew cuts and stuff on your teeth. Now they’re telling us, they’re all saying, “Beatles are passe and this is like that, man.” The chicks looked like fuckin’ 1940 horses. There was no conception of dress or any of that jazz. We just thought “what an ugly race."

Fuckin’ big bastards, that’s what the Beatles were. You have to be a bastard to make it, that’s a fact, and the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth.

You know, I really thought that love would save us all. But now I’m wearing a Chairman Mao badge. I’m just beginning to think he’s doing a good job.

"kind of, but mostly these are all heavily paraphrased, edited and lined up largely out of context."

True true, but it's they had to exaggerate the sentiment much at all!

not like they