Reporter Maureen Cleave, a
good friend of John Lennon's, wrote a personality article about him in the
March 4th, 1966 edition of the London Evening Standard. Cleave's piece was
intended to present a portrait of the behind-the-scenes Lennon, and was
entitled 'How Does A Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This.' The article
contained a number of Lennon musings, remarks and random thoughts from a recent
conversation she had with him at his home in Weybridge, including John's
personal view of the current state of religion: "Christianity will go. It
will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right, and I will be
proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now. I don't know which will go
first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples
were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."
A separate article with different
content, including portions of the Jesus quote out of context from the original
article, was published in the American teen fanzine 'Datebook' just before the
Beatles' 1966 American tour.
Word-of-mouth rumors in
America about John Lennon's Jesus quote spread quickly among anti-Beatle
factions, even further out of context, as the ridiculous egocentric headline:
'John says Beatles are bigger than Jesus.' The outrage and reaction mostly
seemed to be coming from the 'bible belt' in America.
John would later remark
during a press conference in Chicago on August 12th during the Beatles' 1966
North American tour, "We could've just sort of hidden in England and said,
'We're not going, we're not going!' You know, that occurred to me when I heard
it all. I couldn't remember saying it. I couldn't remember the article. I was
panicking, saying, 'I'm not going at all,' you know. But if they sort of
straighten it out, it will be worth it, and good."
Lennon continued, "When
it came out in England it was a bit of a blab-mouthed saying anyway... A few
people wrote into the papers, and a few wrote back saying, 'So what, he said
that. Who is he anyway,' or they said, 'So, he can have his own opinion.' And
then it just vanished. It was very small. But... you know, when it gets over
here, and then it's put into a kid's magazine, and just parts of it or whatever
was put in, it just loses its meaning or its context immediately... and
everybody starts making their own versions of it." John would be asked
many times during the 1966 tour to clarify what he had intended to say. Lennon
explained in Chicago: "My views are only from what I've read or observed
of Christianity and what it was, and what it has been, or what it could be. It
just seems to me to be shrinking. I'm not knocking it or saying it's bad. I'm
just saying it seems to be shrinking and losing contact."
In some cities, reporters
would ask Lennon to explain the Jesus comment repeatedly -- even multiple times
within a single press conference -- baiting him to become upset or to say
something even further inflammatory. Knowing their game, John kept his cool.
The public outcry against
Lennon had been coming from a rather small minority of the population, but once
the national media fanned the flames as much as they were able, reports of
negative public reaction made it appear more widespread than it really was. For
the minority of Americans who moved from religious outrage to action, the
fallout did involve Beatle record burnings arranged by Christian radio
stations, Ku Klux Klan protests, and anonymous death threats. It also gave the
older generation a sense of vindication that the Beatles were somehow bad role
models for the youth of America.
With some hindsight
perspective, John clarified the remark perhaps best during his December 1966
Look magazine interview: "I said we were more popular than Jesus, which is
a fact. I believe Jesus was right, Buddha was right, and all of those people
like that are right. They're all saying the same thing, and I believe it. I
believe what Jesus actually said -- the basic things he laid down about love
and goodness -- and not what people say he said."
John's then-wife Cynthia
would state years later in her 1978 book, A Twist Of Lennon: "His views
were totally misconstrued. John was very bewildered and frightened by the
reaction that his words created in the States. Beatle albums were burnt in a
mass orgy of self-righteous indignation. Letters arrived at the house full of
threats, hate, and venom."
The original London Evening
Standard article is presented below in its entirety, featuring the quote in its
original context.
HOW DOES A BEATLE LIVE? JOHN
LENNON LIVES LIKE THIS - by Maureen Cleave.
Article Copyright © 1966
London Evening Standard
On a hill in Surrey... a
young man famous, loaded and waiting for something
It was this time three years
ago that The Beatles first grew famous. Ever since then, observers have
anxiously tried to gauge whether their fame was on the wax or on the wane; they
foretold the fall of the old Beatles, they searched diligently for the new
Beatles (which was as pointless as looking for the new Big Ben).
At last, they have given up;
The Beatles' fame is beyond question. It has nothing to do with whether they
are rude or polite, married or unmarried, 25 or 45; whether they appear on Top
of the Pops or do not appear on Top of the Pops. They are well above any
position even a Rolling Stone might jostle for. They are famous in the way the
Queen is famous. When John Lennon's Rolls-Royce, with its black wheels and its
black windows, goes past, people say: 'It's the Queen,' or 'It's The Beatles.'
With her they share the security of a stable life at the top. They all tick
over in the public esteem-she in Buckingham Palace, they in the Weybridge-Esher
area. Only Paul remains in London.
The Weybridge community
consists of the three married Beatles; they live there among the wooded hills
and the stockbrokers. They have not worked since Christmas, and their existence
is secluded and curiously timeless. "What day is it?" John Lennon asks
with interest when you ring up with news from outside. The fans are still at
the gates, but The Beatles see only each other. They are better friends than
ever before.
Ringo and his wife, Maureen,
may drop in on John and Cyn; John may drop in on Ringo; George and Pattie may
drop in on John and Cyn, and they might all go round to Ringo's, by car of
course. Outdoors is for holidays.
They watch films; they play
rowdy games of Buccaneer; they watch television till it goes off, often playing
records at the same time. They while away the small hours of the morning making
mad tapes. Bedtimes and mealtimes have no meaning as such. "We've never
had time before to do anything but just be Beatles," John Lennon said.
He is much the same as he was
before. He still peers down his nose, arrogant as an eagle, although contact
lenses have righted the short sight that originally caused the expression. He
looks more like Henry VIII than ever now that his face has filled out-he is
just as imperious, just as unpredictable, indolent, disorganized, childish,
vague, charming and quick-witted. He is still easy-going, still tough as hell.
"You never asked after Fred Lennon," he said, disappointed. (Fred is
his father; he emerged after they got famous.) "He was here a few weeks ago.
It was only the second time in my life I'd seen him -- I showed him the
door." He went on cheerfully: "I wasn't having him in the
house."
His enthusiasm is
undiminished, and he insists on its being shared. George has put him on to this
Indian music. "You're not listening, are you?" he shouts after 20
minutes of the record. "It's amazing this -- so cool. Don't the Indians
appear cool to you? Are you listening? This music is thousands of years old; it
makes me laugh, the British going over there and telling them what to do. Quite
amazing." And he switched on the television set.
Experience has sown few seeds
of doubt in him: not that his mind is closed, but it's closed round whatever he
believes at the time. "Christianity will go," he said. "It will
vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right, and I will be proved
right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first --
rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were
thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me." He is
reading extensively about religion.
He shops in lightning swoops
on Asprey's these days and there is some fine wine in his cellar, but he is
still quite unselfconscious. He is far too lazy to keep up appearances, even if
he had worked out what the appearances should be-which he has not.
He is now 25. He lives in a
large, heavily paneled, heavily carpeted, mock Tudor house set on a hill with
his wife Cynthia and his son Julian. There is a cat called after his aunt Mimi,
and a purple dining room. Julian is three; he may be sent to the Lycde in
London. "Seems the only place for him in his position," said his
father, surveying him dispassionately. "I feel sorry for him, though. I
couldn't stand ugly people even when I was five. Lots of the ugly ones are
foreign, aren't they?"
We did a speedy tour of the
house, Julian panting along behind, clutching a large porcelain Siamese cat.
John swept past the objects in which he had lost interest: "That's
Sidney" (a suit of armour); "That's a hobby I had for a week" (a
room full of model racing cars); "Cyn won't let me get rid of that"
(a fruit machine). In the sitting room are eight little green boxes with
winking red lights; he bought them as Christmas presents but never got round to
giving them away. They wink for a year; one imagines him sitting there till
next Christmas, surrounded by the little winking boxes.
He paused over objects he
still fancies; a huge altar crucifix of a Roman Catholic nature with IHS on it;
a pair of crutches, a present from George; an enormous Bible he bought in
Chester; his gorilla suit.
"I thought I might need
a gorilla suit," he said; he seemed sad about it. "I've only worn it
twice. I thought I might pop it on in the summer and drive round in the Ferrari.
We were all going to get them and drive round in them, but I was the only one
who did. I've been thinking about it, and if I didn't wear the head it would
make an amazing fur coat-with legs, you see. I would like a fur coat, but I've
never run into any."
One feels that his
possessions -- to which he adds daily-have got the upper hand; all the tape
recorders, the five television sets, the cars, the telephones of which he knows
not a single number. The moment he approaches a switch it fuses; six of the
winking boxes, guaranteed to last till next Christmas, have gone funny already.
His cars-the Rolls, the Mini-Cooper (black wheels, black windows), the Ferrari
(being painted black) -- puzzle him. Then there's the swimming pool, the trees
sloping away beneath it. "Nothing like what I ordered," he said
resignedly. He wanted the bottom to be a mirror. "It's an amazing
household," he said. "None of my gadgets really work except the
gorilla suit -- that's the only suit that fits me."
He is very keen on books,
will always ask what is good to read. He buys quantities of books, and these
are kept tidily in a special room. He has Swift, Tennyson, Huxley, Orwell,
costly leather-bound editions of Tolstoy, Oscar Wilde. Then there's Little
Women, all the William books from his childhood; and some unexpected volumes
such as Forty-One Years In India, by Field Marshal Lord Roberts, and
Curiosities of Natural History, by Francis T. Buckland. This last-with its
chapter headings 'Ear-less Cats', 'Wooden-Legged People,' 'The Immortal
Harvey's Mother' is right up his street.
He approaches reading with a
lively interest untempered by too much formal education. "I've read
millions of books," he said, "that's why I seem to know things."
He is obsessed by Celts. "I have decided I am a Celt," he said.
"I am on Boadicea's side -- all those bloody blue-eyed blondes chopping
people up. I have an awful feeling wishing I was there -- not there with scabs
and sores but there through reading about it. The books don't give you more
than a paragraph about how they lived; I have to imagine that."
He can sleep almost
indefinitely, is probably the laziest person in England. "Physically
lazy," he said. "I don't mind writing or reading or watching or
speaking, but sex is the only physical thing I can be bothered with
anymore." Occasionally he is driven to London in the Rolls by an ex-Welsh
guardsman called Anthony; Anthony has a mustache that intrigues him.
The day I visited him he had
been invited to lunch in London, about which he was rather excited. "Do
you know how long lunch lasts?" he asked. "I've never been to lunch
before. I went to a Lyons the other day and had egg and chips and a cup of tea.
The waiters kept looking and saying: 'No, it isn't him, it can't be him.'"
He settled himself into the
car and demonstrated the television, the folding bed, the refrigerator, the
writing desk, the telephone. He has spent many fruitless hours on that
telephone. "I only once got through to a person," he said, "and
they were out."
Anthony had spent the weekend
in Wales. John asked if they'd kept a welcome for him in the hillside and
Anthony said they had. They discussed the possibility of an extension for the
telephone. We had to call at the doctor's because John had a bit of sea urchin
in his toe. "Don't want to be like Dorothy Dandridge," he said,
"dying of a splinter 50 years later." He added reassuringly that he
had washed the foot in question.
We bowled along in a costly
fashion through the countryside. "Famous and loaded" is how he
describes himself now. "They keep telling me I'm all right for money but
then I think I may have spent it all by the time I'm 40 so I keep going. That's
why I started selling my cars; then I changed my mind and got them all back and
a new one too.
"I want the money just
to be rich. The only other way of getting it is to be born rich. If you have
money, that's power without having to be powerful. I often think that it's all
a big conspiracy, that the winners are the Government and people like us who've
got the money. That joke about keeping the workers ignorant is still true;
that's what they said about the Tories and the landowners and that; then Labour
were meant to educate the workers, but they don't seem to be doing that
anymore."
He has a morbid horror of
stupid people: "Famous and loaded as I am, I still have to meet soft
people. It often comes into my mind that I'm not really rich. There are really
rich people, but I don't know where they are."
He finds being famous quite
easy, confirming one's suspicion that The Beatles had been leading up to this
all their lives. "Everybody thinks they would have been famous if only
they'd had the Latin and that. So when it happens, it comes naturally. You
remember your old grannie saying soft things like: 'You'll make it with that
voice.'" Not, he added, that he had any old grannies.
He got to the doctor 2 3/4
hours early and to lunch on time but in the wrong place. He bought a giant
compendium of games from Asprey's but having opened it he could not, of course,
shut it again. He wondered what else he should buy. He went to Brian Epstein's
office. "Any presents?" he asked eagerly; he observed that there was
nothing like getting things free. He tried on the attractive Miss Hanson's
spectacles.
The rumor came through that a
Beatle had been sighted walking down Oxford Street! He brightened. "One of
the others must be out," he said, as though speaking of an escaped bear.
"We only let them out one at a time," said the attractive Miss Hanson
firmly.
He said that to live and have
a laugh were the things to do, but was that enough for the restless spirit?
"Weybridge," he
said, "won't do at all. I'm just stopping at it, like a bus stop. Bankers
and stockbrokers live there; they can add figures, and Weybridge is what they
live in, and they think it's the end, they really do. I think of it every day
-- me in my Hansel and Gretel house. I'll take my time; I'll get my real house
when I know what I want."
"You see, there's
something else I'm going to do, something I must do -- only I don't know what
it is. That's why I go round painting and taping and drawing and writing and
that, because it may be one of them. All I know is, this isn't it for me."
Anthony got him and the
compendium into the car and drove him home with the television flickering in
the soothing darkness while the Londoners outside rushed home from work.
