Emotional pornography

[imomus]

I'm not usually one for celebrating anniversaries, especially not anniversaries of deaths, and even less the deaths of celebrities. But the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death has produced, in the form of Lennon: The Wenner Tapes, a moving and hard-hitting radio document. I don't think I've ever cried listening to a Radio 4 programme, but this 1970 conversation between Lennon and Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner brought tears twice — once when Lennon talks about how there's nothing like being held by the person you love (and obviously I'm a sucker for the emotional pornography we could call Ono-ism) and once when he says he cherishes every day now "because you never know, you might get run over by a bus or something".

The reason Lennon is so compelling as an interviewee is the same as the reason he's great as a songwriter: there's not only a powerful directness here, an ability to get right to the heart of the things that matter in life, but also an extraordinary mixture of narcissistic arrogance (Lennon proclaims himself a genius, and gets very angry that his family and school teachers didn't recognize this) and vulnerability. Those qualities could cancel each other out, alienating everybody within earshot, but somehow that doesn't happen. Instead, the arrogance builds up the feeling that we're dealing with someone who lives on a scale of intensity and seriousness that few attain — that human endeavour, creativity, love, ambition, collaboration and competition all matter tremendously, and even their not-mattering matters. Then the vulnerability gives us our in, our proximity; it allows us to identify with and get close to that ego, recognize our own smaller one in it. It's all too high-risk to be a schtick; bridges—important ones—are burning in the rear-view mirror as Lennon, testily honest, assesses friends and collaborators with pithy phrases (George is "the invisible man", lucky to work with two songwriters as talented as him and McCartney), or notes with almost embarrassing candour his own two first reactions to Brian Epstein's death; a little thrill of thinking "Thank God it's not me", and then "What the fuck am I going to do now?"

In these days of the wooden tongue, very few people talk in public this way — gloves off, heart on sleeve. My own teenage hero, David Bowie, is particularly disappointing in interviews, retreating into surreal jokes and diplomatic parries, Tony Blair crossed with Spike Milligan. Lou Reed is aggressive but fusty and pretentious, his prickly ego failing to arouse the necessary empathy. Lennon, feisty yet frail, somehow gets the tone just right. Do download the interview — I think it's only up for a week.

Comments

Sympathy

[(Anonymous)]

Popular music and emotions are very much bedfellows. I wonder if there is an individual in more Avant-Garde realms who could raise the emotion meater(sic) like Lenon does-Jed

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

Didn't the Dalai Lama base his peace-and-love spiel for Western audiences on John Lennon's writings/interviews?

[(Anonymous)]

I woldn't be surprised.-Jed

[yourpony.livejournal.com]

Very well put. I've been feeling much of the same things lately, thinking of him and this anniversary.

[anglerfish96.livejournal.com]

Post-irony! Hooray! ;D

[publicenergy.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the interesting post - it prompted me to listen to the interview which was refreshing compared to modern day interviews.

[(Anonymous)]

Getting run over by a bus was particularly heartbreaking knowing his mother died because she was run over.

[bikerbar.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link .. I quite enjoyed the interview, and the insiders look at the Beatles

By coincidence I downloaded Lennon's first album today .. it is very raw emotionally

Lennon's emotional honesty was his most admirable trait .. following that period, the end of the Beatles and the beginning of the 70's, it's interesting to hear in the interview how confused everyone was - the psychedelic disaster of Apple, for example

"You have to be a bastard to make it, and the Beatles were the biggest bastards on Earth" - it's nice to hear Lennon knock a dent in the polished myth that the Beatles had become, as he said, as early as '62

Lennon and Ono were very brave to live their relationship as spectacular performance art - but in a way, they had no choice.

In the show Ono comments that no one interviews so honestly these days as "we have to be careful to survive" - its perfectly in line with what you are saying - when you speak of the "wooden tongue" it is really the repression of culture by a conservative self-censoring mechanism - to hold on to the stardom one has to make so many compromises. And steer the boat so carefully afterwards. Not making it is perhaps better .. and the artist doesn't have to be a bastard among the other whores at the banquet table. Raise a toast to all the artists who never made it - there are so many more of them than we will ever know ...

And that's the crux of it, the role of the artist .. and the suffering of fame. Lennon's ego is so massive, he wants to eclipse all the others at times. "In me heart of hearts I wish I was the only one" - it seems strange to me, but for him, on the mountain peak of global stardom, it was perhaps an understandable sentiment. Such a rarified air these creatures breathe ...

Wooden Tongue's / Coffins / Trees

[(Anonymous)]

Was reminded in the interview of Yoko Ono's "Ex It", 100 (pine?) coffins w. 100 trees

http://www.biennaleofsydney.com.au/biennale2000/artists_ono.html

endless elegy

[dzima.livejournal.com]

Bowie is indeed a boring diplomatic interviewee and the only thing I've ever learned from Lou Reed interviews is that the only reason why he wrote good albums in the 60's and 70's was because he was on drugs; it was downhill when he went sober.

In the very last interview Lennon gave, just a few hours before he was killed, he said something very ironically sad about dying: "When I die, which I hope will happen in many many years in the future, 40 or 50 at least(...)".

A couple of hours later, we all know what happened.

[dzima.livejournal.com]

The interview here:

http://s23.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3SM9A97A05T9N1IYQG4S1V6F3U

It starts lighthearted but he gets more intense towards the end.

[jina---.livejournal.com]

thanks for this one! :)

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

One definitely gets the impression that he felt he'd nothing left to prove.

That said, if I ever had occasion to have dinner with the man, Id keep my own salt and pepper shakers in my pockets so as to avoid asking him to pass the ones on the table.

[(Anonymous)]

I definitely agree here, ole Momey. Not many artists, or even people in general, admit to themselves how much they care about life. If only there were more people who actually *lived* and expressed that with everything they had in them without having to resort to some kind-of pose, gesture, or wink. You know, I think that sincerity is component to any great, lasting work of art, even if it's funny.

[conorh.livejournal.com]

thanks

[(Anonymous)]

He sounds like a raving mad man proclaiming his genius. He only wrote a few good songs. He's hardly a great poet. You only have to scan 'Imagine" once to get it. That doesn't exactly constitutes great substance, and what substance their is is only sub standard Shabistari or any of the other great Sufi poets. That whole artist ego crap just bores me. It just never seems to go away. Madonna being the latest phoney for the media to hang onto her every utterance. Makes you wonder what Lennons' reputation might of been today had he lived. After all didn't Mccartney take a good battering 'round here recently.

[(Anonymous)]

Completely selfless people don't create art - they serve anonymously from their own heart. You can't criticize an artist for having an ego, because that's part of the whole drive to *create*, no matter how much the person wants to contribute to humanity - it's still something *theirs* that's contributing, and it's coming to them through their inspiration (depending on who you ask).

Of course having *too much* ego is something entirely else, though I have to say that can produce some really crazy material, too, if the person goes totally all out.

[cheapsurrealist.livejournal.com]

What I liked about this interview is that it did NOT transport me into the past. I think it was the lack of discussion of topical issues of the day (besides the beatles breakup) and when he was asked what he thought of Jagger today and he answered that he looked silly doing that "fag" dancing now that he is old. He could have said that in an interview yesterday.

Then there is the inevitable question asked when someone dies young: what type of old geezer would he be now? I'd like to think he would have avoided making too many records, continued to be an activist, done a bit of writing and I bet he would have a blog.

I miss him. I miss Frank Zappa too. And my Dad.

I couldn't disagree more

[dr-deadmeat.livejournal.com]

(and its rare that I find myself at odds with your posts). I listened to the programme twice, and disliked him more each time. So he exhibited fragility - that's not impressive in itself; all the worst bullies do, indeed clever bullies make an asset of it. I think it was telling that he couched discussion of his genius in terms of the petulant child, because that's how he came over - deeply infantile, only with a grown man's aggression overlayed on the stroppiness. He just reminded me of so many people I've seen squander real talents because they believe themselves to be some kind of transcendet being, beyond the explanation of mere mortals and exempt from having to address how they harm or drain those around them, when in fact their faults are all too earthly. Whatever you think of his willingness to experiment - and I do like his feedback pieces with Yoko, though I think McCartney's tape experiments and journeys into disco were far more interesting - and however much he might play the Robbie Williams 'boohoo fame is soooo hard' card, he was ultimately just a bit of a bastard.

[batmite2000.livejournal.com]

"It's no fun being an artist... It's torture."

Indeed... :|

[rwillmsen.livejournal.com]

Odd that they chose to soundtrack the final breakup of the Beatles by playing 'The End', a Paul song, although they had just made the point that it was he who was responsible for the final announcement.

[slime-slime-sly.livejournal.com]

I'm still in the middle of listening to it but...it strikes me very much how the guy doesn't seem to have anything good to say about anyone except himself, and everybody (people in this thread included) seems to agree with him because of his weird messiah aura. Oh wait. He just half-said Paul is capable. Very striking too the semiconcealed firmness with which he tells Yoko to shut up. Why did he marry an artist anyway, just get a kick of a superiority feeling everytime he woke up, since he considers himself the only real artist ever?
I mean I like his no bullshit thing, but he sounds exactly like one of my ex-bosses

[goldenmelodies.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this.

Thanks

[armoredbaby.livejournal.com]

A very lovely interview I would not have found, tremendous gratitude and thanks for this link. I have always loved Lennon.

[(Anonymous)]

Has anyone pointed out yet that Lennon 'disowned' this interview in later years - saying in particular that he had been over-critical of everyone because he was under the influence of Janov's primal scream therapy?

Lennon's later views were that family is more important than art (and don't forget he took 5 years off to help bring up Sean).

At the very end of the Beatles Anthology book, George Harrison quotes a Lennon interview from 1978 saying the Gauguin's suffering for his art wasn't worth it. George's take on this is quite interesting (to me at least):

"You wouldn't claim something like Gauguin neglecting his family for art, or dying for your painting is stupid - why bother? - unless you have a feeling that there is something bigger than art. A painting of a sunset cannot compare to the real sunset. Art (like music) is an insignificant attempt at reproducing what God does every moment.

Having gone through that LSD period with John, right from the first day we ever took it, I understood him and I believe our thoughts were much more in line with each other..."

[memorybabe.livejournal.com]

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. The interview is beautiful and interesting. Now I'm on a Radio 4 kick -- even listened to Veg Talk!

[(Anonymous)]

Hippy-drippy garbage like art scorning God is the same as that charming period where the Catholic church absolutely destroyed the masterpieces of ancient culture and crippled budding artists of the day.

Why does art have to be something other than the joy of life? I think it's time we had our own heroes who show sincerity, passion, art, commerce, and the love of life can all be the same thing. Not that this has anything to do with Lennon all that much, but how many times do we get to talk about these things?

[jasongtokyo.livejournal.com]

Of course there will be thousands of articles in the coming days and weeks, but this syndicated piece caught my eye and heart. The people who were there after Lennon was shot -- emergency room doctors, police, the media -- recount their stories:

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/features/tm_objectid=16451061%26method=full%26siteid=66633-name_page.html


Great interview, anyway.

Morrissey as the Last of the Famous International Interviewees

In the memories it goes

[prettyvacunt.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this. Now I'm more convinced I'm going to all weepy when I visit Strawberry Field this Friday.

[bikerbar.livejournal.com]

Another interview (http://www.counterpunch.org/lennon12082005.html) - much more political, from 1971 has been posted on Counterpunch

"JL: The more reality we face, the more we realise that unreality is the main programme of the day. The more real we become, the more abuse we take, so it does radicalise us in a way, like being put in a corner. But it would be better if there were more of us."