By Ray Coleman
Disc Weekly
October 2, 1965
As Britain prepares for yet another bout of Beatlemania, when the group takes off on a new concert tour, one nagging question is rearing from a new wave of knockers. "How much longer can they keep it up?" The same question was asked three years ago when the Beatles shattered record after record, while their own top hits paraded around the world. They asked that when the Beatles conquered America, and now, with each Beatles an MBE and part of the pop establishment, people are throwing up a well-worn blast. "It's all over now. They're on the way down. There's nothing left for them to achieve."
Age comes into it, too. John and Ringo are both 25, Paul is 23, and George is 22. It was this explosive topic that Lennon tackled this week between a guitar practice at his house in Weybridge, Surrey. The hard man of the Beatles was in searing form as he tackled the hottest subject of all: the Beatles and old age.
"I only think about age when somebody reminds me," John began. "I don't like thinking about it much. I ought to start by saying that we felt old when we started, that is, when Brian Epstein found us. We thought we'd had it, and we left it too late to make it.
"But I reckon this: years don't affect your mind, really. They can give your face wrinkles, but it's your attitude and outlook that counts.
"According to the rules of the pop world, we're too old, but we don't look any older than the Stones, do we? And we don't act any older either. We only look older than, say, The Who, and I've seen them, look about 30 some nights!
"The most important thing about all this is that I've met people of 30 who aren't 30 in mentality. The law says they've lived 30 years. But although age can give you experience, some people aren't capable of using the experience. I'm 26 next year, the rules say I'm a fully grown man, settled down, and all that. But I'm not. I've still got a young outlook, I hope. Age can give you a lot if you want to use what it offers. That's what I want to do with my age and experience, use it .
"30 years doesn't necessarily mean intelligence. You know, I met some right old nits of 40!"
As the Beatles grew older, were they still out to get new fans? Have they started aiming for an older audience? "You can never satisfy them all," John answered. There was a time when we seemed to be doing everything at once, getting older people interested in what we were doing, as well as younger people.
"But to try to satisfy everybody is hopeless. This tour we're doing, for example, we can't cover the whole country with it unless we do a very long tour. So, because I don't feel like dropping dead from overwork just yet, not even if I am 25, there's bound to be people writing in from Umbo on Sea saying, 'Why aren't the Beatles coming here?' It's the whole attitude to fans that we've got to think about. I think we've got it all sorted out in our own minds, but it's hard to try to make people understand.
"The 'Help' single sold much better than the two before it, 'I Feel Fine' and 'Ticket to Ride', but there were still a lot of fans who didn't like 'Help'. They said, 'Ah, the Beatles are dropping us. This isn't as good as A Hard Day's Night'. So you can't win.
Trying to please everybody is impossible. If you did that, you'd end up in the middle with nobody liking you. You've just got to make the decision about what you think is your best and do it."
John was in a reflective mood now. He discarded his guitar, turned off the amplifier, and took up a deep thinking position, gazing out of the window of the rehearsal room in his multi room mansion.
"People think of us as machines. They pay 6s 8d for a record, and we have to do what they say, like a Jack-in-the-Box. I don't like that side of it much. Some people have got it all wrong. We produce something, say, a record, and if they like it, they get it.
"The onus isn't on us to produce something great every time; the onus is on the public to decide whether they like it or not. It's annoying when people turn around and say, 'but we made you, you ungrateful swines'. I know they did in a way, but there's a limit to what we're bound to live up to, as if it's a duty.
"When I had my black windows put in my Rolls-Royce, somebody said 'Lennon's turning his back and running away from the people who made him--- hide.' Rubbish!
"If I go to a shop down the road and buy a bunch of roses, I don't expect the bloke to be so grateful that he spends his life bowing and scraping. I like the roses, so I buy them, and that's that.
"I don't want to sound as if we don't like being liked. We appreciate it, but we can't spend our lives being dictated to. Think about Kellogg's cornflakes. If you buy cornflakes, do you expect Mr. Kellogg to spend his life being told how to do everything and how to behave? No. And if you buy a loaf of bread and it's lousy, you just don't buy it again.
"It's not all that much different with us. We make a record, and if you like it, you buy it. If you don't, you don't buy it. It's up to the public to decide."
John went on to talk about the controversial Help! film and admitted it was a mistake. "We went wrong with the picture somehow. I think we went just slightly the wrong way with it. Help!, as a film was like "Eight Days a Week" as a record for us. A lot of people like the film, and a lot of people like that record, but neither was what we really wanted. We knew they weren't really us. We weren't ashamed of the film, but close friends know that the picture and "Eight Days" as a record weren't our best. They were both a bit manufactured.
"The film won't harm us, but we weren't in full control. We're not sure what comes next in the way of a film. It isn't definite that the next thing will be Talent For Loving, nothing is certain about us. We just want to make sure we do better than Help!
John drank more tea and pondered. He talked for another hour about how he worries when he sees moms and dads and Beatles audiences, about Beatles fan mail and its size, about the state of the pop music scene. These and other important Beatles subjects will be covered in part two of the John Lennon interview next week.
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