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Sunday, March 29, 2026
Tape to Type (1965)
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| John is being interviewed by Fred Robbins |
Tape to Type
Interview with John Lennon Part 2
Photoplay Magazine
1965
Fred: What about this musical that you and Paul McCartney are planning to write together? Have you started it yet?
John: It's just a matter of getting enough time. We'd like to do it properly-- write a story and the music. So I think we won't do it for another year or two when things are quieter.
Fred: How do you go about writing your songs?
John: I think it's partly something natural and partly something that Paul and I spark off in each other. Individually, we probably wouldn't have written so many of them, and they might not have been of such good quality as the ones we've written together. It's just luck.
Fred: You'd say then that Northern Songs Ltd, which is now on the London Stock Exchange, has a pretty good future?
John: I think it has a great future, although I don't know much about the financial side of it. Some people say it's speculative stock because no one knows how long Paul and I will stay together, but we intend to stick together. And if you can write songs, you can write them all your life. Even if the public's taste should change, it shouldn't make too much difference. People forget that our songs are songs in their own right, not just rock and roll songs. They can easily be sung in any style you like.
Fred: I've heard you sing many songs that aren't your own, like "Button up Your Overcoat " and "Nothing Can Be Finer Than to Be in Carolina." Why don't you make an album of someone else's songs for a change?
John: It's not very profitable. But we do have an interest in songs and music of all kinds. We probably know a million songs, but we very rarely sing our own songs when we're just entertaining ourselves or our friends.
Fred: What about your writing? Will you write more books?
John: I've been writing since before I started playing the guitar. I can always turn it out, but I don't know if the standard will remain the same, and a lot depends on whether people will want to read it.
Fred: I heard that you were going to stop doing concerts.
John: That's not true. It's just because we haven't done any while working on the film, but we have concerts planned for Europe, America, and Britain, too. Now, does that sound like we are planning to give up tours and concerts?
Fred: A lot of people have been very busy analyzing the effect the Beatles have had on teenagers, particularly psychologists and sociologists. What do you think about all this?
John: You can analyze anything--- what someone thinks of a bottle of milk, if you like. If you believe in that stuff. You can go on and on, analyzing, creating theories, and philosophizing about them. But in the end, it doesn't really mean anything, and it doesn't matter anyway.
Fred: The Beatles will probably go down in history as being one of the biggest things in show business, at least of this generation. Don't you think so?
John: If you read the history books, you find very little in them about show business people, and I think we'll probably be forgotten like the rest of them.
Fred: If you didn't have protection from the big crowds of fans, do you think it would be really dangerous for you? Do you really think that you might be seriously injured if they got out of hand?
John: I think we'd probably get killed. The fans wouldn't mean to harm us, but we have nearly been caught once or twice, and it was really frightening. When five people want to touch you, it's all right, but when it's 500, you forget that they're fans and you want to run for your life.
Fred: What's the next worst thing about fame? What bothers you personally?
John: The next worst thing for me is the social life that goes with it. You know, meetings, lords, governors, and so on. I just don't like it. It has nothing to do with me. I'm writing and singing, and I don't like having to go to dinners. People are always trying to draw me into polite conversation and boring me with stuff. This kind of thing doesn't interest me at all, and it never will.
Fred: Have you given any thought to what will happen as you get older? Will the fans forget you in time?
John: Of course they will. And it could happen any day, but we're not worried about it. We'll be sorry when it's over, but obviously, we're not going to be jumping around at 40.
Fred: Success hasn't spoiled you guys, has it? It doesn't seem to have changed you at all.
John: No, I'm glad you say that. Some people think it has, but they don't realize that we were just as lousy before we were successful.
Check my Machine
The first thing I thought when I saw these photos was "Paul and the era Wings are playing Simon?" Did you (or your kids) have a Simon game in the late 1970s -1980s? As an only child it was one of my favorites because I didn't need to have anyonen to play it with me. But if you want you can play with 3 friends.
But then I recalled that the song "Check my Machine" (from McCartney II) using a Simon game in the song and that it was recorded during the Back to the Egg Session. So this HAS to be from those sessions, don't you think?
I recognize Paul and Laurence -- but who else is in these photos?
Thursday, March 26, 2026
Paul is Adamant (1976)
By Chris Welsh
Liverpool Daily Post
March 26, 1976
"I'm not going to be blackmailed into going." Paul McCartney wasn't talking about the much-publicized and debated reunion of the Beatles, nor even the Wings tour of America. He was in the throes of attempting to opt out of a dinner invitation. Pressed home with persistence by one of the throng milling at the west end hotel. Paul, Linda, and Wings were on the loose in a suite where sandwiches piled up around bottles of beer, DJs tripped over journalists in a merry-go-round of interviews at a press conference convened only hours before the band were due to depart for Copenhagen.
It was a private conversation, but it underlined the kind of pressure still exerted on the famous ones of rock. Paul extracted himself from the situation with a mixture of firmness and diplomacy born of long practice. For just a few seconds, the warning signals flashed, and you could sense the old Liverpudlian cutting edge being honed and made ready.
I remember the days when all four Beatles were ready to cut through if threatened or surrounded, but Paul relaxed and seemed eager and happy to talk about the new Wings album, Wings at the Speed of Sound, with an enthusiasm and courtesy rare among lesser talents. He was even prepared to commit on the $25 million offer currently being made by the US promoter Bill Sargent to reform the Beatles, despite his having made clear in the past that his interest is now in Wings and not the past.
But first, he discussed Wing's recent adventure. "We had fab fun in Australia," said Paul slipping into Merseymania dialog. "It was the first real tour we'd done in a while. The audiences were great, and we just dug playing. It was more like a holiday. "
What happened about the trip to Japan that was canceled when the Japanese authorities wouldn't let them in due to an old dope smoking offense? "It was the Minister of Justice's fault. I suppose he'd say it was my fault for having smoked some of the deadly weed. But we had our visa signed by the London Japanese Embassy. Everything had been cleared. David Bailey was coming over to do a film, and we were in Australia. Just about a week out from going to Japan, a little note arrives, saying 'sorry, the Japanese Minister of Justice says, No.'" Did Paul feel angry about being barred? "Oh, yeah, a bit over the top. It was just one of those things, but we felt a bit sick about it. It was so short sighted."
After the Australian tour, they sent a televised version of their show to Japan. With all this traveling, when did Paul get time to start working on the new album? "We fitted in, you know, we did Australia, and then, because Japan didn't come off, we had a great holiday. And Hawaii was on the way back, we stopped there, and I got the album together in my head. "
Was it Paul's intention with this album to bring the members of Wings forward as much as possible? "That's always the object with anything I do, and to try to get out of a rut and do something different."
Was he stealing himself for criticism? "Wellllllllll.... you know........ This time, you take it differently. Each time I sit there and think 'Tt's going to be great reviews this time,' and you are disappointed if there is one bad one. But this time, I'm just thinking, 'I'm getting on with it.' I've just made a record. Let them get on with it. "
Were there any major projects for Paul in the coming year, other than the Wings tours? "Well, no, we go to Europe and America, and then we haven't got anything planned, just some breathing time. But Wings is growing, and it surprises me, in a way, because I have expected it not to happen. It was a question of follow that after the Beatles? "
Does Paul get tired about being asked about the Beatles reunion? "I don't mind, as I say, at the moment, we are definitely going on tour of America with wWngs, and that's a nice thing I'm looking forward to. Maybe in America one night we'll loom down to a studio with someone..." said Paul noncommittally. "I'm just playing it by ear.
"The main thing about this huge offer, THE HUGE OFFER, well, the man's an embarrassment. If I were a fellow back in Liverpool, age 18, doing me a first job, well, I'd think 'Nobody can refuse that, can they? It's just too much money.' Even if we were terrible, it would be worth it, right? For me, the trouble is, I've always been so proud of the Beatles thing, and the embarrassment is that so much money is being offered, most in the world would have said, 'You have to accept.' But for a thing like that to actually happen, I wouldn't want it that way because of money.
"It's what people said when we split up all the wise all the Jack the lads, 'Well, they'll be back soon enough, as soon as they feel the pinch.' I talked to John the other night. Just happened to be talking to him on the phone. We chatted for about an hour and a half. He was in New York. We just chatted and rambled about politics, whatever we were interested in a natter, and we never once mentioned the reunion or the offer.
For me, the only way the Beatles would come back together again would be if we wanted to do something musically, not lukewarm, just to get money. It would ruin the whole Beatles thing. For me, if the four of us were really keen on the idea or something the next year makes us keen on it, or I just talk to the others and find out they are really keen secretly, then I must feel I ought to do something about it. But not having talked about it at all, as I say, we talked on the phone for an hour, and didn't even mention it. When I read the papers, which said 'John Lennon was the hottest on this.' So, where do you go from there?
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
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