Listen: John Lennon describes ‘torture’ of the last days of The Beatles in previously unheard interview
In the short time period in between when The Beatles recorded Let It Be and had not yet broken up, Village Voice journalist Howard Smith was able to get John Lennon and Yoko Ono to sit down for an interview in Toronto. The tapes of the interview are going up for auction later this month and contain Lennon’s displeasure with the process of recording the album and the “myth” of The Beatles. From Telegraph:
“We were going through hell. We often do. It’s torture every time we produce anything,” Lennon revealed.
“The Beatles haven’t got any magic you haven’t got. We suffer like hell anytime we make anything, and we got each other to contend with. Imagine working with the Beatles, it’s tough,” he said.
“There’s just tension. It’s tense every time the red light (in the recording studio) goes on.
It also contains interesting bits like Lennon’s thoughts on The Beatles touring again:
“If The Beatles would split open the group a bit and have Yoko, Billy Preston, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and Elvis Presley in the group I might be interested. But there’s the Fab Four and I’m not personally interested in going out like that.
Listen to the recordings below:
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EdKociela
September 7, 2013 at 11:09 am
The relationship between The Beatles was fragile at best, long before ‘Let It Be.’ In my book, ‘It Rocked (Recollections of a reclusive rock critic)’ which has an intro by Gavin de Becker, a friend of George and his family, I explore some of that in a chapter devoted to the misnamed ‘Quiet Beatle.”