HE WAS THE WALRUS, NOW HE’S JOHN
Dec. 10th, 2010 05:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogThere’s been a lot of bloggery about John Lennon this week, partly from Wednesday being the 30th anniversary of Mark David Chapman gunning him down, and partly from Rolling Stone publishing the full text of his last ever print interview.
I hadn’t planned to do a post on it – I’m a big Lennon fan, but it’s pretty well covered, and I’m not so sentimental about anniversaries – but one excerpt from the interview stuck out for some reason:
Which is one thing I’ve always kind of respected about Lennon – he always seemed aware that after the Beatles he would never live up to everyone’s expectations no matter what he did, so he essentially did what he wanted. And it’s ironic that he’d just about reached a point with Double Fantasy where he didn’t have to become a “dead hero” for critics to respect him again.
Three days after that interview, that’s what he became anyway.
Anyway, while we’re at it, here’s the most relevant song he wrote on the subject (in 1970), which is one of my favorites that hasn’t got a lot of circulation in the tribute posts – maybe because it’s supposedly the one that made Chapman angry enough to want to kill him.
Which, of course, just makes me more determined to post it.
The dream is over,
This is dF
I hadn’t planned to do a post on it – I’m a big Lennon fan, but it’s pretty well covered, and I’m not so sentimental about anniversaries – but one excerpt from the interview stuck out for some reason:
"These critics with the illusions they've created about artists – it's like idol worship," he said. "They only like people when they're on their way up ... I cannot be on the way up again.
"What they want is dead heroes, like Sid Vicious and James Dean. I'm not interesting in being a dead fucking hero. ... So forget 'em, forget 'em."
"What they want is dead heroes, like Sid Vicious and James Dean. I'm not interesting in being a dead fucking hero. ... So forget 'em, forget 'em."
Which is one thing I’ve always kind of respected about Lennon – he always seemed aware that after the Beatles he would never live up to everyone’s expectations no matter what he did, so he essentially did what he wanted. And it’s ironic that he’d just about reached a point with Double Fantasy where he didn’t have to become a “dead hero” for critics to respect him again.
Three days after that interview, that’s what he became anyway.
Anyway, while we’re at it, here’s the most relevant song he wrote on the subject (in 1970), which is one of my favorites that hasn’t got a lot of circulation in the tribute posts – maybe because it’s supposedly the one that made Chapman angry enough to want to kill him.
Which, of course, just makes me more determined to post it.
The dream is over,
This is dF
