It’s been 30 years since the death of John Lennon and Rolling Stone has released the remainder of his nine-hour interview with Jonathan Cott that took place only three days before his murder.
Cott said:
├óΓé¼┼ôEarlier this year I was cleaning up to find some files in the recesses of my closet when I came across two cassette tapes marked ├óΓé¼╦£John Lennon, December 5th, 1980.├óΓé¼Γäó It had been 30 years since I listened to them, and when I put them on this totally alive, uplifting voice started speaking on this magical strip of magnetic tape.”
Here are some HIGHlights from the interview:
On his critics, defending his five year break from music:
“What they want is dead heroes, like Sid Vicious and James Dean. I’m not interested in being a dead fucking hero…so forget ‘em, forget ‘em.”On touring again with The Beatles:
├óΓé¼┼ôWe just might do it. But there will be no smoke bombs, no lipstick, no flashing lights. It just has to be comfy. But we could have a laugh. We├óΓé¼Γäóre born-again rockers, and we├óΓé¼Γäóre starting over├óΓé¼┬ªThere├óΓé¼Γäós plenty of time, right? Plenty of time.├óΓé¼┬¥Yoko on John’s final minutes:
“Just before we left the studio [minutes before he died] John looked at me. I looked at him. His eyes had an intensity of a guy about to tell me something important. ‘Yes,’ I asked. And I will never forget how, with a deep, soft voice, as if to carve his words in my mind, he said the most beautiful things to me. ‘Oh,’ I said after a while, and looked away, feeling a bit embarrassed.”
Wow. Powerful stuff.