Five legends about John Lennon

On December 8, the 40th anniversary of the murder of the singer and composer, poet and activist John Lennon turned 40th. Since gaining the first popularity to this day, Lennon’s life story is covered with legends. We checked some of them.

1. Is it true that Lennon to the question, does he consider Ringo Starra the best drummer in the world, replied: “He is not even the best drummer in The Beatles”?

This quote of Lennon is widely known around the world and reflects the general ironic attitude to the technical skill of the famous drummer. The most famous site about the Beatles in the post -Soviet space leads a slightly different option stories, according to which the reaction of Lennon did not follow the question of the journalist, but to the article in the journal, where Starr was called "the best in the world." Of course, I agree with the opinion of Lennon and Yuri Loza.

John Lennon had the grounds for talking about The Beatles drummers. Before the group became famous, the owners of the place for drums constantly changed. If we consider the groups that have become the prototype The Beatles, we can talk at least about six drummers, the most famous of which was Pete Best. The last two years (1960–1962) drummed already under the guise of The Beatles and is even called the fifth Beatle. Moreover, when recording a hit in the U.S.S.R. In the absence of Ringo, the game of drums were noted by John Lennon, and Paul McCartney, and George Harrison.

However, during the life of John Lennon, his professional opinion about Starra became public only once. In September 1980, a few months before his death, in an interview with Playboy magazine Lennon so I answered About the former partner:

“Ringo is a damn good drummer. It is not very good from a technical point of view, but I think that Ringo’s game on drums is underestimated in the same way as the sex of the floor on the bass is underestimated. <...> I think that Paul and Ringo are not inferior to any of the rock musicians. ”

As for the real authorship of the phrase about the “not the best drummer”, Mark Lewison, the leading specialist in The Beatles in the world, for a long time believed that in 1983 the English comedian Jasper Carrott popularized her. However, in 2018, Lewison I found outAs before, even earlier, on October 6, 1981, the joke sounded as part of the Radio Active sketch show, and its authors were Jeffrey Perkins and Engus Dyton.

Thus, John Lennon’s statement about Ringo Starre is actually a joke that appeared after the death of the singer.

Incorrect attribution of quote

2. Is it true that John Lennon once spoke about the music of the “songs” as “about the best that he had ever heard”?

This legend has become widespread in the Soviet and post -Soviet space. The reference point for it is a very real trip of the "Songs" to the traditional Midem music fair to Cannes in 1976. Later, ex-Pesnyar Vladimir Nikolaev wrote: "At that time, John Lennon lived in Monte Carlo in his villa, but we did not see him." And his colleague Vladimir Mulyavin, in an interview with 2000, remarked: "John Lennon ... said:" Songs "is the best that I heard at all." The third member of the group Leonid Bortkevich in 2003 seemed to confirm the words of the symbols: “When we first arrived in the USA, there was a big article in Billboard about our tour and there were some statements by The Beatles about us, in particular Lennon and McCartney. In particular, it was said that we were a magnificent folk-rock group with magnificent voices and that they did not think that this could be in Belarus. ”

Firstly, it is worth noting that John Lennon was not found in Monte Carlo either in 1976 or ever. A year earlier, Ringo Starr moved there, but he also torn between the azure shore and Los Angeles over the next years. Lennon since the fall of 1971 lived in the United States forlessness, and after the birth of his son in October 1975, his communication with the press practically ceased. But George Harrison spoke at the same Cannes concert, but he is not attributed to such phrases. And in general, almost every word expressed by one of the Beatles in public fell into dozens of books and could not go unnoticed. Secondly, in those years, none of the “Songs”, according to a number of sources, practically did not read in English and therefore could hardly get acquainted with articles in the original.

And finally, these are the very articles from the Billboard magazine dedicated to the Soviet group tour in the USA in 1976:

There are no statements by Lennon and McCartney about the "songs" in them. So the participants in the legendary Soviet VIA, most likely, believed the stories of their friends.

Fake

3. Is it true that John Lennon called one of his cats Jesus to justify his phrase “we are more famous than Jesus”?

The famous statement of John Lennon in March 1966 that The Beatles was more popular than Jesus Christ, caused a big scandal at one time and motivated the Mark David Capman to kill the musician many years later. It is interesting that Lennon, according to a number of sources, had a peculiar sense of humor, gave one of his many cats the name Jesus to somehow justify this phrase.

It should be noted that the cat with this name Lennon definitely had. True, not any of the authoritative sources provides one hundred percent confirmation of what the owner called his cat Jesus precisely for the above reason. However, there are several facts confirming this. In particular, it is known that the colony of cats in the house of Lennon appeared during his life with his first wife Cynthia, that is, in 1962-1968. Recall that the phrase of Lennon sounded precisely during this period. Secondly, it is such motivation of John that the most likely is such authoritative sources as a magazine Rolling Stone And the site Mental Floss. And finally, in the same years, a cat named Jesus appeared at Paul McCartney, which resembles a kind of flash mob. Of course, The Beatles were more popular than the cats of their participants. Especially well, the “Cat version” correlates with the variation of the statement of Lennon, where instead of the words More Popular used the word bigger, that is, literally reading “larger than Jesus”. Therefore, such an interpretation looks believable.

Most of the truth

4. Is it true that John Lennon loved to sleep in a coffin?

On July 24, 1960, in an influential British newspaper Sunday People, an article was published under the heading of “Tarment of Beetlers, although they do not know, but their road leads to the underworld.” The article attached a photograph that captured the apartment of John Lennon and the then Bitla Stuart Satcliffe on Gambier Terras, 3, in Liverpool. How He wrote Musician and journalist Alan Cleeson:

“John Lennon first saw all Britain. John - with the backed backs lowering below the earlobes, and in dark glasses - occupied the central place, lazily collapsing on the floor -covered floor along with Bill Harry, by the birth of Murrey and other embarrassed battles. He had such a look as if he was sleeping in clothes. A tenacious legend originates from this article that John Lennon was sleeping in a coffin on Gambier Terras, although in reality he appeared there for a short while. ”

Thus, Kleison indirectly confirms that Lennon could sleep in this coffin, even if occasionally. And here is what the then manager of the group Alan Williams says:

“John Lennon was already considered a leader and was one of the central figures in the crowd of loafers and dreamers-the avant-garde detachment of local hippies who occupied the apartments for Persi-Street and Gambier Terras. There was no furniture there at all - they burned tables and chairs on stake in the middle of the rooms, when it became too cold. This was one of the quirks of Modigliani, and, I believe, the guys believed that they were behaving in the traditions of bohemia. The apartments were clogged with various rubbish: pedestrian crossings, tea boxes, road signs and piles of torn rags. From somewhere they dragged the coffin in which John was sleeping. Silk upholstery created a semblance of comfort. John was a great fan of black humor in those days. "

According to others sources, this “from somewhere” was belonging to the same Williams Bar “Jacaranda”, in which The Beatles periodically appeared. In one of the premises of the bar, an unnecessary coffin was found. So there is every reason to believe that John Lennon really, albeit jokes for the sake, slept in a real coffin.

Is it true

5. Is it true that John Lennon called his group The Beatles in honor of the Volkswagen Beetle car?

A similar version is found in a number sources On the Internet, although it is difficult to name the dominant. Nevertheless, given that in the first half of the 60s there was a peak of sales of this cult model, you can believe in such a version. Moreover, the "beetle" is closely connected with the Beatles thanks to the religious Cover the album Abbey Road.

However, reality looks somewhat different. For the first time, the Beatles name is found in the form of The Beatals in a letter to Setcliffe on March 27, 1960. He is also mentioned by Paul McCartney in one of his slightly later messages.

Paul McCartney in his interview said: “Once John, Stu, George and I <...> walked along the street, suddenly John and Stu say:“ Hey, we have an idea what to name the group - The Beatles, through the letter A (if you follow the rules of grammar, it was supposed to write The Beetles - “Ghuki.” John said: "Well, yes, I thought of this story and I remembered for Jorda, but I began to think that John himself came up with the idea of ​​the name of the group, and as evidence was referring to the article" A Brief Deviation about the Dubious Origin of The Beatles ", which John wrote in the early 60s Such lines: "Once upon a time there were three little boys, their name was John, George and Paul ... Many people ask: what is Beatles, why beatles, how did this name arise? It arose from vision. A man appeared on a flaming pie and said to them: “From now on you are Beatles with the letter A.” Of course, there was no vision. John joked in a blunt manner typical of that time. But some did not understand the humor. ”

George Harrison in his interview mentioned the then popular group The cricket (“crickets”) as the basis for the parody of the “beetles” with one altered letter. There are a number of other versions, and only one of them (the poet of Roiston Ellis) mentions the Volkswagen car with reference to Lennon. One thing is obvious: an important role in the name of the group was played by the musical concept of “bit”.

As for the car, the word Beetle was first used in relation to the model in 1958 in Autosport magazine as an epithet. The nickname became popular in the 1960s, and the official name of Beetle began to be obtained only in 1967.

Thus, the version about the influence of the Volkswagen Beetle car on the name The Beatles contradicts most facts.

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. https://www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/blogcritics/article/the-beatles-many-drummers-3776938.php
2. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/documenting-jhn-lennons-love-for-cats-235231/
3. http://www.secret-r.net/arkhiv-publikatsij/34-2015/Bitlz-pesnyary-mify-i-legendy.html
4. http://beatles-chronology.ru/1960/01/29/poyavlenie-nazvaniya-gruppy- bitlz/