Sometimes Lennon needed McCartney and sometimes Simon needed Garfunkel. You'd go mad doing everything on your own.
Paul McCartney and John Lennon would often write a song a day, so I have the same workmanlike philosophy.
To be quite honest, John Lennon had questionable politics. There was a flip side. He was all peace and love, but he was a very violent character.
People say the Beatles were John Lennon. What is Paul McCartney? Chopped liver? But everyone has their own favourite members whose creativity they gravitate to. That's normal.
As a songwriter, I was influenced by David Bowie - a great writer. A class above everybody in so many ways. Lennon and McCartney, of course. Class stuff. David Cousins was my favorite lyricist.
I wanted to have the adoration of John Lennon but have the anonymity of Ringo Starr. I didn't want to be a frontman. I just wanted to be back there and still be a rock and roll star at the same time.
With every song that I write, I compare it to the Beatles. The thing is, they only got there before me. If I'd been born at the same time as John Lennon, I'd have been up there.
'The Beatles' did whatever they wanted. They were a collection of influences adapted to songs they wanted to write. George Harrison was instrumental in bringing in Indian music. Paul McCartney was a huge Little Richard fan. John Lennon was into minim...
I wouldn't like to interview John Lennon, no, because I'd ask him one question and it'd go to another thing and I'd end up licking his face.
I think what made John Lennon so exciting as an artist is that, like Dylan and other musicians with a truly important musical legacy, he had several faces, personas that changed over time as he developed.
I realized that it's all really one, that John Lennon was correct. We utilize the music to bring down the walls of Berlin, to bring up the force of compassion and forgiveness and kindness between Palestines, Hebrews. Bring down the walls here in San ...
Over the years, I've had to learn to play. For example, when 'Lennon' was on Broadway, I learned my way around the guitar chords because originally we were all going to play the instruments without a band.
It's a cliche, but John Lennon is my hero. He was so rebellious, so outspoken and so publicly opinionated, and I'm someone who's so private. I suppose you admire people who have the qualities you wish you had.
The Beatles never sounded intimidated by their idols. They never interpreted old rock; they simply played it as well and as joyfully as they knew how. On 'Rock 'n' Roll,' John Lennon does nothing but interpret old rock.
I would have loved to record with Paul McCartney on some of his early solo recordings, wonderful music. Playing some lovely organ, perhaps. I would have loved to record with John Lennon. He was a dear friend. I had lunch with him just two days before...
Funny is funny is funny.
There is no normality in life.
A woman is a woman!
The '60s was a time of unthinkabilities.
I kept the first Rickenbacker I ever got, a little short-scale John Lennon-type model. And I've got a couple of 12-string models, which are really nice, and I've got a Pete Townshend model, which Pete gave me a few years ago. But that's about it.
People have made a living deconstructing Lennon and The Beatles songs because of their compositional sophistication. But what's so exciting about John is that he never had any of that training on musical theory; something just spoke to him, and he ju...
