Thanks Again, John

Last year Rolling Stone put up on its site a l970 interview with an embittered but very much alive John Lennon, who was brutally frank on a vast array of topics to Jann Wenner. A friend sent me the digitized recordings. (last time I looked on the RS site, I couldn’t find them, I’m sorry to report. If you want a disk copy, let me know.)

Wenner sounds a little intimidated and uncertain in his questions, but Lennon turns every vague gesture at a topic in to a full-on examination in vivid detail, rich in emotion and voice. (Someone, I think it was George Martin, said that Lennon’ was so expressive it was almost as if he was singing when he talked. )

In response to a query about what he was doing now, Lennon went on and on about about how he didn’t want to be in the recording studio with the Beatles anymore. He wanted to be at home, he said, and that’s where he was happy, and along the way happened to say, half-approvingly:

"Sometimes I felt I worked to justify my existence, but sometimes I just worked to exist."

Sounds like a blogger’s credo, doesn’t it? 

Here’s another appreciation of John today, on the anniversary of his assassination, by one of his more articulate admirers, Jon Weiner.

And here’s one reason we treasure his memory: the beauty of his idealism, which we so miss. Still.