The Rolling Stone Interview with John Lennon (1970)

Today is John Lennon’s would-be 71st birth­day, and it jogged my mem­o­ry, remind­ing me of this lengthy 1970 inter­view. Con­duct­ed by Jann Wen­ner, the founder of Rolling Stone Mag­a­zine, this impor­tant con­ver­sa­tion (lis­ten via iTunes) was record­ed short­ly after The Bea­t­les’ bit­ter breakup, and the emo­tions were still run­ning high. Run­ning over 3 hours, it is one of Lennon’s most exten­sive inter­views, touch­ing not just on the breakup, but also on art and pol­i­tics, drugs, Yoko, pri­mal ther­a­py and more. It’s not always flat­ter­ing, but it gives you a good feel for the man and the great artist.

The Rolling Stone inter­view is now added to our Cul­tur­al Icons media col­lec­tion. For anoth­er inter­view from the same peri­od, don’t miss John and Yoko’s appear­ance on The Dick Cavett Show in 1971. And note that Rolling Stone has a lengthy 7 part inter­view with Bono of U2: iTunes.

Fol­low us on Face­book and Twit­ter and we’ll keep point­ing you to free cul­tur­al good­ies dai­ly…