John Lennon Sums Up Elvis, Yoko & Howard Cosell in One Word

In 1976 a youth­ful fan named Stu­art sent John Lennon a six-page list of ques­tions. The for­mer Bea­t­le respond­ed with answers, along with a child-like draw­ing of a lamb stand­ing on a cloud, say­ing, “Hi Stu­art.”

Stu­art want­ed to know a few things, like what sort of album Lennon was work­ing on. “Until it’s been on tape,” Lennon replied, “I nev­er know what it will be.” He also won­dered if the famous musi­cian was writ­ing any­thing, like per­haps an auto­bi­og­ra­phy. “Yes, I have been writ­ing, but not an auto­bi­og­ra­phy. I’ve noticed that peo­ple tend to DIE after writ­ing their life sto­ry.”

The young fan includ­ed a list of words and names, along with the ques­tion: How would you char­ac­ter­ize the fol­low­ing fig­ures in one word?

• John: “Great”
• Paul: “Extra­or­di­nary”
• George: “Lost”
• Ringo: “Friend”
• Elvis: “Fat”
• Yoko: “Love”
• Howard Cosell: “Hum”

Lennon signed off with, “It was a plea­sure, hope ya dig it/John Lennon.”

via Lists of Note