There is a piece of footage in a video called "
Gimme Some Truth" that I have
watched over and over. This film is a
documentary of the making of
John
Lennon's album "
Imagine".
Lennon, having just been dragged out of bed, stands at the front door of his
home in 1971, Tittenhurst Park, Ascot, England. In the early morning
haze he is speaking with a hippie fanboy who had been found skulking
about in the woods on his property.
It is poignantly reminiscent (though to a much lesser degree) of
the same kind of skewed thinking that ultimately ended his life at the hand of Mark
David Chapman. I transcribed it yesterday from the video.
John Lennon: Don't
confuse the songs with
your own life. I mean, they
might
have relevance to you, a lot of things do. So we met, you know,
I'm just a
guy, I write songs. We can only say "hello" and
what else is there?
Hippie Fanboy: Yeah, I figured that if we met, I would know just by meeting
you.
John: Know what?
HFB: What I was thinking was true.
John: Well, what were you...Is it true?
HFB: Well, I guess not.
John: Right. I'm just a guy, man.
HFB: But it all fits, you know?
John: Anything fits. You, know, if you're tripping off on some trip.
Anything fits, you know?
HFB: You know, when you said, "Boy, you're going to carry that weight for a
long time" did you just...
John: That's Paul sang tha'. Tha' belongs to all of us, he's singing about
all of us. We've all got to carry it 'till we die, haven't we?
HFB: You weren't..You weren't thinking of anyone in particular when you were
singing all of...
John: How could I be? How could I be thinking of you, man?
HFB: Well, I don't know, I don't care "about me" but it's all, it's all...
somebody, man.
John: I'm thinking about me, or at best, Yoko if it's a love song. But
that's it. I'm basically singing about me. I'm saying, you know, "I had a
good
shit today" and "this is what I thought this morning" and ah, you know, "I love
you, Yoko", you know, and whatever. I'm singing about my life. And if it's
relevant for other people's lives, that's all right.
Are yeh hoongry?
Then John and Yoko and the staff take the lad inside and they have
breakfast. The fanboy darts glances at Lennon from accross the table. I don't know if he got it.
Then I think about the ways we identify with songs, stories, movies, and
recast ourselves in them, recast our lives around them.
Bang, bang.