Everyone knows at least one person who has a tendency to exaggerate and hyperbolize for dramatic effect. And everyone who has even skimmed the documented interviews with John Lennon would know that in his innermost circle, he was that person. (One of his most famous examples being his “bigger than Jesus” comment, which spurred Beatles record burns across the United States.)
But even if John Lennon was that kind of person, that didn’t make it any less shocking for producer George Martin when Lennon dropped one of his throwaway gut punches in Martin’s direction. As the famed producer recalled in With A Little Help From My Friends: The Making Of Sgt. Pepper, he and Lennon were hanging out in the musician’s Dakota apartment in New York City. This was years after The Beatles had split, and the two men were sharing old memories.
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During their “remember when” session, Lennon admitted to Martin that he wanted to redo everything that The Beatles had ever recorded. “It shook me rigid,” Martin said in a later interview.
George Martin Pushed Back, but John Lennon Insisted
To express a desire to re-record everything with old bandmates is one thing. In this scenario, it’s almost an invitation for a reunion and creative reimagining of their previous works. But to express that same desire to the studio producer, the one in charge of making an album sound a certain way, John Lennon’s redo comment was more of an insult. When Lennon suggested re-recording everything, Martin recalled saying, “Come on, John. Not everything.” The producer said he nonchalantly replied, “Yeah. Everything.”
Martin pushed Lennon, challenging him to say that The Beatles never got it right. “Most of what we did was crap,” Lennon told Martin. “I said, ‘You can’t say that. What about ‘Strawberry Fields’?’ He looked at me, and he said, ‘Especially ‘Strawberry Fields’,’ which really floored me.”
Elaborating on that same idea in his Sgt. Pepper memoir, Martin said, “It shocked me. For John, the vision was always better than the reality. Everything inside him was greater than its expression in the outside world. That was his life.”
Indeed, that cognitive and creative dissonance seemed to define Lennon. Speaking to David Sheff many years after his memorable conversation with Martin, Lennon offered insight into the line “no one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low.”
“What I was trying to say in that line is, ‘Nobody seems to be as hip as me, therefore I must be crazy or a genius,’” Lennon told Sheff. “What I’m saying, in my insecure way, is ‘Nobody seems to understand where I’m coming from. I seem to see things in a different way than most people.’”
Photo by Bettman/Getty Images
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