John Lennon’s angry letter to Paul McCartney goes up for auction
"If we’re not cool, WHAT DOES THAT MAKE YOU," the former Beatle's scathing missive reads
Aux News John Lennon
A small piece of one of music’s most infamous feuds is up for grabs via the Gotta Have Rock And Roll auction site. John Lennon’s incensed request for “equal time” was published in Melody Maker magazine following an interview given by his former collaborator, Paul McCartney. The copy of the letter, signed by Lennon, is expected to go for $30,000, per Stereogum.
Lennon and McCartney traded a lot of barbs in their post-Beatles years, both in their music and in the press. McCartney’s Ram track “Too Many People” prompted Lennon’s vicious “How Do You Sleep” (which had the added dig of featuring George Harrison on guitar), which prompted McCartney to complain about the song to Melody Maker and claim that Lennon’s pre-Imagine music was “too political.”
“So you think ‘Imagine’ isn’t political, it’s ‘working class here’ [sic] with sugar on it for conservatives like yourself!! You obviously didn’t dig the words. Imagine! You took ‘How Do You Sleep’ so literally,” the incensed Lennon wrote in his response.
There’s some back-and-forth about the group’s pending business breakup, but his particular ire is reserved for McCartney’s dismissal of Lennon’s partnership with wife Yoko Ono. “Wanna put your photo on the label like uncool John and Yoko, do ya? (Ain’t ya got no shame!)” He penned. “If we’re not cool, WHAT DOES THAT MAKE YOU…….” In a post script, he added, “The bit that really puzzled us was asking to meet WITHOUT LINDA AND YOKO. I thought you’d have understood BY NOW that I’m JOHNANDYOKO.”
Fascination with the Beatles’ mythology hasn’t let up in the 50-plus years since the band broke up; just look at how many people sat down for Peter Jackson’s Emmy-nominated eight-hour docuseries Get Back. The group’s impact on music and pop culture can’t be erased (or…can it?). And now if you’ve got thirty grand, you can have a little bit of that history for yourself.
58 Comments
And now if you’ve got thirty grand, you can have a little bit of that history for yourself.If I had $30K just lying around I would.I’d think fans would go crazy for this shit. Sounds like a steal.
I don’t know if its a steal or not.Not going to take anything away from the Beatles impact on music but there comes a time when every popular artist is going to wane in popularity. How many millenials or zoomers care about the Beatles? How many kids born since will? It’s not like sports where it’s normal for fans to learn and appreciate the history of the greats that played for their hometown team or the league. I’d bet on this being the type of thing that goes down in value as time passes, not up.
Yeah, but there’s still lots of boomers around with more money than sense.If I was to bet, I’d bet they add a zero to that $30K.
Who would be bidding this up now if it was worth more.What would change about this letter’s value from now and ten years from now? There’s no new developments that are going to happen with the Beatles.
There’s 13 days left. There’s no advantage in bidding it up now. It just gives people more time to outbid you.If it goes crazy, It’ll go crazy with way less than an hour left.BTW, there’s a reason I don’t actually bet on stuff.
McCartney could die
I mean, he hasn’t died so far, so I think the odds are pretty good that he’ll just live forever.
That seems like rather questionable logic TBH. It’s a historical document concerning the personal relationship between two of the twentieth century’s most famous and influential artists. There doesn’t have to be “new developments” for people to take an interest in it; the whole point of artifacts like this is that they’re part of history. There’s been “no new developments” in the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for over two hundred years either, and a letter of his still sold for over $200,000 in 2015. Now that might be an extreme example, but considering how broadly popular, influential and well-known the Beatles remain even sixty years after their first album dropped, I suspect that apocrypha related to them will still sell well and at pretty high prices for a reasonably long while yet.
I read somewhere that Elvis memorabilia is going down in value because a lot of the people who were collecting it are dying.
Well, to be fair, people have been cynically saying that the Beatles were disposable cultural detritus destined to be abandoned in the ash-heap of history and forgotten by the passing and fickle whims of future generations since at least 1963. And yet, almost sixty years after their first album dropped, a re-release of their last (and arguably one of their lesser) albums was one of if not the biggest selling albums in the US the week it released, and a six hour film of footage of them basically sitting in a studio working on said album was released to massive fanfare, cultural discussion and, so far as I can tell, pretty good viewing figures.To be honest, I think it’s time we as a culture started acknowledging that they’ve got maybe some cross-generational staying power.
The Beatles were lame.
Ouch! I burned myself on your hot take!
Ok. There’s myself, Dr. Emilio Lizardo, and now Small Berries?Our secret invasion is progressing nicely!
Shhhhh!
That’s ableist! You should say they sucked. No, wait, that’s kind of homophobic if you think about it. You can just say they were overrated.
That’s some real Dollar Store trolling there.
Heterosexuals can suck body parts too.
Tell that to my wife!!
….wait, do straight people….not….suck?
…only all the ones you’d ever want to meet.
I’m not a Beatles fan at all. But by every possible commonly accepted definition, they were not “lame.”
I don’t think they are lame, but over rated? Yes, to me. They wrote some really good songs and a couple of great ones. But thy started out Bubble Gum pop, moved to socially acceptable pop/rock and then dabbled with socially acceptable experiment rock(ish). Other than their early bubble gum pop, there was always someone doing what they were doing better. Of course all of this is opinion so I don’t argue about it. I am glad people are just passionate about music and that the Beatles wrote most of their songs.
There was literally never a contemporary doing what the Beatles did “better” from Hard Days Night onward.
I don’t think anyone did smorgasbord as well as the Beatles on the White Album. And while the Stones rocked harder, they wrote way too many sexist songs.Maybe there was always someone who did what they did better, but nobody did everything that they did quite so well But…I can totally get why some folks ain’t big on the Beatles.
You are correct about the Stones. Also, I did not give the Beatles a huge thumbs up for spanning the trends at the highest level. That actually is probably their greatest feat. Really good at many musical trends but not the best at any; with the huge bonus of being a group of attractive guys.
I think people tend to focus too much on their songwriting and their music, which neither were bad by any means but how many bands can you think of that two of the best singers in the industry? at the same time?
My brother really like the Beatles so I’ve heard plenty of them. Most of their stuff is odd. Just kinda weird. They’re very British, in that they’re sentimental and biting and fruity all at once. Anyway, after a lifetime of music I still don’t have any Beatles songs in any of my playlists. I’m not the only one. Some people just don’t care about the Beatles, and no stans can change it.
The Beatles are underrated (by the general public). Loads of artists have evolved and produced great variety in their art. Few have done so as quickly as The Beatles. And none have taken pretty much all of their fans with them while they did it. The words of 90% of the pop and rock stars of the following decade should be instructive here. They pretty much all worshipped the Beatles – even the ones that went on to produce very different music. And nearly every American rock star who made it big in the 70s decided to be a rock star the same day – February 9, 1964.
Agreed. And stating the were good at the “current trends” – They. Set. Them.
Please Please Me-era Beatles are the best Beatles are far as I’m concerned. They brought a hard edge to doo-wop shit without covering it in white-boy stank, which is really rare.But I do love Revolver and Rubber Soul also. Who would you say was doing that vibe better at the time?
I wouldn’t necessarily disagree. There’s an awful lot of filler on most Beatles albums, but when they were good they were awesome.
I think what made them special is that they were the first to do a lot of the stuff that they did, especially once they basically confined themselves to the studio. Other bands since have followed in their footsteps and (depending upon your opinion) done them better, but being first counts for a lot.
The only cover the Beatles ever did that had anything to do with their success was Twist And Shout. Out of a 147 song catalog or whatever it is, umm.. yeah. That’s.. most.
Yup. They were never rock. They were pop.
Compare 1963 Rollings Stones to the Beatles.
Your to young to call the Beatles lame or other wise or your just to get a rise out of me
Fuck off
Thems be letting go words. As in, “time to part ways amicably.” these fellas imagined all kinds of way out stuffs, hard to say by the 1970’s. they pass the muster for cool.
Your nards are lame.
The Beatles were a band of chi-mos, half of whom got in so deep with the O.T.O./Process Church that we’re all still paying for it. #facts
Huh. huh. Huh. they ruined music.
You guys got trolled
In a world of CROSSOVERS:
Sir Paul McCartney…
Academy Award Loser Nominee, Maria Bakalova…
Beatles, Beatles, Beatles!
Coming this Christmas
Every time I hear someone say, “The Beatles were overrated,” (and I hear that a LOT,) I remember that every song I’ve ever heard from them was released in about a seven-year span. Then I remind myself those people who say that are silly.
Help me out here. Where did the Beatles lead to? More rock? When did their influence take a huge decline? Grunge?
I know fans like to construct unofficial Beatles albums using songs from their solo careers, and I’ve always imagined my own faux-Beatles album comprised of diss tracks they wrote about each other, like John Lennon’s “How Do You Sleep?”, Paul McCartney’s “Too Many People”, George Harrison’s “Wah-Wah”, and Ringo Starr’s “Fuck You, You Slack-Jawed Pretty Boy, I Know How To Play Me Drums”.
Interestingly, the album also contains a rare solo collaboration written and performed by John, Paul and George, entitled “Shut The Fuck Up Ringo, You Talentless Big-Nosed Hack”.
Gotta have Pete Best’s “How Does It Feel Now, Motherfuckers!”
And Stuart Sutcliffe’s “All this arguing is giving me a terrible headache”
Has anyone here read Mark Lewisohn’s first volume on The Beatles called Tune In? Is it worth checking out?
It’s a truly fantastic book with an unmatched level of detail. If Lewisohn manages to complete the trilogy (11 years from now?), I think it’ll end up as the definitive Beatles biography.
I like the Lewisohn book. It’s more scholarly than the more recent One Two Three Four: the Beatles in Time by Craig Brown. (Which is fun but a bit more gossipy.) I have no idea if Lewisohn will ever get to volume 2.
I only became a huge Beatles fan a few years ago (that is Revolver onward. Screw that “Eight Days a Week,” “She Loves You” boy band shit), but this seems wrong.
I hope some rich Beatles fan buys the letter and then immediately lights it on fire. It seems like the most respectful thing to do for the band.
No one “sat down” for Get Back. The entire series was previously recorded footage.
I believe the writer was referring to the number of people who sat down to watch the documentary, rather than people sitting down to be interviewed for it.
Did you watch any of it? All they did was sit around!
I sat down for Get Back. I love The Beatles but I’m not standing for 8 hours.
“I’m JOHNANDYOKO”.Translation: I’m in a codependent relationship.
On a somewhat related note I was going through my car port to get my stuff out of it. I notice a John Lennon action figure I just thru it away it was so damaged. I could of just taken out of the box but I just didn’t care.
Can you just imagine the feud these two would have had if Twitter existed back then? It would have been glorious! And then Jagger would start dissing the pair of them, and …