John Lennon Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• I go to restaurants and the groups always play "Yesterday." I even signed a guy's violin in Spain after he played us "Yesterday." He couldn't understand that I didn't write the song. But I guess he couldn't have gone from table to table playing "I Am The Walrus.

  John Lennon

  Song, Writing, Play

  John Lennon, Yōko Ono, David Sheff, G. Barry Golson (1981). “The Playboy interviews with John Lennon and Yōko Ono”, Putnam Pub Group

• Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

  John Lennon

  Love, Life, Happiness

  Sunday Herald Sun (Australia), January 13, 2003.

• Songwriting is like ... being possessed. You try to go to sleep but the song won't let you.

  John Lennon

  Song, Sleep, Writing

• I used to hide my real emotions in gobbledegook, like in In His Own Write. When I wrote teenage poems, I wrote in gobbledegook because I was always hiding my real emotions from Mimi.

  John Lennon

  Teenage, Real, Writing

• I'd spent five hours that morning trying to write a song that was meaningful and good, and I finally gave up and lay down. Then, "Nowhere Man" came, words and music, the whole damn thing, as I lay down...Song writing is about getting the demon out of me. It's like being possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won't let you. So you have to get up and make it into something, and then you're allowed sleep.

  John Lennon

  Meaningful, Song, Morning

• [Polythene Pam] was me, remembering a little event with a woman in Jersey, and a man who was England's answer to Allen Ginsberg, who gave us our first exposure - this is so long - you can't deal with all this. You see, everything triggers amazing memories. I met him when we were on tour and he took me back to his apartment and I had a girl and he had one he wanted me to meet. He said she dressed up in polythene, which she did. She didn't wear jackboots and kilts, I just sort of elaborated. Perverted sex in a polythene bag. Just looking for something to write about.

  John Lennon

  Girl, Sex, Memories

• All kids draw and write poetry and everything, and some of us last until we're about eighteen, but most drop off at about twelve when some guy comes up and says, "You're no good." That's all we get told all our lives. "You haven't got the ability. You're a cobbler." It happened to all of us, but if somebody had told me all my life, "Yeah, you're a great artist," I would have been a more secure person.

  John Lennon

  Kids, Writing, Artist

  "The Beatles Anthology" by The Beatles, (p. 9), 2000.

• And Paul hits this chord, and I turn to him and say, 'That's it! Do that again!' In those days we really used to absolutely write like that - both playing into each other's noses.

  John Lennon

  Music, Writing, Noses

  "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!". www.theguardian.com. February 1, 2004.

• We never write anything with themes. We just write the same rubbish all the time.

  John Lennon

  Music, Writing, Rubbish

• The whole Beatle thing was just beyond comprehension. When 'Help' came out, I was actually crying out for help. Most people think it's just a fast rock 'n roll song. I didn't realize it at the time; I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie. But later, I knew I really was crying out for help.

  John Lennon

  Music, Song, Writing

• I don't know if I want to record together again. I go off and on it... In the old days, when we needed an album, Paul and I got together and produced enough songs for it. Nowadays, there's three of us writing prolifically and trying to fit it all into one album.

  John Lennon

  Music, Song, Writing

• I started being me about the songs, not writing objectively, but subjectively. I think it was Dylan who helped me realize that - not by any discussion or anything, but by hearing his work.

  John Lennon

  Music, Song, Writing

• If I had the capabilities of being something other than I am, I would. It's no fun being an artist. You know what it's like, writing, it's torture.

  John Lennon

  Music, Fun, Writing

  Jeff Burger, John Lennon (2017). “Lennon On Lennon: Conversations With John Lennon”, p.126, Omnibus Press

• We've learned over the years that if we wanted we could write anything that just felt good or sounded good and it didn't necessarily have to have any particular meaning to us. As odd as it seemed to us, reviewers would take it upon themselves to interject their own meanings on our lyrics. Sometimes we sit and read other people's interpretations of our lyrics and think, 'Hey, that's pretty good.' If we liked it, we would keep our mouths shut and just accept the credit as if it was what we meant all along.

  John Lennon

  Writing, Thinking, Years

• In the two books I wrote, even though they were written in a sort of Joycean gobbledegook, there's many knocks at religion and there is a play about a worker and a capitalist. I've been satirising the system since my childhood. I used to write magazines in school and hand them around.

  John Lennon

  Book, Writing, School

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

• I felt an obligation even then to write a song that people would sing in the pub or on a demonstration. That is why I would like to compose songs for the revolution.

  John Lennon

  Song, Writing, People

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

• Paul (McCartney) and I made a deal when we were 15. There was never a legal deal between us, just a deal we made when we decided to write together that we put both our names on it, no matter what.

  John Lennon

  Writing, Names, Together

• The writing of the Beatles, or John and Paul's contribution to the Beatles in the late sixties - had a kind of depth to it, a more mature, more intellectual approach. We were different people, we were older. We knew each other in all kinds of different ways than when we wrote together as teenagers and in our older twenties.

  John Lennon

  Music, Teenager, Writing

• I still don't know how to express the really delicate personal stuff. People think that Plastic Ono is very personal, but there are some subtleties of emotions which I cannot seem to express in pop music, and it frustrates me. Maybe that's why I still search for other ways of expressing myself. Song writing is a limiting experience in some ways - writing down words that have to rhyme.

  John Lennon

  Song, Writing, Thinking

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