I Met the Walrus_ How One Day With John Lennon Changed My Life Forever - Jerry Levitan [26]
JOHN: I don’t remember saying that. I have no idea what we were saying on it. We just rambled on. There were many loops and tapes and I was cutting up Beethoven and playing him backwards, anything I could lay me hands on. It’s a montage, and George, Yoko, and I just talked all through it. But the very end piece is where Yoko comes in on a cassette saying, “And there you stand naked….” What about that bit? The very end, the voice of me changes? But I don’t remember fucking or assholes or anything like that. Although it might have been there, I don’t know.
JERRY: Near the end of “Revolution 9” you hear a whole bunch of crowd sounds—“daa, daa, daa.” I can’t understand what that is.
JOHN: I don’t know what they’re saying, either. I just got them from the sound effects thing. And they’re going sort of “ooh” and “aah.”
DEREK: Where’s the key to the big box?
JOHN: Oh, the key to the big box? I don’t know. I’ve no idea where it is.
DEREK: In your white jacket, maybe, from last night.
JOHN: Oh okay, I just shoved that in the black hand case there. My hand luggage there. Last night’s white jacket’s there.
JERRY: When you decided to give the film of you singing “Get Back” to the Glen Campbell Show…
JOHN: Did we?
JERRY: Yeah. Oh I’m glad, I thought you really thought about let’s pick some nice American and so picked Glen Campbell.
DEREK: That’s like the Smothers Brothers or the Tonight Show.
JOHN: What about it?
JERRY: Everyone knows I’m a Beatle fanatic and when it was on TV a friend called and said, “The Beatles are on Glen Campbell,” so I switched it on and they had his Ma and his Pa from Tennessee or wherever. And then all of a sudden at the very end I saw you guys. It seemed sort of freaky. Really gone. Don’t you guys know where your films go to?
JOHN: We just tell them to get them on the biggest networks, or somebody like the Smothers Brothers ’cause we heard they were having a hard time. Otherwise we just put it on the maximum…the show that’s going to be seen by the most people. Unless we particularly know and dislike the guy. I just heard Glen Campbell and he’s on and everybody watches it so stick it on. It’s like that. People will see it then. The Beatle people, like you, get informed that it’s on. Whatever it’s on. Even if it’s on the news. Unless there’s some specific show that we know about that we want it on we just tell them to put it on somewhere where it will get maximum exposure.
JERRY: I was just reading a book about Ed Sullivan and there was a picture…
YOKO: Here it is [the Life With the Lions album]. We’ll sign it for you.
JOHN: Oh yeah, what’s your name?
JERRY: Jerry.
JOHN: Go ahead, carry on talking.
The front and back cover of the Life With the Lions album. The front photo shows John sleeping by Yoko’s side on the hospital floor after her miscarriage in 1968.
The back is a photo from John’s earlier marijuana bust.
JERRY: And he had his hands up and said, “Let’s hear it…the Beatles.” And I was wondering, did you like Ed Sullivan? Is he a good friend of yours?
JOHN: He’s no friend. I mean a friend in as much as he’s a contact. I can’t describe the word for what the people are who you meet. He’s not a friend or an enemy. He was just somebody who put us on his show and we were happy to be on it. When we heard about it we thought, “Great, great.” You know. “We’re on that show and that’s where Elvis was, and we’re going to be on it,” and we were terrified and all that bit, and Ed Sullivan is Ed Sullivan. There’s always going to be Ed Sullivans on TV. And the thing is I used to loathe him as a kid or younger. But now it’s just a howl. We’ve got him in England. They’re always there. You just mustn’t let him get under your skin.
JERRY: He’s turned really hip. Probably some spiritualistic change has come over him.
JOHN: Oh, has he?
JERRY: Yeah, he has sideburns now and he actually does more than just talk. He’ll dance or something like that.
JOHN: Amazing. Maybe he