WEBVTT - John Lennon - Part 1: Composer of Longing 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:10.400 Personology is a production of I Heart Radio. John Lennon 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:14.480 had a traumatic upbringing, filled with abandonment and loss. These 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.800 miseries shaped his internal life, his attachments to other people, 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:22.200 and his creative endeavors Throughout his tragically cut short life. 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:26.040 Feelings of longing buried in his unconscious drove him to 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:29.320 write many of the most important songs of the last century. 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:33.000 My guest today is Jordan run Tug, one of the 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:36.440 two hosts of the podcast Rivals, a show about the 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:39.320 greatest music rivalries in history. So I thought it would 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:41.360 be a perfect opportunity to get him on to discuss 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:44.000 one of the most well known musicians of all time. 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:47.360 This conversation went long, but it was all so good 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:50.320 that we decided to turn it into two episodes. This 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.000 first one will cover John's early life right up to 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:56.640 the point for the Beatles really explode in popularity. So 0:00:56.720 --> 0:01:02.760 with that, let's start at the beginning. John Lennon born 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:07.520 October ninet and Liverpool, not in the midst of a 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:10.679 bombing raid has been you know, said in legend, but 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:13.560 it's a pretty good metaphor for his upbringing. Just constant 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:16.160 state of conflict, running for safety and shelter. It was 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.080 World War two, to Liverpool was a major bombing target 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:21.600 because of it was industrial ports city. Trauma going on 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:23.760 all around him, so to speak. I mean, people were 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:26.800 very concerned. It was a difficult time. There was a 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:30.440 lot of rationing. And his mother and father, his father 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:34.039 being a merchant marine who was being intimately shipped out. 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:38.360 We're definitely barely making ends meet. Let's say, um, and 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:41.039 we're a very young married couple, very very young, and 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:44.480 and not exactly happily married either. They essentially married on 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:48.600 a dare, shall we say. His father, Alfred Lennon, was 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:51.520 something of a to be kind of smooth talking rogue, 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:54.760 something of a cad, i should say. And then John's mother, 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:57.480 her name was Julius Stanley, was very much like John 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:02.800 went for broke flauded convention, was a real fun, loving renegade. 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:05.600 She was described even in later years as sort of 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:10.400 vivaciously full on the upside right, and very charming in 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:18.120 that sense. On the downside, perhaps very irresponsible, selfish, self involved, 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:22.120 and important to note that her parents did not want 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:24.520 her to marry him. Oh, this is not an approved 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:26.799 of marriage. And as you know, every every Romeo and 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:30.440 Juliette's story. She mostly married and might say despite her family, 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:32.480 and she I guess she came home and put the 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:34.480 marriage license down on table. So there I've gone and 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:38.040 done it. And so rebellious, rebellious, very something John probably 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:40.560 would have done exactly. And so you know, when we 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:44.359 think about attributes, or let's say, of less than attributes 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:47.440 that he perhaps got from his parents, she was the 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:53.000 kind of counterculture, anti authoritarian, rebellious one in the pair, 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:55.639 very much so. And and John's mom and dad were 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.040 rarely together. I read something that he probably spent no 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:01.519 more than two months at a stretch with them both 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:03.760 in the same house at any point in his childhood, 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:06.000 before the age of maybe six, because, as you said, 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:08.959 his dad was a merchant seaman and was constantly shipped out. 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:12.440 He would send money home, but it often dried up, 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.280 and he spent some time in Algerian prisons. And he 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:17.800 there's a famous story of him in London getting drunk 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:20.760 and breaking into a women's department store window and stealing 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.880 a dress and just waltzing down Oxford Street in a dress. 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:28.639 So he had his own rebellions authoritarian. Shortly after John's birth, 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:31.600 he goes off to see on a mission. I mean 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:33.520 it was this was his job and this is what 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:36.360 he had to do. He was he basically, uh sort 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:38.880 of looked for German u boats or dodged them as 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.640 he brought supplies back to Britain and while he was gone. 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.560 Though at times things were good when he left. Over time, 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:49.920 even though she initially seemed to be happy and taking 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:53.280 care of John and having a baby, over time she 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:57.920 would leave him and go to pubs and drink and 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:00.839 flirt and get involved with other men, many other man. 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.240 There's a series of lovers that she would bring home. 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:06.720 It was obviously very confusing to young John. One of 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:10.960 them she ended up becoming pregnant by and then Alfred 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:14.440 came home after eighteen months away showed up as she 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:18.080 was pregnant with another man's child. Huge fight in the 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:20.600 house between the three of them. John apparently witnessed it. 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:23.480 He was maybe four or five years old, and and 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:25.720 he he remembers it years later, doesn't remember. He didn't 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:27.400 know at the time obviously what was happening, but he 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:30.400 absorbed that anger that was happening in the house, the 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:32.839 relationship with this other man. His name is Taffy Williams 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:37.239 didn't last. But what was important is that in that fight, 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:43.240 basically John's father removed John and said I'm leaving. I'm 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.719 taking my kid with me. He gave John for a 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:49.960 period of time to his brother and this uncle. The 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:53.400 amount of chaos in this little child's life and his 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:57.640 ability to attach to any one person was really compromised 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:00.680 by the fact that father leaves, father comes back. Then 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:03.400 child is taken away, stays with a father a while. 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.119 Now he's with the uncle, the father's brother for a while. 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:08.839 He's moved around so and more people before that too. 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:11.640 That because Julia, when when Alfred was away, stayed with 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:14.400 her father's, stayed with her sisters, stayed with her cousins. 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:16.159 I mean, it's just the amount of up people in 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:18.480 his young life before the age of five was ridiculous. 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:21.240 And then there was a crucial, crucial moment in the 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:26.000 age of five. The father has come back, has taken John, 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:28.560 goes away with him to sort of a beach location 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:31.440 if you will, Blackpool exactly, and is in his own 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:33.440 mind crafting a plan that maybe he's going to take 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:35.680 John with him and go to New Zealand and the 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:38.880 two of them will be will leave Julia for good essentially, 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:42.800 and he will have John, and Julia understands that this 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.960 is about to happen. She finds the father and they 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.600 have an argument and they both turned to John, who 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:51.720 is five, and say who do you want to live with? 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:54.480 In reality, I think that he was actually probably gonna 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:57.520 stay up in Blackpool with his father, who would probably 0:05:57.520 --> 0:05:59.440 be away as much as he always was at sea. 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:01.680 So it was a case of do you want to 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:03.880 live up here with these family members that you really 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:06.120 don't have any connection to, or do you want to 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:07.680 go back down to the life you have a really 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:13.800 known in Liverpool, but psychically, psychically for for a five 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:16.479 year old who has definitely does not have the cognitive 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:19.760 or developmental capacity to make such a choice. But what's 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:24.000 important about this memory is less so it's accuracy. Then 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:27.479 that's how then what John Lennon believed it to be 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:29.800 and reported it to be, which is that he had 0:06:29.839 --> 0:06:34.880 to make this choice, this unchoosable situation. Essentially that he 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:36.880 initially said I'll stay with my father because he's been 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:40.440 with his father. The mother in his memory of it, 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:43.479 turns and walks out. He can't bear it. He runs 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:46.600 after her. No Mommy, I'll stay with you. He leaves 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:51.120 with his mother, and then of course he doesn't see 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:54.680 his father for another twenty years. So in his fantasy 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:59.480 memory of this tragic event, he basically chooses away from 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:03.040 his father, loses his father for two decades, and he 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:06.600 goes with his mother, who fairly promptly gets involved with 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:11.960 another man marries him. It's not a good situation, this man. 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:15.440 There's domestic violence in the house. He doesn't like this 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:19.520 guy at all. He's quite he's an alcoholic. It's miserable. 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.120 So even though he chose his mom and his mom 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:24.680 brought him home, he doesn't get his mom right, as 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:29.480 she's sort of with this other man and absentee emotionally 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:33.360 for him. And he goes to live with his aunt Mimi. Right. 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:35.760 And something that that's not really mentioned much is that 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:39.080 actually he believed that his mother gave him away. That 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:41.760 is how he believed it, really, as far as I know, 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:44.160 to the end of his life. In reality, his aunt 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:46.880 Mimi had kind of been lobbying for many years. He's 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:48.760 seen what was going on from the sidelines, knew that 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:53.800 this little boy was was bright and aware of some 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:55.840 kind of chaos that was happening around him. He might 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:58.080 not been able to put down exactly what was going on, 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:00.960 but but he was smart enough to know this wasn't right, 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:03.760 and she was really worried about him. And I think 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:06.440 the final straw was when Julia and her new lover 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:09.800 moved into a new apartment that had one bed and 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.760 they all shared one bed, and that I think was 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.280 was so shocking to Mimi that she's all right, you 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:18.080 know what. I think she basically did the equivalent of 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:20.880 contacting social services and got John placed in her care. 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:23.560 I don't think John knew any of that, but that 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.960 adds another layer of confusion, well you could say confusion, 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:33.000 but really again abandonment. His mother gave him away. It's 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:36.240 also important to note that, yes, indeed, he seemed quite 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:39.120 privy to what went on in the marital bed, and 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:44.440 in fact, he himself discusses having seen sexual goings on 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.880 between his mother and her husband, probably at an earlier 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:52.280 age than he could necessarily process in a way that 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:56.920 was healthy for him. That stimulated sexual feelings that he 0:08:57.240 --> 0:08:59.920 maybe didn't know where to go with them, so to speak, 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:04.640 but certainly the sexuality of his mother, and then longing 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:08.760 for his mother and being in his mind given away 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:13.720 to this aunt who my all accounts was right was 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:17.920 I mean, she was structured. She introduced him to everything 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:23.599 from table manners to religion, but to also to literature 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:30.119 and things that became important. And actually he really quotes 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:33.320 a lot later in life in terms of what went 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:39.199 into his music also, so uh poetry, Lewis Carroll a 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:44.800 very important Exactly things that he read in that house 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:49.640 and went to school and participated in that later crop 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.720 up as important to him in his feeling states and 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:56.920 in his music. Absolutely and as you say, very structured, 0:09:56.960 --> 0:09:59.280 strict but fair. They kind of appealed to each other 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:02.000 on an intellectual level. He loved making her laugh because 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:04.200 she was again very stern, but he could always kind 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.920 of get through to her that way. Her husband, John's uncle, George, 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:11.440 was by all accounts a sweet, sweet man, probably the 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:15.719 only uncomplicated loving relationship in his childhood. It was very 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:17.680 affectionate and give him candy the kids, and that he 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:20.480 was a dairy farmer and would deliver milk to people's 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:22.160 houses and would sing as he did it. And I 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:24.880 think gave John his first um harmonica, one of his 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:27.600 first musical instruments a character in John's early life that 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:29.120 really doesn't get discussed very much, but it was a 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:32.240 huge influence. And when John was a boy, I think 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:35.760 he was twelve, George dropped dead of non alcoholics curosis 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:37.680 of the liver, which is something you know, you don't 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:40.120 expect somebody who doesn't drink a lot to have. He 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:42.400 just John was out to play and he just literally 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:44.880 dropped dead in the house. Boys, I think even now, 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.800 aren't really taught. It's okay to be exactly, but boys 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.400 in the fifties in Britain absolutely not. He apparently he 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:53.319 just went up to his bedroom and just laughed. Is 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:57.360 that this odd laughing response that he had subsusstance. Some 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:00.760 other deaths that occurred, but it's important to note, and 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:02.719 this will this will be important later and we talk 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:06.560 about really the most pivotal loss of his life, but that, 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:11.080 as you point out, in Britain in the fifties, it 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:14.120 wasn't just that boys weren't supposed to emote. Nobody was 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:17.000 supposed to emote. So you know, the reaction to death. 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:18.520 You know, if you were going to cry, it had 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:20.520 to be in private. You know, you you couldn't really 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:23.720 talk about loss. You couldn't talk about sadness and agony. 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:26.640 You had to have that stiff upper lip. And religion 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:29.640 was supposed to be your big solace and you're supposed 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:32.560 to faith. And everything happened for a reason. The tone 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:38.640 was set for repression, and that is in every section exactly, 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:41.079 and that's how you were supposed to behave. Of course, 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:45.200 we know that you know, feelings don't disappear just because 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:48.000 you've repressed them, and in fact, in some ways when 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.640 you repress them and they have even more power to 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:55.960 influence behavior and feeling states. And in that sense, all 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:59.840 of this chaos and tumult and abandonment and then loss. 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:04.640 As John headed into his teenage years, he became by 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:13.400 all accounts, increasingly angry, rebellious, misbehaving, aggressive, And so he's 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:17.360 described as a teenager in school as someone who originally 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:20.040 was doing well as a student in grammar school and 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:24.120 middle school, clearly bright, a really promising student. Now he 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:28.760 heads into high school and he's cutting classes, he's starting fights, right, 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:33.120 He's he's having physical fights, very vitriolic with all kinds 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.560 of people. It's like just really says terrible and biting 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:40.960 and crass things to push people away again defensively, not 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:44.200 an unusual style for someone who has struggled with a 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:47.600 lot of ambivalent attachments to people. This is the point 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.040 I want to make. When you have a young childhood 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:53.840 where it's not you're just abandoned and left, but in 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:56.920 fact you go back and forth, you attach, but you 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.120 never know if that person to whom you've got and 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.920 all of these warm attachment feelings is going to stick around. 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.760 You could suddenly be dropped or abandoned and have it 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:10.760 go back and forth. You develop what Bold be an 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:14.959 important psychologist, would have called an avoidant ambivalent attachment style. 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:17.560 And what that means is, more than the average person, 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:22.400 you long for attachment. You desperately need and want someone 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:25.360 to be that person that's with you all the time. 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:28.760 But at the same time you have a great paranoia 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:31.640 and a great fear that at any moment that will 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:34.800 be ripped out from under you. And so people like 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:40.800 that often appear highly neurotic, intimately struggled with depression, terrible anxiety, 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:45.360 lots of jealousy, and lots of aggression. And so that 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:48.240 is what we start to see as John Lennon becomes 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:51.880 a teenager that he starts to behave this way toward 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:58.280 friends supposedly or you know, um mates in school, um 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:02.679 at Mimi, and that is not surprising given his background. 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:06.719 Let's take a quick break here. We'll be back in 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:18.000 a minute. When we left off, the teenage John Lennon 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:20.800 was having trouble adjusting to a quieter, more suburban like 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:24.440 with his Aunt Mimi. Years of instability had taken their toll, 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:27.680 and now suddenly his mother comes back into the picture. 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:33.280 As he progressed into adolescence and with butt heads more 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:36.120 and more with Aunt Mimi, he started to sort of 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:39.880 secretly at first visit his mother, who lived two miles away, 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.320 had a spare bedroom, had now two daughters with this 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:47.000 this other man, and Mimi at first very much discouraged that. 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:48.960 She didn't want to confuse him. She just thought she 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:53.000 was a bad influence also, but ultimately she couldn't stop 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:57.200 him from visiting his mother, and who really behaved more 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:00.520 like an indulgent aunt or a big sister. She kind 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:04.240 of encouraged him skipping off school. Whenever he did skip school, 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:06.360 even more often than not go to her house, but 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.400 she did encourage him. He started to get into music. 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.680 This was the mid fifties when Elvis Presley, Jean Vinson, 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:15.720 Eddie Cochrane, all these people that were huge influences on John, 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:19.280 Bonnie Donnegan, the skiffle Star started putting records out, and 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.840 Julia was unusual with most of the adults in John's 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:24.960 life because she actually liked this stuff. She she got 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:26.720 even got a cat and named it Elvis, which she 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:29.840 thought was amazing. She was playing those records at her 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:32.640 house anyway, because she was buying these records and playing 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.640 these records, whereas Mimi was like, definitely not what we're 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:38.880 listening to classical music at our home. That's what they did. 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:42.640 In addition, she would buy John the t shirts and 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:46.120 the tight color and all of the sort of get 0:15:46.200 --> 0:15:49.040 up so that he could pull off this look of 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:52.119 being what they called the teddy boy, which was a toughie, 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:54.560 like a tough guy. It was funny now because you 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:56.360 look at them and they look you know, they look 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:59.400 preppy almost they don't look in anyway. But at the 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:01.640 time that was like if you were like the bad 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:04.480 boy that was a little luck a rock and roller. 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:08.720 His mother really supported this whole self image that he 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:12.880 was developing, and again taught him his first song too, 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:16.320 and that was his first song, was Ain't that a shame? 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:19.680 A Fats Domino song that she'd heard? She probably heard 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:22.040 the Pat Bollon version, but yeah, and so I mean 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:26.000 she she played panjo around the house and taught him 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:33.840 how to play banjo. That was his first real music education, 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:36.720 was his mom taught him. So she was really the 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:41.680 instrumental in the beginning of this development of music. Now, 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:46.520 he was clearly viewed himself as artistic and creative, and 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:49.920 in fact was right. He was a good drawer. Let's 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:51.720 let's say he was a brilliant drawer, but he was. 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:54.280 He was a good drawing show James Berber pen and ink, 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:57.960 very surreal um illustrator. I think it's probably what he'd 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:01.320 call himself. He liked drawing pen and kind of surreal drawings. 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:05.600 Wrote poetry, funny, sort of James Joyce and almost like Jabberwockie. 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:09.760 That kind of style again very important because ultimately, I mean, 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:12.840 you know, when you think about music, the lyrics are 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:15.840 essentially poetry. And so that's something he started early and 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:20.359 something again encouraged by his mother, and importantly ultimately he 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:24.360 his first band, which was in high school they practiced 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:26.680 at the mother's house because that's where they could practice. 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:28.800 Oh yeah, Mimi wouldn't let him at front. If on 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.680 the rare case that she let John's friends into her home, 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:34.800 it was through the back door, which is says a 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.960 lot about Mimi, exactly exactly. So, yeah, they would go 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:40.320 over to his mother's house, and so he would bounce 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:46.080 back and forth between being repressed with all probably good intentions, 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:48.119 but being repressed through Mimi. She would throw away his 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:53.800 drawings and poetry and basically beg him in more strict 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:56.440 terms than that, but really urged him to just focus 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.600 and get on the straight and narrow and just be secure. 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:03.240 And it came from her, you know, raising a single 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.320 woman in the fifties in Britain, raising a teenage boy. 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:08.760 I mean she she needed him to get it together, 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:11.120 wanted wanted him to be able to be self sufficient 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:16.440 and not be like his mother, especially father for that matter. 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:19.320 Right in this period of time, then really regains a 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:22.720 closeness with his mother. I think it's important to understand though, 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:27.439 that it's very normal for children, especially younger children, when 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:31.919 they first start experiencing sort of sexual feelings, to feel 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:34.399 those feelings for the parent of the opposite sex. Right, 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:38.119 we call that the edible complex to be attracted to. 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:43.400 But as one ages one represses that attraction, you might 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:47.560 transfer it on to another person. It is not unusual 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:49.600 for people to marry people who are a lot like 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:52.600 the parent of the opposite sex, though nobody wants to 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:55.280 know that's what's going on. Right. But in this case, 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:59.760 the fact that John was a very privy to a 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:02.639 lot of sexual goings on in the home with his 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.600 mother and witnessing it, be that his mother didn't act 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:07.919 like a mother, that she didn't create a distance, that 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:13.960 she tried to be the fun, seductive artsy out there 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:19.119 on Janue exactly left this door open for more sexual 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:22.880 attraction from John towards his mother, something that he really 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.600 referred to even later in his life. He kept a 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:31.240 private audio diary in the late seventies which was subsequently 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:34.640 found and then published in numerous biography. So it's out there, 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:37.560 and he talks about an afternoon and I'll put it 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:40.359 in my delicate terms, and he did basically lying on 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:42.720 the bed with his mother one afternoon home alone with 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:46.040 just her, he thought in the moment, and I guess 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:48.040 for the rest of his life, thought about whether or 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.640 not he should have, in his words, tried something, made 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.560 a move, made a move yeah. In fact, he refers 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:57.120 to having his hand on her breast yes, and that 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:01.560 he probably should have done something more doom, presuming she 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:06.280 would have allowed it. Sexual fantasy that is fairly intense 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:09.919 and actually very accessible. That's what's unusual. It is not 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:14.280 unusual for kids to have or even later perhaps older 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:18.360 kids to have such a fantasy, but it's usually really 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:23.160 repressed and unavailable to them. So this longing for his mother, 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:28.760 who is constantly intimately unavailable to him, and it being sexualized, 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:33.600 I think heightens his not only desire for in a 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:37.520 mommy way, but sexual desire for his mom. And that 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:40.760 remains important as well, we'll talk about later in terms 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:44.439 of the threads of his music and the threads of 0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:48.800 his future relationships and how they need to be for him, 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:51.600 so to speak. So he has this intensity of feeling 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:54.919 about his mom. He's developing the person that maybe he 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:58.359 wants to be, or he feels is the direction that 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:01.720 he can take should take, feels good about. He can't 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:05.560 get into college because his grades are so existence. It's 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:08.640 Aunt Mimi and trying to save him, manages to wangle 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:11.560 him essentially into an art school. But he is already 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:15.840 now playing music in a band, and he's already met 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:18.840 Paul McCartney and brought the two of them together, and 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:21.320 so they're already operating at the same time that he's 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:24.320 sort of in this art school, sort of doing some 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:27.000 art exactly. Yeah, And John didn't like his relationships to 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.040 be equal at that partner's life. He liked being the ringleader. 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:32.280 He liked having a gang sort of falling around. Paul 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:35.000 was really one of the few, one of the first 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:38.080 people of his own age in his life. Paul's a 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:41.760 little younger that he respected as an equal, respected him musically. 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:44.640 Paul went and saw John's band, The Corey Men, play, 0:21:44.800 --> 0:21:47.879 and Paul's impressed, thought he was a little sloppy, but 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:51.000 impressed and went backstage after and they had a mutual 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:53.040 friend who introduced them, and Paul said, Hey, can I 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:55.160 borrow your guitar? You know, I know how to play 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:57.119 a little bit too. And he's left handed, so he 0:21:57.160 --> 0:21:59.800 plays it upside down, which already blows John's minds, like, wow, 0:21:59.840 --> 0:22:02.880 you play it both ways? Wow? And he plays um 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:05.760 one of John's favorite songs that Fight Rock by Eddy Cochrane, 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:15.560 and he knows all the words. John can't remember words 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:17.600 to save his life. He's he's he's more big picture. 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:21.199 Paul learns the solos, learns the words, and so that 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:25.600 kind of made him super super respect Paul like the 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:28.720 fact that Okay, he's good, he's real good. And he 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:31.520 proved himself in that moment in a way that really 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:34.280 no one else I think in John's life at that 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:36.360 age did, And so from that point on they were 0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:40.040 bonded musically. And Paul had lost his mother a few 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:43.080 years earlier to cancer when he was fourteen, and John 0:22:43.080 --> 0:22:44.760 would say to him at this point like, oh my god, 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:48.080 how can you just exist normally when your mom's dead? 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:49.960 Like I give something like that ever happened to me. 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:53.400