DREAMING OF THE PAST
October 9 would have been John Lennon’s 78th birthday. In an exclusive extract from a new book, he and Yoko Ono reveal the true story behind the song Jealous Guy, told in interviews compiled from 1971.
October 9 would have been John Lennon’s 78th birthday. In an exclusive extract from a new book, he and Yoko Ono reveal the true story behind the song Jealous Guy, told in interviews compiled from 1971.
John: Jealous Guy was originally a song called Child of Nature. The melody had been written in India. I never did anything with it but always liked the melody. The words were silly, anyway. I sang it to Yoko, Phil Spector and a few people and they always winced. I decided to change it — and with Yoko’s help, I did.
Yoko: Jealous Guy was a totally different song with the lyrics “on the road to Marrakesh”. I said to John, “That’s a beautiful melody, but you have to think about something more sensitive. It’s in you.” So whenever I hear Jealous Guy, I think, ‘Oh my God!’ because he really did that.
John: I was a very jealous, possessive guy. And the lyrics explained that pretty clearly. Not just jealous towards Yoko, but towards everything male and female. Incredibly possessive. It’s partly to do with childhood. A very insecure male who wants to put his woman in a little box and lock the key and just bring her out when he feels like playing with her and put her back in. And she’s not to communicate with the world outside of me, you see? Because it makes me feel insecure. And that’s not allowed, you know? So this is facing up to it. I don’t believe these tight-skinned people who are “never jealous”. When you are in love with somebody, you tend to be jealous and want to own them and possess them 100 per cent, which I do. I love Yoko. I want to possess her completely. I don’t want to stifle her — that’s the danger — that you want to possess them to death.
John: All that “I used to be cruel to my woman, I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved” was me. I used to be cruel to my woman — and physically. Any woman. I was a hitter. I couldn’t express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace, you see. It is the most violent people who go for love and peace.
Everything’s the opposite. But I sincerely believe in love and peace. I am a violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence. I will have to be a lot older before I can face in public how I treated women as a youngster.
Yoko: We would argue, of course. We were two very temperamental, very emotional, people. Friends and lovers, musicians and artists, man and woman, husband and wife.
That was part of our communication. We were both shy, we didn’t go out often, certainly not to parties or anything like that. So we were literally together for 14 years with very few breaks. John and I stood for peace and love but standing for peace doesn’t make either of us holier than thou. John and I together were human beings, and by no means were both of us totally
peaceful. Anger, hurt, vulnerability, were all a part of John. When we met we were like two driven people and it was like a fantastic meeting of two crazy souls.
They say that Venus is jealous of lovers. Forget Venus. In our case it was the whole world. But as far as we were concerned, we felt so lucky that we had found each other.
Aside from the fact that we were both rebellious and emotional, we were true opposites. John was tallish. I was smallish. John made music for the people. I made music for the avant-garde, though I did not think of my music in those terms at the time (I thought I was big time). John was humble, in a way only a very successful person could be. l was proud, like most people living in an ivory tower, who never had to test the big water. Coming from a semi-working-class background, John was streetwise. I was totally inexperienced when it came to the games of the real world.
And we felt so, so lucky that we fell in love with each other.
It was a blessing neither of us expected at that time in our lives. We couldn’t take our eyes off one another. We couldn’t get enough of each other but the outside pressure was very strong.
It was so strong that sometimes we had to separate from each other in order to protect our love. We thought we were clever, that we did everything right and nothing and nobody could tear us apart. But it happened: our separation.
So sudden, too. He was taken away from me for good.
Even now, I think there are people who still cannot reconcile themselves to the idea that I had been in John’s life. To those people, I’d like to say, “I’m sorry that we had hurt you, But that’s what happened. That’s how it was.”
John: It’s a kind of jealousy. People can’t stand people being in love. It’s your self-absorption with each other; it’s your contentment with each other that people can’t stand.
Yoko: We’re so ashamed of being jealous, so ashamed of being possessive. We’re so afraid of having hate and all that. We shouldn’t. It’s all just different forms of energy.
People can’t stand people being in love. It’s your self-absorption with each other; it’s your contentment with each other that people can’t stand. John Lennon