An interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono conducted in 1968 but never published in full has been unearthed.
Keele University student Maurice Hindle, along with a friend, hitchhiked to Lennon‘s Surrey home to conduct the interview, which has now been published in the New Statesman.
Hindle explained that the duo – who first approached Lennon by writing to him through the Beatles Monthly fanzine – were even picked up from Weybridge train station by the man himself.
“Outside Weybridge station, a Mini Cooper with smoked-glass windows skidded to a halt, like something out of The Italian Job,” Hindle explained. “In the driver’s seat was Lennon. We students crammed into the back of the Mini and John drove us up the bumpy private road that led to his house, Kenwood.”
In the interview, which lasted for six hours, Lennon addressed criticism levelled at him and The Beatles earlier in 1968 by socialist commentator Tariq Ali in his Black Dwarf publication.
“He says ‘Revolution’ was no more revolutionary than Mrs Dale’s Diary,” Lennon told Hindle about Ali. “So it mightn’t have been. But the point is to change your head – it’s no good knocking down a few old bloody Tories!
“What does he think he’s gonna change? The system’s what he says it is: a load of crap. But just smashing it up isn’t gonna do it.”
See Newstatesman.com for more from the interview.