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Music Quotes by John Lennon

79 Music quotes by John Lennon

All Music quotes John Lennon’s page

Today's folk song is rock and roll, showing how music styles blend and evolve. The quotes point out that Beatle music is diverse, not a single sound, and that the band often just follows what they hear rather than claiming expertise. Lennon also mentions enjoying commercial music and borrowing ideas from artists like Elvis and Dylan.

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The more real you get, the more unreal everything else is.

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We're more popular than Jesus Christ now.

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I don't miss it. I'm glad it happened, but I don't miss it.

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Music touching my soul, the spirit dance was unfolding.

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We were cowards when we sacked him.

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Music is everybody's possession.

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Before Elvis there was nothing.

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The magic of the music seems to light the way.

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Barney Kessel is incredible. He's just amazing . . . . Nobody can play guitar like that

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Meanings of all songs come after they are recorded. Someone else has to interpret them

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I resent performing for frisking idiots who don't know anything.

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I don't purchase records. I do enjoy listening to things like Japanese folk music or Indian music.

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The Beatles were just a band that made it very, very big, that's all.

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The idea of beetles came into my head. I decided to spell it BEATles to make it look like beat music, just…

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Before Cliff (Richard) and The Shadows, there had been nothing worth listening to in British music.

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If The Beatles or the 60's had a message, it was 'Learn to swim. And once you've learned - swim!

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A more interesting question is not 'Why did they break up?' but 'Would they have gotten back together?' ... There's always a…

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Lack of feeling in an emotional sense is responsible for the way some singers do our songs. They don't understand and are…

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If I had the capabilities of being something other than I am, I would. It's no fun being an artist. You know…

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If art were to redeem man, it could do so only by saving him from the seriousness of life and restoring him…

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I only ever asked two people to work with me as a partner. One was Paul McCartney and the other Yoko Ono.…

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It was my Fat Elvis period. I was eating and drinking like a pig. I was depressed and I was crying out…

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And Paul hits this chord, and I turn to him and say, 'That's it! Do that again!' In those days we really…

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I started being me about the songs, not writing objectively, but subjectively. I think it was Dylan who helped me realize that…

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My life with the Beatles had become a trap... I always remember to thank Jesus for the end of my touring days;…

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The whole thing died in my mind long before the rumpus started. We used to believe the Beatles myth just as much…

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Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it. If you were going to give Rock 'n' Roll…

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I still don't know how to express the really delicate personal stuff. People think that Plastic Ono is very personal, but there…

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The writing of the Beatles, or John and Paul's contribution to the Beatles in the late sixties - had a kind of…

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From our earliest days in Liverpool, George and I on the one hand and Paul on the other had different musical tastes.…

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I felt that film (Let It Be) was set up by Paul for Paul. That is one of the main reasons the…

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I think the music reflects the state that the society is in. It doesn't suggest the state. I think the poets and…

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Where do people get off saying the Beatles should give $200,000,000 to South America? You know, America has poured billions into places…

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Elvis died the day he went into the army.

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The world went mad and used us as an excuse.

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There are only a few notes. Just variations on a theme.

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Without Jimmy Dean, the Beatles never would have existed.

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People think the Beatles know what's going on. We don't. We're just doing it.

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I didn't leave the Beatles. The Beatles have left the Beatles, but no one wants to be the one to say the…

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The dream is over. I gotta get down to reality. The good old days is garbage.

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More by John Lennon

Well, I don't want to be king, I want to be real.

We went to America a few times and [Brian] Epstein always tried to waffle on at us about saying nothing about Vietnam. So there…

As someone from the working class I was always interested in Russia and China and everything that related to the working class, even though…

I never went to high school reunions. My thing is, out of sight, out of mind. That's my attitude toward life. So I don't…

Today's folk song is rock and roll. Although it happened to emanate from America, that's not really important in the end because we wrote…

If you want to get peace, you can get it as soon as you like if we all pull together. ... Think peace, live…

The reason why kids are crazy is because nobody can face the responsibility of bringing them up.

In my case I've never not been political, though religion tended to overshadow it in my acid days.

I wasn't saying whatever they're saying I was saying. I'm sorry I said it really. I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious…

Songwriting 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…

Imagine there's no heaven... it's easy if you try.

Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe.

Love is like a flower - you've got to let it grow.

I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity.

The main hangup in the world today is hypocrisy and insecurity. If people can't face up to the fact of other people being naked…