Long-lost John Lennon interview reveals US phone-tapping fears | John Lennon
A long-lost interview with John Lennon, rediscovered in a basement 50 years ago in which the former Beatle talks about fears the US government had tapped his phone, will be published on what would have been the singer-songwriter’s 85th birthday.
Nicky Horne He was 24, the age of an upcoming DJ with London’s Capital Radio, when he was invited to the star’s New York flat for an extensive interview.
While part of the interview was published in Capital in 1975, Horne recently found the original reel-to-reel tapes in a dusty box at home and said, “This is gold dust.”
Lennon, who sued the Nixon administration over illegal wiretapping and surveillance in his battle to avoid deportation, speaks of his suspicions that he was being monitored over his anti-war activism.
His fourth solo studio album, Walls and Bridges, explains that he wanted to “throw it away” until friends convinced him not to. He also now poignantly expressed his hope that his best music is yet to come and that “barring God’s actions, I’ll be around for another 60 years and do it until I drop.”
Report boom radio In the special to air Wednesday, veteran broadcaster and station host Horne recalls meeting Lennon in his Dakota Building apartment, where the songwriter would be murdered by Mark David Chapman five years later.
Lennon told Horne: “When I pick it up the phone is normal and every time I pick it up there is a lot of noise.
“[The administration was] For me it comes one way or another; I mean, they were harassing me. And I opened the door and there would be men standing on the other side of the street. I would get into a car and they would follow me in a car and hide me. ”
When Lennon could not prove it by touch at the time, he said: “I just know there was a lot of repair in the cellar [of the Dakota building]. “
He said he wasn’t the only rock star with whom the US administration was most challenging. “Mick [Jagger] He had to eliminate his own manhole to get Keith [Richards] And the rest even get into the round. I mean, he did a lot of behind-the-scenes work just to be allowed to do it. So we all have problems. I just wanted to stay here. ”
Of his solo Walls and Bridges studio album, which went gold in the US and was written and recorded during his 18-month separation from Yoko Ono, Lennon admitted that at first he “couldn’t stand listening to” the studio tapes and considered “just throwing it away.” Then he played them to his friends and they said: ‘Hey, everything’s fine.’ I said: “Oh it’s not.
Describing his daily life, he said: “Basically one bedroom, one studio, one TV, one night, back home.” he said.
Horne explains that she was nervous before the interview, Lennon reassures her and even bakes chocolate cookies for her. But while sitting cross-legged on the singer’s white shag pile rug to interview her, Horne “realized I had spilled some chocolate crumbs on this pristine white rug and I was desperately trying to pick them up one by one because she couldn’t see them.”
Horne reveals the full story in an exclusive about how he managed to land the interview with the former Beatle, and what happened behind the scenes when he plays part of the interview on Boom Radio at 9pm on Wednesday.
