Whether or not Lennon did regret his associations with the radical left, I still remember his beliefs – and his voice – fondly
Radical and chic: John Lennon and Yoko Ono and with black power leader Michael X at his house in Holloway, 4 February 1970. Photograph: Getty
Maurice Hindle’s comments (‘Response’, The Guardian, 2 February,) raise some interesting questions regarding John Lennon‘s politics. For the record, it might be useful to point out that it was Lennon who rang and wanted a conversation, a year after the 1969 exchange on the Beatle’s album Revolution in the “ultra-left” Black Dwarf. We met a number of times before the interview that Robin Blackburn and I conducted for the even more “ultra-left” Red Mole.
The day after the interview he rang me and said he had enjoyed it so much that he’d written a song for the movement, which he then proceeded to sing down the line: Power to the People. The events in Derry on Bloody Sunday angered him greatly and he subsequently suggested that he wished to march on the next Troops Out demonstration on Ireland, and did so, together with Yoko Ono, wearing Red Mole T-shirts and holding the paper high. Its headline was: “For the IRA, Against British Imperialism”.’
We stayed in touch and talked to each other a great deal. He invited Blackburn and myself over when Imagine was being composed. I vividly remember him singing it at the kitchen table in Tittenhurst and then looking at us inquiringly. “The Politburo approves this one,” I joked. Later, the LP arrived and most of the songs in it were radical in the broad sense of the word (as was Working Class Hero from his previous album). Imagine, the utopian hymn, written during his most radical phase, was never repudiated and while he may have regretted some of his actions and remarks in the 1970s that song continued to represent his political hopes.
What has often been underestimated is the radical influence that Yoko Ono represented in both art and politics. She had a huge impact on his ideas and, even in the late 70s, told him off in public for being too dismissive of his radicalism. When he told me he was moving to the United States, I tried to dissuade him.
“Too many kooks,” I said.
“Not in Manhattan,” was his response.
He wanted to leave Britain because he and Yoko were repulsed by its provincialism and by the tenor of tabloid racism that was directed against her. I last spoke with him in 1979 when we discussed the likely impact of Thatcher’s victory. He didn’t sound too unradical in that conversation. If there is a record of it in some British intelligence archive, I would be grateful to see a transcript. Clearly, his views changed somewhat but I can’t see him as a neocon supporting the wars and occupations in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The loss of his voice was a tragedy for millions.
• This article was amended on 2 February. The original stated that Working Class Hero was on the Imagine album. This has been corrected.
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