Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1108715 in Books
• Published on: 2000-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Customer Reviews

This book will change the way you feel about Yoko Ono
David Sheff has turned his 1980 Playboy interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono into what I feel is the most revealing account of John Lennon's final months. David joins them in the recording studio whilst they where recording Double Fantasy and is invited into thier home at the Dakota Building where John was shot in December the same year. If this book shows anything, its that Yoko Ono does not appear to be the gold digging dragon lady that she has always been painted to be, it shows that John and Yoko truly loved each other in a very special way. David adds a paragraph here and there describing their encounters and the general mood of what was going on at the time. John and Yoko are both very open in this intervew and it seems that they both completly let their guard down and given evrything, which makes this one of the best interviews ever given. Well done David Sheff.

Listen to This Book!
John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono give an excellent interview by pulling out all stops. Sheff's interview in "Playboy" with the pair is a vital oral history about the former Beatle's life and his insight on each Beatle song. Sheff takes readers on a Magical Mystery Tour through the recording studio; the Dakota and in and around the neighborhood. The interview is candid and direct; readers are given a clear look of and at John and Yoko.

John is shown, warts and all in real, living color. He is not glamorized nor vilified; he is presented as the man that he was. John Lennon was many things to many people; Sixties icon; musician extraordinaire; artist; spouse; father; author; actor; joker; interviewee; "militant pacifist," an oxymoronic term. John was a very complex man and this Rubik's cube of a book puts the pieces together in such a way that readers can readily assemble their image of John Lennon.

John makes no bones abut the Beatles being part of his past; he appears to want to move further down the Long & Winding Road without further Hard Day's Nights in re his Beatle history. It was also interesting to learn what groups and artists John liked and how he felt they influenced him.

Hats off to Sheff for introducing readers to each person in the interview. If there is one literary pitfall to avoid, it is never, repeat, never spring characters or real people onto readers without introducing them. That weakens a work and Sheff is quite adept at dodging this trap.

John appeared to be moving at a quicker pace in this interview; whereas Sheff wanted to discuss the Beatles more in depth, John gave one word answers to Beatle related questions and seemed eager to discuss his 1980 album, "Double Fantasy" as well as works he was planning after that.

This is a bittersweet book for Beatle and Lennon fans because of John's untimely death in late 1980. Even so, the book remains an excellent source of information about the man who founded the World's Number One Band, the Beatles and the man who made the world listen.

Listen to John Lennon.