Thank you NetGalley for the eARC. I read the whole book with an accent and I loved it ! Thank you for reminding me who John Lennon was inside

A fascinating take on the life of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. I can't get enough of these two and as a life-long Beatles fan, I would suggest it to anyone who calls John Lennon a fave.

I can not love John Lennon anymore! This book is definitely different then my normal readings but definitely worth the read!

As a Beatles fan, I was thrilled to read All We Were Saying by David Sheff. It contains the last major interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Talk about exciting and thrilling! Lennon has always been my favorite Beatle, so I was very interested in reading this piece to learn more about this creative, smart musical icon.

Playboy published this interview in 1981, following Lennon's death outside his home at The Dakota. The interviewer, David Sheff, was twenty-four years old at the time. His questions were savvy, engaging, and thoughtful. They provided the perfect way for Lennon and Ono to open up about their life and covered a range of topics, such as the Beatles, parenthood, religion, and money. From the start, you can see the deep connection between Lennon and his wife, which I feel provides a good background for the interview. You get a sense of love, family, and authenticity from their words, actions, and interests. It's fascinating and revealing all at once. I have to admit my favorite part is when Lennon gives his thoughts on Beatles' songs. All in all, a great interview to read. And, I enjoyed Sheff's new introduction to the interview. It's forty years later and suffice it to say, time and life experiences have definitely changed Sheff's perspective on this interview.

All We Were Saying is a terrific book for any Beatles fan - they will LOVE this interview! And, if they've already read it, then they will enjoy re-reading it. Or, like me, they will love discovering it for the first time and getting to know this fascinating couple even better. Such a great book! I absolutely LOVED it!

This is a digital reprint of the last interview of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, two days before John was murdered on December 8, 1980. David Sheff is a journalist and also a die-hard fan of the Lennon’s. Lucky me, I read it free. Thanks go to Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press for the review copy. It’s for sale now.

This interview is a treasure trove for anyone interested in John Lennon, Yoko Ono, or the Beatles. 192 pages makes for a short book, but as interviews go, it’s a whopper. Lennon and Ono were about to release an album together, and so when Playboy requested an interview, they consented. The most wonderful thing about it is that because of the format, nearly everything is a direct quotation of either John’s or Yoko’s. Nobody knew during the course of the interview, which took multiple days, that John would be shot to death by a stranger two days later.

It makes for interesting reading. There are passages I love and others that make me see red, but I am not irritated with the author, who’s done a bang-up job, but rather, in places, at things said by his subjects. Most of it is tremendously entertaining. And in some places, it is almost unbearably poignant. At the outset, John makes a comment, almost off the cuff, about how the way to be really famous as an artist is to die in public, which he surely isn’t planning to do. Later, he quotes someone that says it’s better to burn out than to rust, and he says he disagrees, that “It’s better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out.” And he notes that he has another forty years or so of productivity ahead of him.

Lennon was a happy man when this interview took place. He’d been a “house husband,” staying home and taking care of Sean, their son, although they acknowledge that it’s easier to do that when there’s a nanny available anytime he needs to go out for some reason, and someone else that will clean the house and so forth. Ono, on the other hand, is the one who’s handling their finances, and it’s a princely fortune at that.
And to me, the most interesting aspect of this interview isn’t him, it’s her. I was a child in elementary school when John left his first wife and married Yoko, but I remember the virulent, nasty things that appeared in the media. Those that don’t think any progress has been registered regarding race and gender should look through some archives. And John comments that the press treated their relationship as if he were “some wondrous mystic prince from the rock world dabbling with this strange Oriental woman.”

Ono said, “I handled the business…my own accountant and my own lawyer could not deal with the fact that I was telling them what to do…”

John continued that there was “…an attitude that this is John’s wife, but surely she can’t really be representing him…they’re all male, you know, just big and fat, vodka lunch, shouting males…Recently she made them about five million dollars and they fought and fought not to let her do it because it was her idea and she’s not a professional. But she did it, and then one of the guys said to her, ‘Well, Lennon does it again.’ But Lennon didn’t have anything to do with it.”

There’s a lot that gets said about the women’s movement and all of it is wonderful. Once in awhile John holds forth about something he knows nothing about (anthropology and the early role of women) and he makes an ass of himself. He may have been more enlightened than most men, but he still hadn’t learned to acknowledge that there were some things he just didn’t know.

There are passages that make me grind my teeth, and all of them have to do with wealth in one way or another. Ono is from a ruling class Japanese banking family, and the airy things she and John say about being rich make me want to hit a wall. People shouldn’t pick on them for being wealthy. And oh my goodness, when Sheff mildly suggests that John and the other former Beatles surrender and do a single reunion concert for charity, his response is horrifying. He points out that the concert for Bangladesh that George Harrison roped them into doing turned out to raise no money at all for the cause because all of it went to red tape and lawsuits; ouch! But the truly obnoxious bit is when he whines about how the world just expects too much of him. He wants to know, “Do we have to divide the fish and the loaves for the multitudes again? Do we have to get crucified again? We are not there to save the fucking world.”

The part that makes me laugh is when Ono describes how The Beatles broke up at about the same time she and John got together: “What happened with John is that I sort of went to bed with this guy that I liked and suddenly the next morning I see these three guys standing there with resentful eyes.”

Those that are curious about Lennon and Ono, or that are interested in rock and roll history, should get this interview and read it. There’s a good deal of discussion about the roots of the music, and about the music he made that the radio never played. There’s a good deal here that I surely never knew. For these readers, I highly recommend this book.

This book was one of the best I’ve ever read in regards to John Lennon, and I’ve read most of them. I loved how open and honest both Lennon and Yoko Ono were during the interviews. I felt like I was in the room while they were discussing things both past and present. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone.

I can honestly say that I knew very little about Yoko Ono but like most people, the rumors of her relationship with John and the break up of The Beatles made her an intriguing figure for all the wrong reasons. ⁣
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I agreed to review this book because of my love for Lennon but what I discovered was a deep respect and admiration for Yoko that I never expected. This beautiful series of interviews brought me to tears many times knowing the fate ahead for the couple who spoke so often in foreshadowing moments. ⁣
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I think we have a poetic desire to believe last words mean more then what was simply spoken, but this interview reveals a man finally finding happiness, coming to terms with his fame and his life after changing his idea of what life is. And beside him is an unapologetic woman completely secure with her gifts and faults. She's mesmerizing, to be honest, and I might have become a little infatuated with her.⁣
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I cannot recommend this book enough for people who like me knew nothing of Yoko Ono but admired John Lennon. To know his other half and hear them interact... well for anyone married a while it will sound familiar and wonderful all at once. It was an enlightening insight into a marriage and a partnership that ended too soon.⁣
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Thank you St. Martin's Press for this opportunity to read a wonderful book!

Quite the informative read it's the entire last interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. I found I was sorely mistaken on a lot of things about Yoko and found out actually she and I are quite a bit alike! It gives us such a deeper insight of their love, their lives, dreams and what they were hoping to aim for and achieve. We learn about events and why/how they happened like Lennon's lost weekend that lasted 18 months. Fans and foes alike will enjoy this book...I didn't much like Yoko...I came away liking her and feeling like a sister.

John Lennon was assassinated the year I was born and the year he turned 40. I turned 40 this year, and while I've always been a big fan of the Beatles (my first CD ever was Abbey Road -- although apparently Lennon wouldn't have liked that!) I have never read much of their history. This book makes me want to change that now.

This 40th anniversary re-release of the full Playboy transcript of the final interview of John Lennon and Yoko Ono answered a lot of questions and gave a look behind the Beatles curtain.

The new introduction by David Sheff, the writer who interviewed the couple when he was just 24 and trying to catch a break as a writer, also added a deeper element to the transcript, breathing more life into what could have just been words on paper. Sheff's observations of Lennon's loving -- doting, really -- relationship with his son Sean and how witnessing that influenced his own life and his relationship with his own future son also added a new dimension to the following transcript.

And Sheff sums it all up nicely when he writes:

"Their message is simultaneously complex and simple: Know yourself and learn to think for yourself. Do for others when you are able...Imagine a better world."

Reading the transcript after this introduction really gives it a new dimension that shows how important Lennon was to so many people, and how important he continues to be, even four decades after his untimely death.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Griffin for providing me with an e-galley of this book. It has not influenced my opinion.

5 Stars

This is the last major interview with John Lennon (and his wife Yoko Ono) to coincide with the release of their album "Double Fantasy" in 1980. At this point in John's life, he had been enjoying self-imposed retirement for 5 years following the birth of their son Sean. For the first time since all The Beatles craziness, John had no record contracts to fulfill. His artist wife Yoko, the daughter of a prominent banking family in Japan, decided to learn how to handle the business side of John's financial empire. John decided to be a househusband, baking bread and supervising everything that Sean ate. With pride, John said, "I built his bones". Yoko ran the Lennon empire from her office at the Dakota while John was parenting Sean on another floor in their apartment.

This book is really nothing new since this Playboy Interview was released as a book in 1981, following John's death. I have the original hardcover book from that time. It was also released in recent years when Playboy was celebrating their 50 year anniversary and offering kindle versions of some of their famous interviews over the decades. It's being offered here now with a new cover touting the 40th anniversary of this interview, with a new forward from David Sheff, the interviewer.

Sheff was only 24 when he snagged this interview on behalf of Playboy. He himself became a Beatles fan, and particularly a John Lennon fan, after hearing "Strawberry Fields Forever" for the first time. Growing up he felt different, like he didn't belong, but connected with John Lennon's music. For three weeks he interviewed the Lennons at The Hit Factory recording studio, The Dakota, on walks in Central Park, riding in limousines and while sipping cappuccino at the Lennons' favorite eatery, La Fortuna. They discussed so many wide-ranging topics that this has to be the most definitive interview of John Lennon. This interview is famous for the fact that they discussed many Beatles songs and just how they were written, and who in particular wrote them. Before this interview it was just accepted that John and Paul always wrote their songs together because as young composers they agreed to always publish as "Lennon-McCartney" even if just one of them wrote it. Sometimes John and Paul wrote eye to eye together, sometimes one would help with just the middle eight, and sometimes it was actually a solo effort. During The Beatles White Album, certain songs were recorded by maybe two Beatles only. For instance, "The Ballad of John and Yoko" was recorded by just John and Paul, because the other two Beatles were unavailable. Paul played drums on this track. John dismissed many songs as "trash" and "throwaways".

Another extremely poignant and eerie fact of this interview is the many things John said, not knowing he would be murdered just days from its publication. He says things like, "Life begins at 40", "I'll probably live to be 80 or 90", and that "pacifists get shot". He clearly was enjoying life and looking forward to his future, and when you read these things (and there were others) you easily get teary-eyed. I did.

I read this interview back in 1981 when it was first released in hardcover book form, and probably dabbled back into it periodically over the years. Before kindles came out and I became overloaded with too many books to actually read in my lifetime, I would often go on book reading tangents with passions of the moment. So, I would check my bookcase and revisit treasures from time to time. At this time of year I find myself thinking of John Lennon because his birthday is October 9th and he was killed on December 8th. He was forty when he died and he would have been 80 this year. Author David Sheff marvels at the fact that he's now 64. In 1980 when Sheff considered The Beatles song "When I'm Sixty-Four" - that seemed so old to him!

On the "Double Fantasy" album, John had written the song "Beautiful Boy" for his son Sean. He would sing it to him like a lullaby. When author David Sheff had his first child, a son named Nic a couple of years after John's death, he also song the song "Beautiful Boy" to his son. Sadly, as a teenager Nic got heavily involved with drugs, and Sheff wrote a book about this experience which later became a movie. Of course, it was called "Beautiful Boy". I watched this movie streamed on Amazon and I also have a kindle copy of the book-which I have yet to read. This story is heart-wrenching. Thankfully, Nic is clean now for almost a decade.

This book is a must to truly know what John Lennon thought about his life, work, politics and love... just weeks before he was taken from us. Excellent.

Very comprehensive and engaging. I didn't realize this was a complete version of a final interview given by John Lennon. It's filled with narrative about the love between John and his wife, Yoko, as well as their thoughts and philosophy on music. John shares a great deal of intimate detail. A must read for his fans or music lovers in general. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to review this copy in exchange for my honest review.

A long form read of one of the only interviews of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It's a love story of two artists, both misunderstood in their own way.

The world misses John Lennon and this will make them miss him more. His genius is unmatched.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this.

I have read bits and pieces of this interview, but reading it in it's entirety was definitely something else.

It was so interesting to see the unfettered back and forth interaction between John and Yoko in this very candid interview.
Definitely a must read for any Lennon fan.

…”A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.”

What a great love story, John and Yoko. Sadly it had to end by a nutsack with a gun.

"...Although it looks like what John and Yoko were doing for five years was not doing anything, we were doing a hell of a lot. Sitting still is one way of describing it. Sitting still, amazing things happen, you see. And now we’re not sitting still. Now we’re moving around. And maybe in a few years we’ll sit still again. Because life is long, I presume…"

In a manner of weeks after finishing this extensive interview John Lennon would be dead. On December 7th Playboy published it and on December 8th John was gone.

"...Some people cannot see that their parents are still torturing them, even when they are in their forties and fifties—they still have that stranglehold over them and their thoughts and their minds. I never had that fear of and adulation for parents. Well, that’s a gift of being a so-called orphan— which I never was at all…"

The interview was more than informative. There was so much revealed in this last interview. So much explained and so much they were both looking forward to achieving in the forty or fifty years they thought they might have left.

"...PLAYBOY: The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill.”
LENNON: Oh that was written about a guy in Maharishi’s meditation camp who took a short break to go shoot a few poor tigers, and then came back to commune with God. There used to be a character called Jungle Jim and I combined him with Buffalo Bill. It’s a sort of teenage social-comment song and a bit of a joke. Yoko’s on that one, I believe, singing along…"

Since he was two and a half years old my grandson has known the words to Bungalow Bill by heart. "All the children sing…"

I recommend this book for anyone wanting to be told the truth about the Beatles, their beginnings and their breakup, and to know more intimately the greatest one of them all, John Lennon.

This was a complete transcript of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's last interview before he was killed. Instead of focusing on their personal life, they discuss their mutual love of music and being creative and sharing it with whoever wants to listen. John also shares the list of all the songs he wrote or co-wrote for the Beatles, as well as his own work.

In my opinion, if you don't like at least one song from the Beatles, you aren't living. A must read for any Beatles fan. Highly recommended for anyone in that category and is also a music lover.

Thanks to Netgalley, David Sheff, and St Martins Press Griffin for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was previously published.

But is now available and up to date on: 12/1/20