What's your favorite John? | Page 5 | Fab forum

Till There Was You said:

I don't know. As a person, I think that John was starting to repair when he was older. And by older, I mean late John. He was an abusive, manipulative, hypocritical person (and I'm not a saint, either, so don't say that I'm being a hypocrite for saying this). He used to beat Cynthia from what I read, and once beat up a guy who called him gay. He claims to have slept with over four hundred women during his Beatles years. He'd come home, drunk, often (from what I've read, but that was a while ago. I don't know. I could be wrong.) He constantly teased Brian for being gay, and sang "Baby, you're a rich *** Jew" as a joke. I think that's why I like sort of Yoko, because he helped him mature. She wouldn't take all of the abuse that he would use against Cynthia.

Absolutely freaking right.

Musically, John in the year after he met Yoko. From November 1966 to November 1967, he wrote Strawberry Fields Forever, I Am The Walrus and A Day In The Life, three of my favourite songs, and also All You Need Is Love and Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (amongst others).  I could make it March to March, which would incorporate Revolver and Rain on on side, and Hey Bulldog and Across The Universe on the other, which would include the majority of my favourite songs John wrote for the Beatles.

Personality wise, if John's version of history is true, 1975-80. He made up for his mistakes with Cynthia and Julian by being a proper husband to Yoko and moreover a proper father to Sean. I have some doubts that he really did spent five years "baking bread", but if he was a domestic god for this period, then it's my favourite John.

No, that's exactly right. I hate how in one of the Anthology interviews, George mentions John getting fatter during this time, but if he's using himself as a comparison, that's not exactly fair.

I always understood that John meant he was in a bad place emotionally, like something that once had a lot of potential is becoming a gaudy joke.

I think George called him "portly" but yeah it was in comparison with the rest of the Beatles. Call me crazy but I think John ended up as the thinnest of the four which has mostly been credited to his drug use, but maybe it was because of some of that self-consciousness in '65, which was undoubtedly his most self-conscious year writing wise.
But then there's 1980 John who was a health nut who knew all of these facts about nutrients and was in the best shape of his life. Everything I've ever read about losing weight has said that unless you are in an emotionally healthy state, it won't matter how much work you do because the weight will eventually come back, so I guess John was finally in a good place then.

Zig said:

Any inside info on the release date yet?

Any chance this thread will be re-railed anytime soon?

1. The UK release is September 1, 2011 (If you mean the Lewisohn book).

2. The chances I admit to being a Leafs fan

Zig said:

mr. Sun king coming together said:

1. The UK release is September 1, 2011 (If you mean the Lewisohn book).

I hope you are right. What is your source of info?

Joe. He wrote this elsewhere:

Ooh, look what I just discovered! The Beatles – The Biography: Tune in v. 1 by Mark Lewisohn, due out on 1 September 2011. This is the big one, folks.

It''s not listed yet on Amazon.com, but I'm sure it''ll follow soon.

I'd like to think he's enough of a source.

Edit: It's still not on Amazon.ca/com