Not for nothing but how is this RS quote from Jonathan Cott’s Rolling Stone Interview with Lennon a surprise: “What they want is dead heroes, like Sid Vicious and James Dean. I’m not interested in being a dead fucking hero. So forget ’em, forget ’em.”
Not only has Lennon said, time after time, in interviews, that he had no desire to be St. John, a martyr to the rock and roll dream, but also: he sang it. “Everybody loves you when you’re six foot underground”.
On record and in person Lennon called his epitaph and hated it.
Which is why, despite being a huge fan, especially of the pre-Rubber Soul stuff, I’ve tried to keep the man in front of the image. Yoko Ono’s image mongering notwithstanding, the very least we owe Lennon for all that music, is to remember him for the deeply flawed man he was.