John Lennon made wonderful music, which people listen to as music. Nobody around the world is living their life according to the precepts of John Lennon.
I think about John Lennon all the time. What would John Lennon do? What would John Lennon say if he got this part? How would he act? I don't know, but he's my moral barometer.
It’s mostly just you have to convince yourself that there’s nothing else in the room but John Lennon and suddenly things start John Lennon-ing!
I'm not like John Lennon, who thought he was the great Almighty. I just think I'm John Lennon.
John Lennon was a musical genius. All I have to do is think of some of his songs and even the titles make me feel good... and I'm not the only one. His music has crossed cultures and even generations.
I bought [John Lennon's] 'Plastic Ono Band,' and I listened to it over and over for months. It's a monumental work of genius.
Marvin Gaye is our John Lennon. The longer he's gone, the more young people appreciate his art. 'What's Going On' was a work of genius far ahead of it's time.
Gentlemen, haven't we learned anything from the music of John Lennon? All we need is love.
After the shooting of John Lennon and the early death of so many great stars and the utter naked venal mercantile marketing of pop music and rock music, I don't think anyone really believes that music is anything more than another commodity.
If you look at someone like Joe Strummer or John Lennon, when you heard their music you knew that they wrote it and they cared about it.
But even with no money you could still go to places like the Scotch Club and, you know, John Lennon might be sitting right over there, but I was certainly not a part of any of that circle. I was truly peripheral.
I think what made John Lennon so exciting as an artist is that, like Dylan and other musicians with a truly important musical legacy, he had several faces, personas that changed over time as he developed.
To me, John Lennon and Elvis Presley were punks, because they made music that evoked those emotions in people.
Most of the fans of John Lennon and maybe John and Yoko are younger than me.
I remember that, before John Lennon died, everyone was saying that Rolling Stone couldn't do good reporting anymore. But when he died, they wrote this amazing issue, as they should have about Lennon. They did that when Elvis died, too.
Genius is, to be sure, not a matter of arbitrariness, but rather of freedom, just as wit, love, and faith, which once shall become arts and disciplines. We should demand genius from everybody, without, however, expecting it.