The reason why John Lennon called Elvis and Mick Jagger “bullshit”
Without Elvis Presley, it’s quite possible The Beatles would have remained a skiffle outfit until the end of their days. The King’s mainstream success aided the development of a worldwide fascination with rock ‘n’ roll, with the Fab Four basing many of their early hits on Presley’s records. As Lennon himself once put it, “before Elvis, there was nothing”. That being said, John Lennon was far from smitten with every aspect of the era-defining rock ‘n’ roller.
Though the mania surrounding The Beatles reflected that which had once surrounded Elvis Presley, it wasn’t generated in quite the same way. Fans of Presley adored him for his obvious sexual appeal. The hip action, the groaning, the sweat running through his jet black hair: it was all part of the Presley package. The Beatles, though clearly regarded as sex symbols, were a little less obvious. They didn’t go in for dance moves – preferring to place their focus entirely on interacting with one another as musicians.
That’s not to say The Beatles never experimented with dancing. In 1971, Lennon sat down for an interview with Rolling Stone in which he recalled: “When we were younger, we used to move, we used to jump around and do all the things they’re doing now, like going on stage with toilet seats and shitting and pissing.” It’s just that, by the time they’d gone global, Lennon and Co. had settled for a more pared-back approach. This marked them out from their contemporaries because, unlike most of the beat groups around at the time, the Beatles didn’t feature an obvious frontman. “In the early days in England, all the groups were like Elvis and a backing group, and the Beatles deliberately didn’t move like Elvis,” John continued. “That was our policy because we found it stupid and bullshit.”
Lennon would go on to criticise The Rolling Stones’ frontman Mick Jagger for reviving what he seems to have regarded as self-indulgent horseplay. “Then Mick Jagger came out and resurrected ‘bullsht movement,’ wiggling your arse,” Lennon added. “So then people began to say the Beatles were passé because they don’t move. But we did it as a conscious move.”
Lennon wasn’t the only one to cross-examine Jagger’s stagecraft. Referring to the singer’s iconic dance moves, David Bowie once compared Jagger to a “madame or a brothel-keeper.” It’s easy to see where he was coming from. “He’s incredibly sexy and very virile,” the glam star continued. “I also find him incredibly motherly and maternal clutched into his bosom of ethnic blues. He’s a white boy from Dagenham trying his damnedest to be ethnic.”
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