The one sell-out move John Lennon would never do: “Only be done for cash”
The touring lifestyle is bound to wear on anyone who has been in the industry for too long. Some bands might like the idea of seeing the world and doing whatever they can to deliver their music to the fans, it gets to be a tougher sell when bands get older and they have to be convinced to go back out on the road away from their families. Although every member of The Beatles tended to resent touring after a while in the 1960s, John Lennon knew that he would never put on a traditional rock and roll performance ever again for an entire roadshow.
Then again, to understand Lennon’s resentment also means understanding what The Beatles had gone through. Since no band had ever had the kind of euphoric reaction that came with Beatlemania, the Fab Four were the first ones that had to deal with their problems in the public eye, which wasn’t always the healthiest thing for someone’s nervous system when they had to deliver the same easy smile when doing interviews.
Outside of the massive influx of fans running after them everywhere they went, there was also the problem of having the wrong resources at every gig. The sound systems of the time were never meant to accommodate baseball stadiums like Shea Stadium, and even if the band were playing to the best of their ability most of the time, a lot turned into absolute mush when it was blaring through the same speakers that announcers would use during a traditional game.
And considering how the band were moving towards experimental techniques when making records, they weren’t about to spend their lives trying to perform songs they couldn’t do justice to. They had to make something a bit more inventive, and even when Lennon returned to the stage, he wasn’t going to take the easy route that fans expected out of him.
From the outlandish performances with Yoko Ono to one-off shows with The Dirty Mac, Lennon was always interested in giving the odd performance on television rather than going out on the road. Even if he had the stamina to get through an entire tour in one piece, Lennon knew that his mental health would never survive having to go through another round of screaming fans again.
Despite the allure of touring in the 1970s, Lennon thought he would have been considered a sell-out if he tried to go back out again, saying, “It would only be done for more cash. I haven’t performed for cash since The Beatles stopped. I don’t particularly like touring. I’ll take the money for making a record because it keeps me in the condition that I’m accustomed, but I’m not interested. It gives me a chill just thinking about it.”
But the heart grows fonder the more time Lennon spent away from the road, and when he did eventually get onstage in the 1970s with Elton John, it’s likely most people could have felt the Earth shake the minute he walked onstage and started playing tunes like ‘I Saw Her Standing There.’ Given what he had experienced, though, the idea of touring would have gone against Lennon’s beliefs at that point.
He wanted to be something more than a pinup star, and despite having many classics to his name, he was never going to be happy playing the role of the touring meatpuppet. That was reserved for the new kids in town, but for someone who bore his soul on Plastic Ono Band, asking him to relive that kind of pain would have been impossible.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Beatles Newsletter
All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.