{"id":19964,"date":"2024-01-03T00:01:38","date_gmt":"2024-01-03T07:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/?p=19964"},"modified":"2024-01-03T00:14:26","modified_gmt":"2024-01-03T07:14:26","slug":"19964","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2024\/01\/03\/19964\/","title":{"rendered":"You Weren’t The Second Messiah, John Lennon."},"content":{"rendered":"

[Transcript]
\n<\/p>\n

John Lennon’s Aunt<\/h1>\n

“My dear boy…”<\/h3>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"John
John Lennon’s aunt Mimi.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

‘You’re not the second Messiah.’ (directed at John Lennon)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Early 1970s: After John sends Aunt Mimi a letter asking after their family genealogy, Mimi replies to him in the form of a tape recording, and takes the time to address his media-courting behavior since the breakup of The Beatles…
\nMIMI: Now, you needn\u2019t, for a start, send any B. S. genealogist down here, giving him a fine old holiday tramping around graveyards. What a good old time he must have had! This thing must have cost you a fortune.
\nNow, it\u2019s in front of me, and I\u2019m going to read it out to you, and you can\u2019t deny it because every word in it is true: Alfred Lennon married Julia Stanley. He was born the 14th of December, 1912, and Julia was born on the 12th of March, 1914. And of course, they produced John Winston Lennon, who married Cynthia, daughter of Charles Edwin Powell. Married the 23rd of August, 1962, at South Liverpool.
\nWhat\u2019s this rubbish you\u2019re talking about? \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t mind donating your money to a real socialist government?\u201d For heaven\u2019s sake. Use your nut. There\u2019s no such thing. None at all. Not where money\u2019s concerned. Money corrupts.
\nYou watch yourself, my lad. You\u2019re digging your own grave, and in no uncertain manner. Idealism is not the exclusive prerogative of English, Welsh, Irish, or any other nationality. It just happens. And you will wake up one of these days disillusioned and sad. You\u2019ll be the tool of unscrupulous people who\u2019ll exploit your idealism. And it will be a sad day for you, I\u2019m telling you.
\nMy dear boy, you are not the second Messiah. You are never likely to be. And that\u2019s the way you\u2019re behaving these last few years. Would you please understand that you are a speck in the ocean, and the only possible importance you can be is to people who are trying to get money out of you. And that\u2019s perhaps why they\u2019re \u2013 they\u2019re around you. There\u2019s no other reason, John. [laughs; bleak] None whatever. Do wake up, John. And remember the old saying: \u201cThe cobbler should stick to his last.\u201d And your last is music.
\nAnd get out of this little \u2013 circle, that you\u2019re in. It bodes no good for you, I\u2019m telling you. Why do you think you\u2019re having such trouble trying to get this permit to stay in America? It\u2019s not for smoking a bit of cannabis. George Harrison smoked cannabis, but he was allowed in. It\u2019s your activities there, boy, and you\u2019re digging your own grave. And it makes me very very sad, because I know, in the end, you\u2019re going to be hurt. Bitterly hurt.
\nFor years, I\u2019ve heard you yelling and shouting about love, but it seemed to me your heart was full of hate. And it showed in your face. I had an American reporter here about three months ago, and he was telling me that you had put it out that you were never wanted, that you were never loved. And this newspaper were willing to pay me to give my opinion of you \u2013 my personal opinion of you and your behavior over these years \u2013 and told me I would be well paid for it. Since when has money healed wounds? I soon sent him packing.
\nI\u2019ve been hurt. Cut to the quick. What do you think I felt like, when I\u2019ve been with those Beatle parents, and have heard what they\u2019ve done, for them? I was foolish enough to think, as I had you, and waited for you to be born, that I was father and mother to you. But my goodness, John, you didn\u2019t want me. [laughs; bleak] You didn\u2019t want anything to do with me. And a lifetime\u2019s work was just thrown on one side as nothing.
\nAnd you say The Beatles were dumb. They may have been\u2026 but in many respects, they could\u2019ve taught you a thing or two. The first thing they did was to make their parents secure. Forever. Knowing very well that they would always get it back. But oh no, you, right, left, center \u2013 anyone could have in. And then I had to ask you, this year, to help me out \u2013 a terrible thing for me, I\u2019m telling you, it nearly killed me. I\u2019d had the same money from 1962, and anybody with a little thought would have known that what I had was melting away, during that eleven years.
\nAnd it seems as though you hated the sight of me. You couldn\u2019t bear the sight of me, and you never missed an opportunity to cut me down dead \u2013 in front of other people as well, which was even worse. But it didn\u2019t do you any good, for people noticed. But you were very kind to Alfred Lennon, taking him round the West End and having him in your home. I don\u2019t suppose it ever once crossed your mind that that would hurt me. Especially when you couldn\u2019t stand the sight of me.
\nIn your teens, I was hard to live with, and if I had to go through it again, I would still be hard. And you know why, too. You were determined to do things which you knew were wrong, and I was determined that you wouldn\u2019t, and if I hadn\u2019t been interested, I would have let you do exactly as you liked \u2013 and you know how those children turn out…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Transcript] John Lennon’s Aunt “My dear boy…” ‘You’re not the second Messiah.’ (directed at John Lennon) Early 1970s: After John sends Aunt Mimi a letter asking after their family genealogy, Mimi replies to him in the form of a tape recording, and takes the time to address his media-courting behavior since the breakup of The Beatles… MIMI: Now, you needn\u2019t, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":453,"featured_media":19971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/reviewermag.com\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/John-Lennon-s-aunt-Mimi-2867711.jpg?fit=590%2C590&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":123,"url":"http:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2006\/08\/16\/mike-douglas-r-i-p\/","url_meta":{"origin":19964,"position":0},"title":"Mike Douglas R.I.P.","author":"admin","date":"August 16, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Mike Douglas, R.I.P. \u2026 VIVA Show-Biz By Kent Manthie So long Mike, we\u2019ll miss ya. 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