It’s like uh losing your parents or anybody you know and love. You know, all things must pass. But when it’s taken in a violent way like that by somebody else, um you know, it makes it very strange. It was uh I mean obviously such a shock because assassination is something which you know up until that time hadn’t really got down to the that level.
I mean it was always presents and leaders and all that but uh you know I I feel um not so bad about it in as much as uh you know I had this you know unlike Ringo when I went to Rishih in India I went into meditation and had some good experiences and I believe what it says in uh in the scriptures and in the Bhagavad Gita it says there was never a time when you didn’t exist exist and there will never be a time when you cease to exist.
The only thing that changes is our bodily condition. Soul comes in a body and we go from birth to death and it’s death. How I look at it is like taking your suit off. You know, the soul is in these three bodies and one body falls off and uh I feel like that I can feel him around here. We start. And uh I wouldn’t think, you know, somebody who’s a pop star was important enough to kill.
You know, it’s a terrible thing. I don’t think anybody is important enough to kill, you know, really. And but I could see why, you know, those assassinations with political leaders and stuff, just extremist. And uh obviously if it could happen to him, it could happen to anybody, you know, who gets up on a stage or who walks out of a car.
And uh you know, so it was a bit scary from that side. For a while afterwards, George was extremely uh concerned about his own safety. I mean, you know, there are plenty of cranks out there who think, you know, carbon copy shooting, maybe even get two or three of them now, you know. uh all those nasty things which you sort of laughed at before Leonard’s death suddenly must have become rather more serious and I think um it was a bit more difficult to get into see George for a while after that.
What did that do to your head? I mean did it mean that you closed the doors even more? Not really. I was already trying to live a, you know, try and hold on to some sort of privacy. I think everybody needs to have a bit of space, you know. I mean, if you were just being mobbed and on TV and that all your life, you know, you just turn into a loony.
And uh long before he got shot, I was already just, you know, digging in the garden, planting trees, and just trying to not go on television, just have a bit of peace. But what it did was, I think it affected me just probably like anybody who loved him and who, you know, grew up with him or with his music. And uh you know it was a very sad thing and um it didn’t really make me feel um yeah I mean it made me wonder about ever getting in situations where there’s you know fans although at the same time you can’t blame fans for that.
You know there was you know there’s one loony in every crowd. I suppose everybody likes to say, “Okay, one of your best friends got assassinated, so surely you must be uh nervous about being assassinated, too.” You know, I like to take care, but I don’t walk around fearing for my life, and I don’t think, you know, anybody could be bothered killing me.
You know, what’s the point of killing me? You can’t go around worrying. I mean I I think of it like say a plane crash. Friend of mine was terrified of flying and in the end he decided to go to a psychiatrist and instead of the psychiatrist saying to him sort of thing you would expect he said to him it doesn’t matter if you crash you’re not important which is true really it’s like it’s an ego thing of I am going to crash me I’m so important that I’m going to crash but really you know that’s another way of looking at it. You’re not that important. Don’t worry. You know, it’s And the same thing goes for that,
you know, for assassination. I I would like to think, you know, I’m not that important. Do you remember the last time you saw him? Yeah, I was in New York at his house. Yeah, he was he was nice. He was uh you know just sort of running around the house making dinner and he was actually playing a lot of Indian music which surprised me cuz he always used to like you know be a bit like me you know like that when I was always playing it.
In an interview before his death John Leonard said he was really hurt by you that you’ never mentioned in your autobiography any of the influence that he had on you. He was annoyed cuz I didn’t say that he had written one line of of this song Tax Man. But did you tell him that? Well, I I didn’t because he was already dead after that.
But the point to that was that I also didn’t say how I wrote two lines to come together or three lines to Elellanena Riby. You know, I wasn’t getting into any of that. I think on in the balance I would have had more things to be niggled with him about than he would have with me. But afterwards you say that it hasn’t really changed your life or Well, it hasn’t because the you know if we’d have still been in a working relationship it would have changed it more.
The thing is I hadn’t seen him for so long. I mean, for all I know, he could still be there now, you know, because I didn’t see him for 2 years anyway. And uh occasionally maybe send a postcard. And it’s knowing that he’s on the other end of a telephone if you do want to call. That’s the difference.
Now, you know, you need the big cosmic telephone to speak to him. But but he said that you idolized him as a young boy that you follow. Well, that’s what he thought. And you didn’t. Well, I liked him very much. He was he was a groove. He was a good lad. But at the same time, he misread me. He didn’t realize who I was.
And this was one of the main faults of of John and Paul. They were so busy being John and Paul. They failed to realize who else was around at the time. You know, we had a lot of experiences. I know John was um you know he knew who he was that he was a soul happened to be in this body for this period of time and uh you know I don’t think it’s just the method by which you die you know I mean it’s a sad thing the way he died and uh you know it’s okay that uh you know it’s okay really you know
you know for anybody everybody losees people and uh you know just I could say that actually it’s only the physical thing that that disappears. The soul keeps on going. I think it’s nicer if you can consciously leave your body at death as opposed to just some lunatic shooting you on the street or having a plane crash, something like that.
I think it’s unfortunate the way he went out, but it doesn’t really matter. He’s okay and life flows on within you and without you. uh you know I I I believe in um I just believe in you know that life goes on you know and so to me I can’t get sad I’m sad by you know I can’t go and have a uh play guitars with John but then I did that anyway I did that for you know a long time he was very good he was very good and he he was um in some ways he was a a slight genius I and the uh but apart from that he was still just some guy like the rest of everybody else. He was no angel. He wasn’t. But he was as well,
was he? Yeah. George, you wrote a beautiful song after John Lennon died all those years ago and one of the couplets in it, you wrote living with good and bad, I always looked up to you unquote. Um, how did you how did he influence John influence you and how did you influence him do you think through the years? You know, we grew up together.
We uh from the age of about maybe I was about 13 when I first met him. He was uh a tough guy, you know, he he wanted to do something different and like likewise so did I and Paul. And uh so we gained strength from each other really like that. He was always the noisy one or the uh you know the cheeky one, the pushy one. He’d be a bit more outspoken than than the others. Um and at the at the same time I think that was important.
You know we had all those elements. John being you know a bit up market with the intellectuals and Paul being cute and you know Ringo being cuddly and I was the quiet one. So, I mean, it all it all sort of worked out, but strange, but it’s it’s just another one of the strange things that’s happened in this life. You know, our manager died, our road manager was shot by the LA police.
So many of our friends died through the years and, you know, everybody went on drugs, everybody went to the Himalayas, everybody got divorced. You know, it’s just a very um concentrated kind of life. It’s all right. The whole thing has been like this really in one way or another. It’s all right.
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