John Lennon’s Icarian relationship with the music industry infamously soured during and immediately following his tenure with the Beatles, and his negative personal experiences led to an ominous warning he gave Bruce Springsteen just three days before Lennon’s tragic assassination in New York City.
The ex-Beatle’s final comments about the public’s perception and demands of the artists they admire instantly became more poignant when, in the blink of an eye, Lennon’s legacy was cut short, leaving the up-and-coming artists like Springsteen to carry on the torch without him.
The Warning John Lennon Gave Bruce Springsteen
When John Lennon sat down with Rolling Stone in early December 1980, his life was immeasurably different than when the tidal wave of Beatlemania first washed him away as a bright-eyed, bowl-cut-clad member of the world’s hottest new rock band. The Beatles had since disbanded, Lennon was pursuing a solo career in addition to his collaborations with his wife, Yoko Ono, and he and Ono were raising a family.
Amidst all these changes, Lennon became hyper-aware of the public’s expectations of its most successful artists. Lennon’s musings about the descent from fame’s apex started with a troubling review of his solo track, “From Me to You,” which NME described as “below-par Beatles.” Lennon lamented, “Jesus, Christ, I’m sorry. Maybe it wasn’t as good as “Please Please Me,” I don’t know, but ‘below par?’ I’ll never forget that one.”
He then shifted his focus to rising artists like Bruce Springsteen, who were still ascending to their career’s peak. “God help Bruce Springsteen when they decide he’s no longer God. I haven’t seen him, but I’ve heard such good things about him. Right now, his fans are happy. He’s told them about being drunk and chasing girls and cars and everything, and that’s about the level they enjoy. But when he gets down to facing his own success and growing older and having to produce it again and again, they’ll turn on him, and I hope he survives it.”
Musings of Fame From The Inside Looking Out
Like so many other rock ‘n’ roll lovers of the time, John Lennon was a big fan of Bruce Springsteen. In Tim English’s book John Lennon: 1980 Playlist, the author dives into music Lennon listened to in his final year, which included the Boss. “At least by one account, John listened to [The River], came out, and said, ‘Well, this is better than what I’m doing’” (via NJ 101.5).
But Lennon wasn’t just listening to Springsteen’s music. He was watching another artist climb the same ladder to fame that he had already climbed. In his last interview with Rolling Stone, he said all Springsteen had to do to see the adverse effects of success “is look at me or at Mick [Jagger]. So it goes, up and down, up and down—what are we, machines? When they criticized “From Me to You” as below-par Beatles, that’s when I first realized you’ve got to keep it up. There’s some sort of system where you get on the wheel, and you’ve got to keep going around.”
Speaking later of critical press and fans, Lennon opined, “They only like people when they’re on the way up, and when they’re up there, they’ve got nothing else to do but s*** on them. I cannot be on the way up again. What they want is dead heroes like Sid Vicious and James Dean.”
While he certainly had no way of knowing the tragic events that would unfold in the days to come, Lennon’s next comments became all the more eerie after his assassination outside of his home on December 8: “I’m not interested in being a dead f***ing hero. So, forget ‘em. Forget ‘em.”
