Words by Riley Fitzgerald
Graphic by Apple/Bob Gruen

Sifting through their trove of archival material, the staff at the New Yorker have dug up a witty and insightful conversation with John Lennon and Yoko Ono from 1972.

At the time of the interview, which appeared in the magazine’s Talk of the Town column, the pair had been living in New York for six months.

(Ono had previously lived in the city during the 1960s, while Lennon had visited several times during his time with the Beatles.)

The piece notes the pair have been spotted cycling in local parks and attending late night films close to their rented West Village loft.

“We love it,” John Lennon enthuses of New York to his interviewer, “and it’s the center of our world.”

Still recovering in the wake of Flower Power and the Beatles’ tumorous demise, Lennon shares he has been seized with a renewed optimism.

“I think all of us went through a big depression in the last year and a half, all over the world,” he shared. “We think there’s something in the air that’s going to pick us all up again.”

Lennon also talks about his most recent single ‘Imagine’.

“I wish ‘Imagine’ would come true,” he confides. “I’ve been listening to it myself, because I get an objective view after, and I was imagining. I began to think: I don’t want that big house we built for ourselves in England. I don’t want the bother of owning all these big houses and big cars, even though our company, Apple, pays for it all.”

Lennon then makes the bold claim he will rid himself of all possessions.

“All structures and buildings and everything I own will be dissolved and got rid of,” he contends, “I’ll cash in my chips, and anything that’s left I’ll make the best use of.”

This zealous proclamation never came to pass.

Lennon, until the end of his life in 1980, would remain a notorious shopaholic.

The interview concludes with Lennon providing some parting advice.

“Everywhere’s somewhere, and everywhere’s the same, really, and wherever you are is where it’s at,” he shares. “But it’s more so in New York. It does have sugar on it, and I’ve got a sweet tooth.”

Read the full John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s New Yorker interview here.