Biographer Elizabeth Partridge talks about 'John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth'

What made Lennon so special?

He was a very smart guy. I would put him on the cusp of brilliant/crazy. There’s this wonderful edge people can get to, and if they’re enough on the brilliant-genius side, they can do some amazing things. If they edge too far to crazy, as brilliant as they are, they can’t function well enough. Lennon was right on that edge. Most of the time, he was able to do some amazing stuff.

Why did the Beatles break up?

There was all this stuff that it was because of Yoko. But it wasn’t Yoko. It was John in the way he let Yoko in.

Can you talk more about that?

The Beatles were already falling apart, and they didn’t have the personal skills to work out the issues that had just started overwhelming them. John broke all the rules with Yoko, bringing her into the studio. Then Yoko felt self-entitled. She was like, “Oh, great. I get to play with these guys.” So she stepped right up and said what she wanted to say, and John embraced that. He certainly could have said, “Look, I’m madly in love with you. I’ll be back from the studio in six hours, honey.”

What prevented him from saying that?

There were two major points where Lennon really was on the verge of completely falling apart and that was one of them. He had taken so much LSD that he had fried his brain. John being in a fried state was pretty much the catalyst for those guys breaking up. I also think if John had kept going the route he was going, he wouldn’t have survived. I actually think Yoko saved his life.

Really?

Yeah. Because he was willing to give over to her in a way he had never really given over to anyone and let her create boundaries for him. When John was a boy, he had Aunt Mimi, who was very strict with boundaries. Cynthia, John’s first wife, didn’t give him that. Then he had a long-term partnership with Paul, where Paul actually got to create some boundaries. As that waned, Yoko stepped in—she’s a control freak.

Did you talk to her?

I tried like crazy to interview Yoko, because a lot of stuff that’s been written about John’s last five years is written by complete creeps. But she was not into talking about it with me. You can only imagine the number of interview requests she gets. She did see an early manuscript and asked me to make a number of changes that I chose not to.

What did she want changed?

She wanted me to whitewash John. She wanted me to leave out a lot of the sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. He didn’t write that edgy music by being a nice guy. He was edgy inside.

What do you hope kids will gain from reading the book?

I hope they can understand Lennon, since a lot of them listen to his music. Also, I hope it will encourage kids to see that you can live a creative life. You don’t have to let it get beaten out of you, because our society does tear away at young adults who are full of a lot of passion. Lennon never let that stop him.