1. ‘How Does a Beatle Live? John
Lennon Lives Like This.’
By Maureen Cleave,
London Evening Standard,
March 4th, 1966

2. Written at the height
of the Beatles fame,
Cleave’s feature is
ostensibly a profile
piece based around a
tour of Lennon’s
home, a mock Tudor
mansion in the
stockbroker belt of
Weybridge, England.

3. Quotes cited by Cleave
“I couldn’t stand ugly people even when I was five. Lots of the ugly
ones are foreign, aren’t they?”
“Sex if the only physical thing I can be bothered with anymore.”
“Famous and loaded as I am, I still have to meet soft [stupid] people.
It often comes into my mind that I’m not really rich.”

4. Context and Historical Significance
of this Feature

5. The article is infamous for the following
quotation:
“Christianity will go,” he said. “It will vanish
and shrink. I needn’t argue about that.
I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re
more popular than Jesus now; I don’t
know which will go first, rock-n-roll or
Christianity. Jesus was alright but his
disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s
them twisting it that ruins it for me.”

6. Although the article
caused little to no
effect when published
in England, when
republished several
months later in
American teen
magazine Datebook,
the impact was
immediate and
tumultuous.

8. A short visual summary of what
ensued:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=wfMmbXwH9xQ