Fans got an emotional and candid look into John Lennon's life and music over the weekend via BBC Radio's broadcasted two-part John Lennon At 80 Radio special. The show featured host Sean Lennon interviewing Paul McCartney, Elton John, and his brother Julian Lennon.
Paul McCartney spoke about the early days of him and Lennon forging their legendary partnership in the late-1950's back in Liverpool: “From little kids, we'd taken the first steps together, we learned to walk together, then we learned to run. And the fact that each of us was influencing the other was very important, y'know? And we were learning, not just about songs and stuff about life, y'know? And the fact that we'd come along this journey together meant that, hey, we're just gonna continue, and who knows, we might get better. And so we did, and if I did something that was a little bit ahead of the curve, then John would come up with something that was a bit ahead of my curve. And then so I'd go 'Well, how about this?' There was a lot of friendly competition.”
Julian and Sean discussed the groundbreaking work on their dad's 1970 Plastic Ono Band album, in which he stripped his music and lyrics to their core, once again redefining himself at age 30: “(Julian): And they, y'know, after all of that, to have all of that kind of production and idealism within songwriting and storytelling — and that kind of projection — to come back to a completely stripped version of oneself — the bare, bare, bones. . . (Sean): And overtly auto-biographical lyrics. . . (Julian): Y'know, I loved a lot of that stuff. Probably one of my favorite songs that hit me the most, which has been a favorite, and still is, was 'Isolation.' Because, I felt very much like that, too. I felt very isolated as a human, as a child.”
Elton John and Sean discussed Elton's relationship with John Lennon that started in 1973: “(Elton): Your dad was as kind, and as generous, and sweet — and we just hit it off immediately. He was so funny — that's what I loved about him. And we talked about music and we talked about records we loved. (Sean): And other things. You did other things, I heard. (Elton): We did other things (laughs) — we did a lot of naughty things together. We had a lot of fun. Oh my God!”
