Julian Lennon
speaker
357 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Dec 2024
Julian Lennon’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsNo recordings in the last 12 months.Older appearances are listed below; set an alert to hear about the next one.
Appearances
And I get a message from Vogue, Vogue.com, who want a photo from me the moment she's married. And I'm thinking, OK, I'll just keep snapping away at whatever I do. And I watch The Civil Wedding and then I get on my bike, go home and start putting things up on the screen. And I'm looking at pictures going, I've got fuck all. I've got shit. I can't. This looks like crap to me.
And this happens to me every time. Every fucking time. And I'm looking at the pictures going, they look terrible. They really, really look terrible. Blurred and this and that and badly positioned and... I'm cursing myself. And the one thing that I remembered that she said to me is that, look, whatever you do, don't let any picture have me drinking or smoking in it. And I went, oh, OK.
And the one thing that Vogue said to me is we want to see her smiling. And the one picture where she was smiling... And she had champagne in her hand and she had a cigarette. So, OK, I was not a Photoshop kind of guy, but I managed to get rid of the cigarette. I'm thinking, OK, how do I get deal with the champagne shit? And then the one thing occurred to me. I thought, OK, I'll do it.
I'll desaturate it. Not black and white, but it'll have an there'll be elements of tones. I'll make it, you know, so you can't see that it's champagne. And I did that and I cropped it in a certain way. And I went, that's it. Why didn't I think of this before? You know, 1930s, 40s, 50s, Princess Grace, black and white, old school. So then I turned every picture I had black and white.
Well, desaturated version similar to black and white of of the whole collection I had of her. and cropped it in a way that it was like 1950s magazines. It's just certain angles and a different look and a different feel. Was she okay with the champagne being in the photo? Well, it didn't look like champagne.
It just looked like fizzy water because on the side there had been bottles of fizzy water and still water. So I went, that's cool. She had to give me the okay to do that. When we decided that should be the cover of this book, I had to get her approval. I mean I already had approval for having her pictures in a collection or a box set but not on the front cover of a book that may do well. Right.
No, I did not know that.
That's so funny.
Whose idea was it to get rid of the cigarettes?
And it's so insanely addictive. I used to be an insane smoker. Yeah. How'd you quit? Cold turkey. Wow. Yeah, I'd be one of those guys that would wake up at four in the morning and light up a cigarette and then go back to sleep. Wow. Or I'd take about two or three packs out with me every evening. Really? Oh, yeah, because I knew half of the people would nick half of my cigarettes.
Oh, boy. Now, when the whole no smoking law came, you know, Italy was one of the first. Really? And Ireland. Yeah, I think it was California that initiated it.
And then Europe took it on board, and it was actually Italy and Ireland, and I was in both of those places, and it was extremely weird to go into any, especially in Italy, and Ireland in the pubs, and for it to be a smoke-free environment. That was just so weird because it was part of the norm back in the day that you'd be In a cloud of stinky cigarette smoke.
Yeah, that was... In any of those locations.
Yeah.
And as a smoker, you don't think... You're not conscious of how other people... How you stink as well. Right. Which, you know... Because it was funny. When I quit Cold Turkey, I did it. I did it because... I didn't want anybody to tell me I couldn't smoke. I was such a brat. That's why you quit cold turkey?
I quit cold turkey because I wanted to tell myself I couldn't smoke, not for you to tell me I couldn't smoke. How rough was it? That's what brought me down into a depression for a couple of years. Oh, yeah, because I... Listen, I started smoking at the age of probably 11 or 12 as part of my local gang, you know, that I used to be in as a kid. That's what you did.
You know, you nicked ciggies from your parents and you'd... and the back of the school, and that was part of the initiation, you know, the part of growing up. And I loved it because for me, when I became noticed as a musician, again, with my anxiety, and I was a very shy kid, very, very shy kid, still can be at times depending on how I feel that day.
I would yeah I would cigarette for me was my best friend you know I'd go to a bar and I'd be able to I'd be the you know not the cool guy at the bar but certainly that would be my way of not having to interact with people right you know I just sit there and you know be a rocker and smoke my ciggy and down my Jack Daniels and that's like leave me the fuck alone you know right
Unless I, you know, wanted to talk. So that was the groove back then. And then when I gave that up, you know, instantly, it was like, what do I do? How do I fill in that void? Well, I actually had to speak to people. Is that what caused the depression? Well, no, no, no. It was actually, I feel it was definitely a chemical thing because, again, I... I was smoking a couple of packs a day.
I loved smoking. Did you consider going back just to alleviate the depression? Actually, a business manager friend of mine at the time saw me at one stage and said, Jules, pick up a fucking cigarette, please. Seriously. And he said, you're going to die the way you're going. Wow.
Showing 221–240 of 357 · page 12 of 18
← Previous
Next →