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John Lennon and Keith Richards were friends, but this didn’t stop Lennon from sharing his brutally honest opinion. Lennon was rarely one to pull punches. He told even his closest friends when he thought their music was terrible, and the Rolling Stones guitarist was no exception. Lennon pointed to a guitar solo he found particularly bad. Surprisingly, Richards hardly took this as an insult.
John Lennon told Keith Richards he played a terrible solo on a song
Richards, like many other people in Lennon’s life, took note of his bluntness. Still, he could only remember the former Beatle being blatantly rude to him once.
“John could be quite direct,” Richards wrote in his memoir Life. “The only rude thing I remember him saying to me was about my solo in the middle of ‘It’s All Over Now.’ He thought it was crap. Maybe he got out the wrong side of the bed that day.”
Still, Richards found that there was some truth to Lennon’s harsh words.
“OK, it certainly could have been better,” he wrote. “But you disarmed the man. ‘Yeah, it wasn’t one of my best, John. Sorry. Sorry it jars, old boy. You can play it any f***ing way you like.’”
Richards did appreciate the fact that Lennon had listened to the song closely, though. He found that even when Lennon insulted him, he couldn’t help but feel drawn to him.
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“But that he even bothered to listen meant that he was very interested. He was so open. In anybody else, this could be embarrassing. But John had this honesty in his eyes that made you go for him. Had an intensity too. He was a one-off. Like me. We were attracted to each other in a strange way. Definitely a two-alpha clash to start with.”
Keith Richards gave John Lennon advice on guitar
Richards also might not have felt too stung because he knew that he gave Lennon some necessary guitar advice early in his career.
“I used to criticize him for wearing his guitar too high,” Richards wrote. “They used to wear them up by their chests, which really constricts your movement. It’s like being handcuffed. ‘Got your f***ing guitar under your f***ing chin, for Christ’s sake. It ain’t a violin.’ I think they thought it was a cool thing. Gerry & the Pacemakers, all of the Liverpool bands did it.”
Richards told Lennon to get a longer strap, and he listened.
“We used to f*** around like that: ‘Try a longer strap, John. The longer the strap, the better you play.’ I remember him nodding and taking it in,” he explained. “Next time I saw them the guitar straps were a little lower. I’d say, no wonder you don’t swing, you know? No wonder you can only rock, no wonder you can’t roll.”
The Beatles and Rolling Stones musicians were good friends
Of all The Beatles, Richards got to know Lennon and George Harrison best. He said he considered both good friends.
“John and I particularly spent quite a lot of time together,” Richards told USA Today. “He was a very funny guy. I miss him very much, actually. And George (Harrison), a lovely guy. I used to spend quite a lot of time around his house in London with Ronnie (Wood of the Rolling Stones). There was a whole guitar-playing bunch: George, Eric Clapton, Ronnie. We’d play guitar and get stoned. The usual.”
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