--- title: John Lennon's Death at 35 Years: Hear His Final Interview description: The radio interview was recorded on the day he died canonical: https://time.com/4141255/john-lennon-final-interview/ author: Joyce Lee article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-08T21:52:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-05T08:40:19.512Z article:section: History og:title: Listen to Footage From John Lennon's Final Interview og:description: The radio interview was recorded on the day he died og:url: https://time.com/4141255/john-lennon-final-interview/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt08fb7c94d157a1e7/698874758e0601bf08463aac/gettyimages-107715151.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5133 og:image:height: 2887 og:image:alt: John & Yoko In Hyde Park og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Listen to Footage From John Lennon's Final Interview twitter:description: The radio interview was recorded on the day he died twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt08fb7c94d157a1e7/698874758e0601bf08463aac/gettyimages-107715151.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Listen to Footage From John Lennon's Final Interview > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=d4327cd6-c68c-4b74-9ea1-dcdcad431808&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) * TIME Subscriptions: [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=d4327cd6-c68c-4b74-9ea1-dcdcad431808&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) ## Video: John Lennon's Last Interview [Watch (HLS stream): John Lennon's Last Interview](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/QJ6fHhgg.m3u8) (2:10)  _Published 2015-12-08. It's been 35 years since the death of John Lennon_ by [Joyce Lee](https://time.com/author/joyce-lee/) and [Anne Most](https://time.com/author/anne-most/) Dec 8, 2015 9:52 PM UTC by [Joyce Lee](https://time.com/author/joyce-lee/) and [Anne Most](https://time.com/author/anne-most/) Dec 8, 2015 9:52 PM UTC The day John Lennon died 35 years ago was also the day he gave his final interview, with Westwood One News. The radio interview was recorded a few hours before Mark David Chapman fatally shot the musician on Dec. 8, 1980, outside of Lennon’s apartment building in New York City. In the interview, the former Beatle spoke of his desire for happiness and his creative process while recording “Double Fantasy” with his wife Yoko Ono. “I would like to be a happy, contented person,” Lennon said. “I don’t want to have to sell my soul again to have a hit record.” ## Transcript I like to be liked, I don't like to offend people. I would like to be a happy, contented person. I don't wanna have to sell my soul again, as it were, to have a hit record. [ MUSIC ] One can not be absolutely oneself in public because the fact that you're in public mention you have to have some kind of defense or whatever it is. But you're not gonna change your act just for the law pretty soon [ CROSSTALK ] Oh no. We'll keep the same think like when we- [ INAUDIBLE ] Yeah that's right. [ MUSIC ] The album, the work we did on this thing is really a play but we're using ourselves as the characters. And what we sing about in the record, in the songs, it is our real diaries of how we feel. I called her and I said, look, we were talking about recording, it must have triggered something off here, because I'm getting all this stuff And I started singing it to her down the phone or playing the cassette, and she would call back two hours later and say, well when you sang that, [ INAUDIBLE ], she's come back with moving on or something. And then I'd say, oh Moving on, Okay and then I couldn't wait to get back and start then. I suddenly had all this material. You had to have discipline and not touch the kid you had to be a hard nut. A boy was really programmed to go in the army. That was about it you know. You had to be tough and you're not supposed to cry. You're not supposed to show emotion. And I know Americans show more emotion are more open than English people but it's pretty similar over here. There's that Calvinist Protestant Anglo- Saxon ethic which is don't touch. Don't react. Don't feel. And I think that's what's screwed us all up and I think it's time for a change. 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