John Lennon never played the game the way people expected him to. Just as The Beatles were being mythologised as divine creators of pop’s golden age — not long after reshaping the music industry, rewriting the rules of fame, and being practically canonised in print — Lennon flatly denied the one thing most agreed on: that they were, in fact, talented.
In The Beatles: The Authorised Biography, written by Hunter Davies in 1968, Lennon is depicted not as a misunderstood genius or tortured artist, but as someone actively pulling apart the machinery of his own myth. Speaking to Davies, Lennon dismantled the idea that their success was down to some celestial gift. “We're not better than anybody else,” he said. “We're all the same. We're as good as Beethoven. Everyone's the same inside.”
It’s an audacious claim — and deeply revealing. Rather than attribute The Beatles’ success to talent, Lennon credits it to something far less mystical: timing, luck, and above all, self-belief. “You need the desire and the right circumstances, but it's nothing to do with talent, or training or education.” In typical Lennon fashion, he doesn’t so much challenge the idea of talent as dismiss it out of hand. “What’s talent? I don’t know… The basic talent is believing you can do something.”
It’s more than modesty — it’s almost a provocation. He goes further: “Up to the age of 15 I was no different from any other little c*** of 15. Then I decided I’d write a little song, and I did.” No divine epiphany. No magical spark. Just effort, attitude, and an instinct for making things happen.
Even Beethoven, he said, was “a con — just like we are now.” The implications are huge. For Lennon, the distinction between genius and fraud was a matter of context and perception. “Somebody wants to bust open this whole talent myth, wise everybody up. Politicians have no talent. It’s all a con.”
He would later soften his stance — slightly — in a 1968 interview for UNIT magazine, acknowledging that he had “that thing” that made music. But even then, he framed artistic greatness as a kind of cosmic joke. “Picasso was conning them and so was Beethoven… Dylan knows where it’s at in regard to our songs… that is the ‘con’ job.”
This wasn’t self-loathing. It wasn’t false humility. It was John Lennon doing what he always did best: poking a hole in the hype, questioning every sacred cow, and forcing fans, critics, and historians alike to consider an uncomfortable possibility — that maybe The Beatles weren’t touched by the gods after all. Maybe they just believed. And maybe that was enough.
