Graham Nash Made Cass Elliot Burst Into Tears by Being Honest About John Lennon’s ‘Gnarly’ Personality

Graham Nash got to know John Lennon relatively well over the years. He understood that the Beatle’s personality was relatively caustic at first, but he managed to break through and establish a friendship. Because of this, Cass Elliot asked Nash about what Lennon was like. Nash answered honestly, which brought Elliot to tears.

Graham Nash told Cass Elliot that John Lennon might be mean to her

Nash was a fan of The Mamas and The Papas and was interested in Michelle Phillips, so he went to Western Records to meet the band. He wound up speaking to Elliot, though, who wanted to know about British rock music.

“Inside the studio, Michelle, John, and Denny were huddled around a microphone, putting an overdub on ‘Dancing Bear,'” Nash wrote in his book Wild Tales. “Michelle was every bit as advertised: gorgeous and sexy — but otherwise engaged — so I wound up talking with Cass. She was hanging around outside the studio when I got there and seemed eager to talk about British rock ‘n roll, especially her idol, John Lennon.”

She asked Nash what Lennon would think of The Mamas and The Papas, a question he found challenging to answer.

“Loaded question,” he wrote. “Lennon was a gnarly sort. Compliments from him were hard to come by. I wasn’t going to bulls*** this woman, so I put it to her straight. ‘He’d keep you at arm’s length until he’d trusted you enough to let you into his personal space,’ I explained. ‘So he’d probably put you down at first.'”

This was not the answer Elliot wanted.

“The minute the words were out of my mouth, Cass burst into tears,” Nash explained. “Holy s***! I’d only just met this woman and already she’s crying. ‘What did I say? What did I do?’ Little did I know that Cass Elliot had a huge crush on John, and that was the last thing she’d wanted to hear.”

Paul McCartney always had to apologize for his bandmate’s rudeness

While Nash’s answer upset Elliot, it was at least honest. Lennon often rubbed people the wrong way, prompting his bandmate Paul McCartney to consistently apologize for his behavior. He once crashed one of McCartney’s dates and behaved terribly the whole time.

“I think he’d thought I was going to see him, I thought I’d cancelled it and he showed up at my house,” McCartney said per the book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles. “But he was a mate, and he came on a date with this Celia girl, and at the end of the date she said, ‘Why did you bring that dreadful guy?’ And of course I said, ‘Well, he’s all right really.'”

McCartney said he frequently had to defend Lennon to people who found his behavior distasteful. 

“I think, in many ways, I always found myself doing that,” he said. “It was always, ‘Well, I know he was rude; it was funny, though, wasn’t it?'”

Graham Nash shared how he was able to get on John Lennon’s good side

Nash met Lennon relatively early in The Beatles’ career and had witnessed his bad side firsthand. They met up after their own respective concerts in 1963, where Lennon spent much of the evening stressing about a song.

“Lennon was in an ugly mood that night,” Nash wrote. “We’d all had a few pints, but John was feeling it from some other place. He was really unsettled about what the Beatles should record the next day.”

Nash helped Lennon with the song, which helped him establish a place on Lennon’s good side.

“‘I want to do this f***in’ song, Anna,’ by Arthur Alexander,’ he growled, ‘but I can’t remember the f***in’ words.’ ‘I know ’em,’ I told him, which was easy, because the Hollies did ‘Anna.’ So I wrote out the words, lifting the gloom. And I must say, the Beatles made a pretty good record of it.”