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TL;DR:

  • John Lennon jokingly congratulated The Rolling Stones for staying together so long.
  • He felt The Rolling Stones’ fans were going to get nasty during the 1980s.
  • The Rolling Stones released “Start Me Up” and many other famous songs during that era.
The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger in black-and-white
The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger | Joe Bangay / Stringer

John Lennon felt The Rolling Stones’ fans would turn on them during the 1980s. Subsequently, he discussed how The Beatles’ image would age. Notably, The Rolling Stones released some of their most famous hits in the 1980s.

John Lennon felt The Rolling Stones’ fans would question why the band stayed together for so long

The book All We Are Saying; The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features a 1980 interview. In it, John discussed his feelings about The Rolling Stones. “You know, they’re congratulating the Stones on being together 112 years,” he joked. “Whoopee! At least Charlie [Watts] and Bill [Wyman] still got their families.

“In the ’80s they’ll be asking, ‘Why are those guys still together? Can’t they hack it on their own? Why do they have to be surrounded by a gang? Is the little leader scared somebody’s gonna knife him in the back?,'” he added. “That’s gonna be the question. That’s a-gonna be the question.”

John Lennon felt The Rolling Stones and The Beatles would look like ‘relics’ as time went on

John felt time would be unkind to The Beatles as well. “They’re gonna look back at The Beatles and Stones and all those guys as relics,” he said. “The days when those bands were just all men will be on the newsreels, you know: They will be showing pictures of the guy with lipstick wriggling his a** and the four guys with the evil black makeup on their eyes trying to look raunchy.” John may have been referring to David Bowie and Kiss, but that’s not certain.

“That’s gonna be the joke in the future, not a couple singing together or living and working together,” he added.

Mick Jagger and company released ‘Start Me Up,’ ‘Waiting on a Friend,’ and so many other hit singles during the 1980s

While John predicted The Rolling Stones would face difficulty in the 1980s, the decade was actually great for the band. The Rolling Stones hit the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 a total of 11 times during that era with the songs “Start Me Up,” “Hang Fire,” “One Hit (To the Body),” “Going to A Go-Go,” “Mixed Emotions,” “Harlem Shuffle,” “She’s So Cold,” “Rock and a Hard Place,” “Undercover of the Night,” “Waiting on a Friend,” and “Emotional Rescue.” Considering the band started in the 1960s, that’s incredible.

In 1980, The Rolling Stones released Emotional Rescue. That album topped the Billboard 200 for seven weeks, saying on the chart for 51 weeks. Emotional Rescue was the band’s longest-running No. 1 album They topped this record with 1981’s Tattoo You, which was No. 1 for nine of its 59 weeks on the chart.

The 1980s were very good to The Rolling Stones despite John’s prediction.

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