‘Nobody Told Me’/’O’ Sanity’ was the first single to be released from ‘Milk and Honey‘ on 5th January 1984.

John: I used to think that the world was doing it to me and that the world owed me something, and that either the conservatives or the socialists or the fascists or the communists or the Christians or the Jews were doing something to me; and when you’re a teenybopper, that’s what you think.

I’m forty now. I don’t think that anymore, because I found out it doesn’t fucking work! The thing goes on anyway, and all you’re doing is jacking off, screaming about what your Mummy or Daddy or society did, but one has to go through that.

For the people who even bother to go through that – most assholes just accept what is and get on with it – but for the few of us who did question what was going on, I have found out personally – not for the whole world – that I am responsible for it, as well as them. I am part of them. There’s no separation; we’re all one.

So in that respect, I look at it all and think, ‘Ah, well, I have to deal with me again in that way. What is real? What is the illusion I’m living or not living?’ And I have to deal with it every day. The layers of the onion. But that is what it’s all about.

We think we have the right, and not the duty, but we have the ‘something’ to have a say in the future. And we think the future is made in your mind.

Yoko: I think that it’s not so much we, meaning, if you meant us, but all of us are part of the future, and the future is already within us.

I think the world is going around and is alive only because of some people who really know that whatever they think really happens. I was doing concept art but it wasn’t just on an intellectual, esoteric level. I really still believe spiritually that whatever we think will happen immediately. So we’ve got to be responsible for our thoughts. And we all have very negative thoughts and all that, too, And it’s not to repress that negative thought but somehow to transform that negative thought into something positive.

John: Yeah, right. Que sera, sera. But we’re responsible.

Yoko: Que sera, sera, but we’re responsible. We are, exactly.

John: We’re responsible but the future is ours to see. You see, that’s the only line I’d change in the beauti- ful song. Yeah, if we can’t see it, ain’t nobody gonna see it for us.

Yoko: And people can do amazing things. Our ancestors projected that we would fly, and of course we have planes now. And I don’t know what our race wish is with this generation, but certainly there is a strong death wish, and also there’s a strong survival wish too.

John: people are still visiting the cosmos. It’s just that nobody talks about it anymore. You get put in prison. We must always remember to thank the CIA and the Army for LSD. That’s what people forget. That everything is the opposite of what it is, isn’t it?

They brought out LSD and acid to control people and what they did was give us freedom. You see? So that’s why in that way I accept the cosmos, in that way. You know sometimes it works in mysterious ways, its wonders to perform. But it sure as hell performs them. And that faith is always reinforced by that, whether you put it to Watergate, too.

And if you look at the government report book on the acid, the only ones who jumped out of the window were the ones in the Army. I never met anybody who jumped out of a window, or killed themselves because of it.

There’s a book Dick Gregory gave us [The Game of Life by Florence Scovel Shinn]. One of the little positive thoughts in it was, ‘If you want a car, get the car key.’ But you have to be open to the idea that you want to get a car that way. So for the person that hasn’t got that love or the benefit of companionship and love and whatever it is we’re sending out in this record – if they’re open to that possibility, then the possibility exists for them.

Yoko: Also, you have to leave space for it. So, even on the level of thinking ‘we need a good assistant’; if you have an assistant there already then it’s very likely that a good assistant will not come. But if you leave a space there, then that good assistant we are thinking of will come. It’s like that. Many people say, ‘I can’t find this person, but it will come to you. You don’t even have to move if you have a very clear picture of it.

Even on a very practical level, if you pray by yourself, that’s one power, but if two people are gathered together, there is nothing you can’t do. So as a power it is very strong.

John has a different history from mine, He’s coming from a different place. He’s a man, so he has different dreams and I have a different dream too. And that’s a weakness.

When two people really want the same thing at the same time, that doesn’t happen all the time. So when it happens it’s really powerful. Sometimes, two people might be praying but at the same time he could be thinking about something else and then it doesn’t happen.

John: Well, that shows in the album too, because the consciousness is: ‘what we shall pray for together?’ Let’s make it stronger by picturing the same image, projecting the same im- age. And that is the secret. Because you can be together but projecting two different…

Yoko: Double Fantasies.

John: Double Fantasies at the same time. And you either get whoever is the-strongest-at-the-time’s fantasies fulfilled, or you get nothing but mish-mash. You’ll defeat both ways. Right?

It’s exactly as much fun as it ever was and not not-fun, like it began to be, you see? So I’m free from concepts about it and ‘things’ about it. It’s just as much fun. It’s more fun than going to the studio the first time because I know what’s going on and I get to do the remixes and all the rest of it. All those things we’re talking about.

And the other point, the other ques- tion people are going to ask is: ‘John do you do it with Yoko?’ or ‘Why Yoko, do you do it with John?’ Which will be a question, maybe, in a year or two (both laughing) But let’s say they ask, ‘Why do it together?’ Because together is the only way that it is fun! I don’t need the other one.

I also think this album is just like a beginning. I think we’ve got some interesting spaces to go to, because we worked together before in many different ways, but still I always had that vague attitude that I was the one – I know all about this business and I know what a backbeat is, right?

Well, now I know that she knows all about this business and she knows what a backbeat is and I think this is the first piece of work we’ve really done together. And for my part, I just know I will even be more wholeheartedly immersed in partnering with her in the future, because of the experience of doing this album.

I’d like to make at least one more album before calling those very expensive session musicians and taking them on the road, but my god, this would be fun, wouldn’t it? And if we can do it in the way we’ve done the album – which is: have fun, enjoy the music, enjoy the performance, be accepted as John & Yoko – then I’d be happy to go out there.