what was John Lennon's Myers-Briggs personality type?
One of the 16 personalities.
We're gonna analyze interviews with John Lennon
to figure out what his preferences are,
looking at cognitive functions and so on
and come to an educated guess.
I'll walk you through it and clue you
into what I'm paying attention to
when I'm trying to figure out someone's type.
And it's all very official
Let's start with the easier preference to see
which is intuition versus sensing.
Two years ago,
I made a video called Intuition versus Sensing
explained with The Beatles
and I used John's lyrics as an example of intuition.
So now let's look at when he's just talking in an interview,
does he also seem to prefer intuition?
This particular question is gonna be asking him
what makes "The Blues" so great?
- [John] 'Cause it's real.
It's like it's not perverted
or thought about,
it's not a concept.
It's a chair, not a design for it yet
or a better chair or a bigger chair or a chair with leather
or with design.
It is the first chair, it's chairs for sitting on,
you sit on that music.
- See how easily he goes into a non-literal abstract answer?
He doesn't mean a literal chair.
Now any one of any type could use an analogy like that
but if you listen to a lot of his interviews,
it becomes clear that it's his preferred way
of looking at reality.
He's not rooted in concrete facts
the way a sensing type would be.
So I think we can say John Lennon prefers intuition.
Another thing to notice in that answer
is how he talks about how "The Blues" is real.
And in this particular Rolling Stone interview from 1970,
that's something you'll hear he comes back to over and over.
What does it mean?
I'm not sure at this point
but I'm guessing
it's something to do with thinking or feeling.
So we need to keep an ear out for that
to try to decipher what he means.
But before we do that,
let's see if we can figure out if his intuition
is introverted pointed inward
or extroverted pointed outward.
Introverted intuition likes to narrow things down
and likes to organize things
and extroverted intuition likes to gather new things
and not be limited.
In this particular question, his answering
has to do with why The Beatles broke up.
- We didn't break up because we weren't friends,
we just broke up out of sheer boredom
and boredom creates tension.
- [Jann] How can you get bored doing what you did?
- Because it was not going anywhere.
We'd stopped touring and then we were just sort of said,
"Time to make an album,"
go in the studio and the same four of us
we'd be looking at each other and playing the same licks.
- Okay, that's interesting.
They got bored, maybe suggesting he wanted something new.
Let's see him develop that thought a little bit.
- We were together a long, long time
and we just became stale musically.
If you play with the same person all the time,
you get into a rot,
even if you played tennis with the same person.
- [Jann] Gets boring.
- It comes to a time when you know every move
and you have to find somebody else to play with.
- John makes this seem obvious,
like of course, you've gotta change things
that you can't play with the same musicians all the time.
So that's with the Rolling Stone. (laughs)
Let's take a look at one more example
from a totally different interviewing question
and in this one,
John is talking about British TV versus American TV.
- In Britain, we only have two channels of TV
and if you watch the old British movies on TV now here,
it's the same old men, always on TV in Britain still know
they have a sort of school of actors.
There's about three new people got into the profession
since I was 10.
So it's a bit limiting.
- It is all the same old face.
- But the best thing about British TV is the live stuff
like plays and things like that.
But it just goes off at 12,
so if you have a choice in you're either going out to dinner
or watching TV, you can't do both.
But with America, it's great.
You just sort of wake up and it's on,
you get back after going out for an evening
and it's still on, it's beautiful.
- I'm hearing a lot of, I want more options.
I don't wanna be limited, more is always better,
more actors, more channels, having the TV on later,
so you don't have to choose,
do I go to dinner or do I watch TV?
And this is a pattern you'll find
if you listen to more Lennon interviews.
He doesn't like limitations or narrowing things down much.
So we can then take a guess here
that John Lennon has extroverted intuition.
This generally means that he is an NP type.
Next, we'll go to thinking versus feeling.
And is it introverted or extroverted?
First though, let's see if YouTube would like
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Thanks for sitting through that
and if this video gets 5,000 likes,
I'll type another Beatle.
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which is the button that looks like this.
In this next question,
he's being asked why certain songs of his
like "Strawberry Fields" or "Girl" were his best.
- [John] Because it's real, yeah.
- [Jann] Songs like "Girl?"
- Yeah, I like that one. - Which do you like?
- [John] "Girl," truthfully,
I've always hated. - Why?
- [John] I don't know,
'cause it was one of them I knocked off
just to write a song
and it was phony, but "Girl's" real.
- He goes back to this whole thing
of the songs that were good were real
and the ones that he doesn't think are so good are phony.
That Michael Jordan is so phony.
And based on what I'm hearing,
John seems to be talking
not about what other people
think is real or phony,
not the fans, not the critics, not Paul McCartney,
but it's what does he, John Lennon think is real or phony?
And this is pointing me
towards him having an introverted judging function.
So either introverted thinking or introverted feeling.
When a judging function is introverted,
that means the subject, the person,
is at the center of the judgment.
And when a judging function is extroverted,
that means it's looking outwards
to see how is everyone else judging this?
Let's take a look at another question,
what drew John Lennon to rock and roll?
- [John] To me, it got through,
the only thing to get through to me
after all the things that were happening when I was 15.
Rock and roll meant it was real, everything else was unreal.
And the thing about rock and roll, good rock and roll,
whatever good means, et cetera, and all that (beep)
is that it's real,
and realism gets through to you.
Despite yourself,
You recognize something in it, which is true,
like old, true art.
It's that if it's real, it's simpler usually.
And if it's simple, it's true.
- Once again, he is at the center of this judgment.
Other people don't come into the equation
but it's not entirely obvious at this point,
if it's thinking or feeling.
Don't get thrown off
because John Lennon wrote some love songs, okay?
When I'm typing him,
I'm not looking at his work, his lyrics,
the stuff that he could take a long time
to sit down and work out.
I'm looking at what does he say
when he's not very guarded or edited
and what that reveals about his thought processes.
Next, let's look at him answering a question
about why his wife, the performance artist, Yoko Ono,
is not widely accepted or well known.
- [John] But in general, she can't be accepted
because she's your fan.
Man, it's hard to take.
Her pain is such that she expresses herself
in a way that hurts you,
so you cannot take it.
That's why they couldn't take van Gogh and all that. (beep)
It's too real, it hurts.
That's why they kill you.
- This is good.
Listen to the energy level here.
Whenever someone is kind of getting worked up,
listen to what they're talking about.
For John, the reason that people can't accept Yoko's work
isn't because she's really artsy
and not terribly commercial, which is the real reason why,
but because it's too real,
it expresses her pain and it hurts.
It hurts you, it hurts.
This is terrible.
This is a woman who made a film called "Bottoms,"
that just showed people's naked booties
as they walked on a treadmill.
So for John, what is real?
It's something that hurts, it hurts,
something that expresses pain,
something that expresses emotion,
in other words, feelings
and it seems to be introverted feeling
because it's subjective,
it's about him.
Now let's listen to this quick clip
explaining why he likes his most recent album.
- [John] I think it's the best thing I've ever done.
I think it's realistic
and it's true to me,
that has been developing over the years
from "In My Life," my "I'm a Loser,
"Help,
"Strawberry Fields,"
they're all personal records I always wrote about
and I didn't really enjoy writing third-person songs
about people who lived in concrete high flats and things.
I like first-person music
but because of my hangups and many other things,
I would only now and then specifically write about me.
Now I wrote all about me.
And that's why I like it, it's me and nobody else,
so I like it.
- He likes it 'cause it's all him
and when we hear someone talking a lot about liking things
and not liking other things, those are value judgments,
which are also feeling.
I'm hearing a lot of,
"I like things that are about me,
"things that are real and things that are real
"are things that are emotionally true to me."
It seems like introverted feeling.
So it looks like John Lennon prefers
extroverted intuition and introverted feeling.
So this brings us down to two possible types,
ENFP or INFP.
Now look, last week when I typed
Dr Mike of YouTube,
link in the card above my head,
people said I got it wrong in the comments.
They were like, "You typed him as an I type,
"but he's clearly extroverted.
"He's clearly an E type."
Yeah, that's not how this works.
Deciding if John Lennon is ENFP or INFP
isn't just about figuring out
if he's more extroverted or introverted
because first of all, how do you tell,
how do you make that judgment?
'Cause he's extroverted sometimes
and he's introverted other times.
What we really need to figure out
is what is his dominant function?
Is it introverted feeling which would make him an INFP
or is it extroverted intuition, which would make him ENFP?
And the way to figure out the dominant function
is to try to figure out what is the inferior function,
which is the suppressed function.
It's the opposite of the dominant function
and it's the thing
that a person will get most stressed about.
So if John is ENFP,
his inferior function will be introverted sensing
and the biggest cause of stress in his life
will be being limited, being controlled.
But if he's INFP, he'll have a little issue with that.
But his inferior function will be extroverted thinking
and the biggest cause of stress in his life
will be other people and the decisions they make.
So let's look at this clip where he gets worked up
and see what's going on here.
- [John] I decided I'm sick of between reading things
about Paul is the musician and George is the philosopher.
I wonder where I fit in.
What was my contribution?
I get hurt, I'm sick of it.
So I tend to be like Zappa and say, listen you (beep)
this is what I did
and I don't care whether you like my attitude saying it,
but that's what I am.
I'm a (beep) artist
and I'm not a (beep) PR agent
or the product of some other person's imagination,
whether you're the public or whatever.
- He seems very frustrated
that he has to fight for significance
as a contributor in The Beatles.
Everyone is talking about Paul and George,
but John has to stand up for himself
and claim his significance.
Certainly, he feels in this moment that it's true
and maybe Paul and George were getting more press
at the time.
But realistically, was John Lennon
being forgotten by the critics?
Were they really downplaying the significance
of the guy who wrote "Ticket To Ride,
"Nowhere Man, Strawberry Fields,
"Revolution," and "Come Together?"
The IP types develop this kind of attitude
of me against everybody else
because their introverted
and extroverted judging functions are imbalanced.
Is that what we're hearing here?
All right, here's another clip
where he's talking about why he decided
to release the song "Love" as a single off his new record,
instead of the darker track "Mother,"
and Jann Wenner,
the interviewer and the founder of Rolling Stone magazine
is really pressing John here about his reasoning
for doing it and John gets a little bit worked up.
- [Jann] Which is most (indistinct) mother.
- [John] No.
How quick do you get to number one?
The thing is "Love" will attract more people
because of the message, man,
because many, many people will not like "Mother."
It hurts them.
The first thing that happens to you when you get the album
is you can't take it.
Everybody's reacted exactly the same 'cause it's. (beep)
So if had laid "Mother" on them,
it confirms a suspicion that something nasty is going on
with that gentleman and then his broad again.
People all love hate.
- Now he starts off pretty calm
saying he just thought "Love" was the more commercial record
and will go up the charts faster,
but then Jann Wenner keeps pressing him
and he's like, "Cause it hurts,
"it's a painful song," and it's the emotional content.
The people can't handle it.
He's not thinking about the music.
He's thinking about how people are gonna receive
his emotional realness
and they're not gonna receive it well.
And what are they gonna think about him?
And what are they gonna say about how messed up he is?
John doesn't wanna have to deal
with what other people think.
He hates that he has to deal with it
and it makes them upset that they can't handle his realness.
And so this is leading me towards thinking
that extroverted thinking is his inferior function.
So I think at this point, we can draw an educated guess
and our edutainment program that John Lennon
is FI, first,
Ne, second,
which is INFP, whoa!
People on the internet get this right a lot of the time.
And even I two years ago,
when I didn't know nothing
made a guess that he was INFP
though in fairness,
I've changed that guess from time to time.
So check out this other typing video here.
Thanks for watching.