<\/p>\n But during an appearance on the Conan O\u2019Brien Needs a Friend podcast, O\u2019Brien was just as interested in the past as the present, prompting a simple question: Did you ever meet Elvis?<\/p>\n John Lennon Told Mick Jagger Not To Meet Elvis Presley | Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend – YouTube Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cNo, I never met Elvis,\u201d Jagger replied. \u201cYou know why? The Daily Mirror, an English tabloid that still exists, always did publicity, and there was a journalist who took the Beatles to Los Angeles to visit Elvis.<\/p>\n \u201cAfterward, I remember John saying, \u2018You should never meet your heroes. I\u2019d never meet Elvis if I were you.\u2019<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n I remember John saying, \u2018You should never meet your heroes. I\u2019d never meet Elvis if I were you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 Mick Jagger<\/p>\n \u201cSo I didn\u2019t. I took John\u2019s advice, which is very stupid of me.\u201d<\/p>\n The Beatles\u2019 meeting with Elvis \u2014 reportedly arranged by manager Brian Epstein \u2014 took place on August 27, 1965, at the King\u2019s Bel Air mansion. Although the Daily Mirror had hoped to cover the encounter, the press were ultimately barred after George Harrison pushed for the meeting to remain private.<\/p>\n The Fab Four idolized Elvis. Lennon drew direct inspiration from him for one of the band\u2019s darkest songs, \u201cRun for Your Life<\/a>,\u201d while Harrison later said Presley\u2019s music had \u201can incredible impact<\/a>\u201d on him because he had \u201cnever heard anything like it.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the excitement surrounding the visit, Lennon ultimately came away disappointed.<\/p>\n \n Presley in 1956. \u201cWithout\u00a0Elvis, there\u00a0would\u00a0be no Beatles,\u201d Lennon declared in a 1969 interview with the CBC. (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n According to the Beatles\u2019 longtime press officer Tony Barrow, Lennon wasted little time getting to the point, asking Elvis: \u201cWhy do you do all these soft-centered ballads for the cinema these days? What happened to good old rock \u2019n\u2019 roll?\u201d<\/p>\n What to read next<\/p>\n Conversation soon stalled until Elvis called for guitars<\/a> to be brought in and a piano wheeled into the room.<\/p>\n \u201cThe boys found that they could make much better conversation with their guitars than they could with their spoken word,\u201d Barrow later wrote. \u201cMusic was their natural meeting point, their most intelligent means of communication.\u201d<\/p>\n Even so, the afternoon fell well short of Lennon\u2019s expectations \u2014 explaining why he later warned Jagger against meeting his own musical heroes.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d love to have met Elvis,\u201d Jagger said with a wry smile. \u201cWhy did I take John\u2019s advice? But at the time, it seemed to ring true.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Lennon and Jagger attend the Second Annual American Film Institute Lifetime Achievement Awards Honoring James Cagney, March 13, 1974. (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n O\u2019Brien noted that Lennon famously spent the Beatles\u2019 first trip to America asking, \u201cWhere\u2019s Elvis?\u201d After finally meeting him, he was left asking much the same question.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t want my version of Elvis shattered like John\u2019s was.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 Mick Jagger<\/p>\n \u201cHe told me that whole story more than once,\u201d Jagger replied. \u201cIt put me off. I wanted to keep my version of Elvis to myself. I didn\u2019t want my version of Elvis shattered like John\u2019s was. Maybe my version of Elvis would have been different.\u201d<\/p>\n Elsewhere during the Foreign Tongues press campaign, Jagger explained why the Stones have adopted a \u201cbulldozer approach<\/a>\u201d in the studio, while also branding one of the band\u2019s most beloved albums<\/a> \u201clousy\u201d \u2014 a view Keith Richards decidedly does not share.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mick Jagger says he was \u201cstupid\u201d to follow John Lennon\u2019s advice \u2014 because it meant he never met…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-545215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784246771_534_maxresdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Close](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LU2ZPdhbyQ9CrwMQ4hMf2d.jpg\")
\n<\/p>\n![\"Mick](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/feHeVz7ihq3MPHjyAPeLJa.jpg\")
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