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Daily Mirror
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"But in the end I just felt my previous work was not a good enough legacy to leave behind as a songwriter. I wanted to produce something I felt proud of." "For years and years I have felt walls and barriers put in my way, it's been a constant battle to simply be myself. I felt that a lot of people, for one reason or another, did not want me to succeed. And I wanted to prove to those people that I could do it on my own." The album, released in May on Julian's independent label Music From Another Room, was well received by critics and sales have been respectable. It is dedicated - significantly - to Julian's late Italian step-father Roberto Bassinini, who he says was more of a father to him than John Lennon ever was. "If I never made another album again, I could feel satisfied with this one," he enthuses. "Just getting it out on my own label is a huge achievement for me. Anything on top of that is a bonus." However, Julian would be fooling himself if he didn't hope his new single, "I Don't Wanna Know", released on Monday, would emulate the success of his first international hit, "Too Late For Goodbyes", 14 years ago. The new single, which he calls a, "tongue-in-cheek homage to The Beatles" could also be described as two fingers to the music industry. For years record label bosses tried to cajole and bully him into cashing in on the Lennon name, and give the world a reincarnation of John in the shape of Julian. But it is only now that he's confident of his own talent that he can make the record everyone else wanted him to. "For me, the only way I could do a song with a Beatles sound was if I'd satisfied my own worth as a songwriter," he explains. "I put it on the album at the last minute. I thought, "why not?" For years people said, "when are you going to cover a Beatles song?" and I kept going, "no, no, no". I was always thinking, "when are you going to hear my voice?" I was young, naive and felt like a puppet on a string, but now I'm the one pulling the strings." We meet in a quiet town by the lakes in Northern Italy. Julian moved there two years ago to be near his late step-father's family who live in Milan. It is a quiet, simple existence shared with his girlfriend of eight months - 20-year-old model and student Lucy Bayliss. At 35, the similarity to his father is still striking. The serious, angular narrow face and long, brown hair tied loosely into a pony-tail. And, of course, the voice. Born in the 60's, the only son of John and his first wife Cynthia, Julian has spent a lifetime trying to come to terms with his legacy. There are times when being the first-born of a man regarded by many as a musical genius in life and as a saint in death, has felt like a cross to bear. Julian was just four when John, at the height of his fame, left Cynthia to set up home with Japanese artist Yoko Ono. And Julian only saw his father ten times before John was shot dead outside his New York apartment on December 8, 1980. The father-son relationship was a difficult, distant one, and it must have been all the more hurtful when John's son Sean, by Yoko, was so obviously the favoured child.
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