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John Ono Lennon, MBE (born John Winston
Lennon October 9, 1940 – December 8, 1980), was an iconic English 20th
century composer and singer of popular music, best known as the founding
member of The Beatles, in which he and Paul McCartney formed the
massively successful Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership throughout
the 1960s.
Lennon's songwriting was full of pain and hope. His
melodies were at times beautiful and at times dark. Lennon's lyrics reflected
his personal and career demands, philosophical outlook, his unease with his fame
and current events. He and McCartney popularised the use of electronic effects
in rock music, paving the way for the harder rock forms of the 1970s and 1980s.
Lennon, on television and in films such as A Hard
Day's Night (1964), and by press conferences and interviews, revealed his
rebellious, iconoclastic nature and quick, irreverent wit. Lennon channeled his
fame and penchant for controversy into his work as a peace activist, artist and
author. He was murdered in New York City on December 8, 1980.
In 2002, the BBC polled the British public about
the 100 Greatest Britons of all time. Respondents voted Lennon into eighth
place.
****
Background information
Birth name John Winston Lennon
Born October 9, 1940
Liverpool, England
Died December 8, 1980
New York City, New York, USA
Genre(s) Rock and Roll
Pop
Rock
Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, poet, guitarist
Instrument(s) Guitar
Harmonica
Piano
Years active 1957-1975, 1980
Label(s) Parlophone
Capitol
Apple
Vee-Jay Records
EMI
Geffen Records
Associated
acts The Beatles
Plastic Ono Band
****
Youth
John Lennon was born in Liverpool, allegedly during
the course of a German air raid. Both of his parents had musical backgrounds and
experience, though neither pursued music seriously. Lennon lived with his
parents until his father Alfred, a merchant seaman, walked out on the family
when John was five years old (Lennon later met with his father during the height
of Beatlemania.) His mother Julia (due to a current relationship and lack of
home space) handed over care of young Lennon to her sister, Mary Smith (aka Mimi
Smith), after receiving a considerable amount of pressure from both Mary and
child services to do so. Throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence,
Lennon lived with his "Aunt Mimi" Smith and her husband George Smith at 251
Menlove Avenue, Mendips, Liverpool. Like much of the population of Liverpool,
Lennon had some Irish heritage. His grandfather, James Lennon, was born in
Dublin in 1858; and his grandmother, Mary (née Maguire), was Irish-born as well.
Lennon's mother, Julia (née Stanley), was of Welsh descent. Although she never
knew it, Julia Lennon was descended from Thomas, Lord Stanley (c. 1435–1504),
who dominated the Liverpool/Chester region and who commanded a wing of the army
which overthrew Richard III at Bosworth Field in August 1485. A remote echo of
this ancestral connection was the bare feeling, which descended well into the
20th century, within the family that, somehow, their Stanley relatives were
supposed to be somewhat above and in advance of the general population. While
Lennon had little exposure to his Irish heritage growing up, he came to identify
with it later in life. He lived in a fairly middle class section of Liverpool.
Mimi and George, who had no children of their own,
became strong parental figures to Lennon. Mimi was loving but stern, and kept
the young Lennon in line. George was softer than his wife and would indulge him,
teaching him to paint, draw and buying him his first mouth organ. In Alfred's
absence, George became a father figure and his death in 1955 was to have a
profound influence on Lennon, especially in light of events which were to
follow. On 15 July 1958, when Lennon was 17, his mother was killed returning
from Mimi's house after being struck by a car driven by a drunk off-duty police
officer. Julia Lennon's death was one of the factors that cemented his
friendship with McCartney, who had lost his own mother to breast cancer in 1956,
when he was 14. Years later, Lennon wrote the songs "Julia", "Mother" and "My
Mummy's Dead" regarding his mother, as well as naming his firstborn son, Julian,
after her.
He attended Dovedale County Primary School until he
passed his Eleven-Plus and from September 1952 to 1957, Lennon attended Quarry
Bank Grammar school in Liverpool which he explained as the start of his misery.
However, he was a trouble maker there and did little work, sinking to the
C-stream. He started drawing cartoons, and making fun of his teachers by copying
their odd characteristics.
Though failing at his exams by one grade at grammar
school, Lennon was accepted into the Liverpool College of Art with help from his
school's headmaster and his Aunt Mimi, who was insistent that her young ward
would have some sort of qualification. It was there that he met his future wife,
Cynthia Powell. Lennon would steadily grow to hate the conformity of art school,
which proved to be little different from his earlier school experience, and he
ultimately dropped out.
He then devoted himself to music, and was inspired
by American rock 'n' roll with singers/musicians like Elvis Presley, Chuck
Berry, Buddy Holly and Little Richard. Mimi bought him his first guitar in the
hope that he would soon grow bored of it. Mimi loved John, but was sceptical
about a lot of things, including his claim that one day he would be famous. Mimi
told Lennon frequently "The guitar's all very well, John, but you'll never make
a living out of it." (Years later, when The Beatles were the top act in show
business, he presented her with a silver platter, engraved with the same words.)
He started a skiffle band in his Grammar School
that was called The Quarry Men (after his alma mater, Quarry Bank School). With
the addition of Paul McCartney and George Harrison, the band changed to playing
rock 'n' roll, taking the name "Johnny and The Moondogs", followed by "The
Silver Beetles" , which was later shortened to The Beatles (spelled with an "a"
in reference to their identification with "beat groups"). He married Powell in
1962, after she became pregnant with son Julian, whose birth name was John
Charles Julian Lennon.
Role in
The Beatles
Lennon was usually considered the "leader" of The
Beatles, as he founded the original group, inviting McCartney to join later, who
in turn invited Harrison. Most group decisions were democratic though (with the
golden rule that if any member objected to an idea, the group wouldn't pursue
it), and Lennon largely abandoned his leadership role in the mid-Sixties, under
the influence of LSD and Timothy Leary's book The Psychedelic Experience,
believing he needed to "lose his ego" to become enlightened. He resented
McCartney's taking effective control of the band after Epstein's death in 1967,
and disliked some of the resulting projects, such as Magical Mystery Tour, and
particularly Let It Be ("That film was set up by Paul, for Paul," as he said
later to Rolling Stone). Lennon was the first to break the band's all-for-one
sensibility, and also the rule that no wives or girlfriends would attend
recording sessions, as he brought Yoko into the studio.
Lennon was also the first member to permanently
quit the group (Starr had left during 1968, but was persuaded to return, while
Harrison walked out on a filming session early in 1969, but turned up at a
business meeting a few days later), which he did in September 1969. He agreed
not to make an announcement, with the band renegotiating their recording
contract, and blasted McCartney months later (with the negotiations complete)
for going public with his own departure in April 1970. With the public unaware
of the details, McCartney appeared to be the one who dissolved the group,
depriving Lennon of the formalities. Lennon told Rolling Stone "I was a fool not
to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record," and later wrote "I
started the band. I finished it."
McCartney later admitted Lennon had been the first
to quit, re-explaining the circumstances to CBS-TV's 48 Hours in 1989. In a
subsequent Playboy interview [2], McCartney asserted "We all looked up to John.
He was older and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the
smartest and all that kind of thing."
"More
popular than Jesus" controversy
Lennon often spoke his mind freely and the press
was used to querying him on a wide range of subjects. On 4 March 1966 in an
interview for the London Evening Standard with Maureen Cleave, who was a friend,
Lennon made an off-the-cuff remark regarding religion. [3]
"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink.
... I don't know what will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity. We're more
popular than Jesus now. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and
ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."
The article was printed and nothing came of it,
until five months later when an American teen magazine called Datebook reprinted
part of the quote on the front cover. [4]
A firestorm of protest swelled from the southern
U.S. Bible Belt area, as conservative groups publicly burned Beatles records and
memorabilia. The Beatles looked at this in a wry way, by saying, "They've got to
buy them first before they burn 'em."
Radio stations banned Beatles music and concert
venues cancelled performances. Even the Vatican got involved with a public
denunciation of Lennon's comments. On August 11, 1966, The Beatles held a press
conference in Chicago, in order to address the growing furor.
Lennon: "I suppose if I had said television was
more popular than Jesus, I would have got away with it, but I just happened to
be talking to a journalist friend (Maureen Cleave), and I used the words
"Beatles" as a remote thing, not as what I think — as Beatles, as those other
Beatles like other people see us. I just said "they" are having more influence
on kids and things than anything else, including Jesus. But I said it in that
way which is the wrong way."
Reporter: Some teenagers have repeated your
statements — "I like The Beatles more than Jesus Christ." What do you think
about that?
Lennon: "Well, originally I pointed out that fact
in reference to England. That we meant more to kids than Jesus did, or religion
at that time. I wasn't knocking it or putting it down. I was just saying it as a
fact and it's true more for England than here. I'm not saying that we're better
or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God as a thing or
whatever it is. I just said what I said and it was wrong. Or it was taken wrong.
And now it's all this."
Reporter: But are you prepared to apologise?
Lennon: "I wasn't saying whatever they're saying I
was saying. I'm sorry I said it really. I never meant it to be a lousy
anti-religious thing. I apologise if that will make you happy. I still don't
know quite what I've done. I've tried to tell you what I did do but if you want
me to apologise, if that will make you happy, then OK, I'm sorry."
The governing members of the Vatican accepted his
apology[5] and the furor eventually died down, but constant Beatlemania, mobs,
crazed teenagers, and now a press ready to tear them to pieces over any quote
was too much to handle. The Beatles soon decided to stop touring, and never
performed a scheduled concert again. A firework was thrown on the stage at one
of their last concerts and McCartney later said that the band all looked at
Lennon - fearing a gun had been fired at him. The pressure of dealing with
incidents like that convinced even McCartney to say that he had had enough.
Lennon wrote later "I always remember to thank Jesus for the end of my touring
days."
Lennon
and his families
Lennon slapped his first wife, Cynthia — at least
once — in the early years of their relationship, as confirmed in her book, John.
The rise of Beatlemania and rigours of touring only furthered the strain on the
relationship. He was also very distant to his son, Julian, who felt closer to
McCartney than to his father.
As the younger Lennon later said, "I've never
really wanted to know the truth about how dad was with me. There was some very
negative stuff talked about me... like when he said I'd come out of a whiskey
bottle on a Saturday night. Stuff like that. You think, where's the love in
that? Paul and I used to hang about quite a bit... more than dad and I did. We
had a great friendship going and there seems to be far more pictures of me and
Paul playing together at that age than there are pictures of me and my dad."
John is quoted as saying: "Sean is a planned child, and therein lies the
difference. I don't love Julian any less as a child. He's still my son, whether
he came from a bottle of whiskey or because they didn't have pills in those
days. He's here, he belongs to me, and he always will."
According to Cynthia, after the break-up with John,
Paul visited Cynthia and suggested marriage. He is reported as saying, "How's
about you and me, Cyn?" After that visit, he did not stay in touch with her, and
in her book John, she published a copy of the first postcard from Paul — after
17 years of no contact — that he sent to her.
In the last major interview of his life — published
in Playboy, immediately before his death — Lennon said that he'd always been
very macho and had never questioned his chauvinistic attitudes towards women
until he met Yoko Ono. By the end of his life, he had embraced the role of
househusband and even said that he had taken on the role of wife and mother in
their relationship. While Lennon was always distant with his first son (Julian)
he was very close to his second son (Sean), and called him "my pride". Lennon
also spoke about having a child with Ono: "We were both finally unselfish enough
to want to have a child."
In the same interview, Lennon said he was trying to
re-establish a connection with the then 17-year-old Julian, and confidently
predicted that "Julian and I will have a relationship in the future."
Lennon
and Yoko Ono
On November 9, 1966, after their final tour ended
and right after he had wrapped up filming a minor role in the film How I Won the
War, Lennon visited an art exhibit of Yoko Ono's at the Indica art gallery at
No. 6, Mason's Yard in London. Lennon began his love affair with Ono in 1968
after returning from India and leaving his estranged wife Cynthia, who filed for
divorce later that year, on the grounds of John's adultery with Ono. Lennon and
Ono became inseparable in public and private, as well as during Beatles
recording sessions.
The press was extremely unkind to Ono, posting a
series of unflattering articles about her, one even going so far as to call her
"ugly." This infuriated Lennon, who rallied around his new partner and said
publicly that there was no John and Yoko, but that they were one person,
"JohnAndYoko." These developments led to friction with the other members of the
group, and heightened the tension during the 1968 White Album sessions.
At the end of 1968, Lennon and Ono performed as
Dirty Mac on The Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus. During his last two years
as a member of The Beatles, Lennon spent much of his time with Ono partaking in
public protests against the Vietnam War. He sent back his MBE (Member of the
Order of the British Empire) he received from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
during the height of Beatlemania "in protest against Britain's involvement in
the Nigeria-Biafra thing and its support of America in Vietnam," adding as a
joke, "as well as 'Cold Turkey' slipping down the charts." On March 20, 1969,
Lennon and Ono were married in Gibraltar, and spent their honeymoon in Amsterdam
in a "Bed-In" for peace. Behind their bed were posters displaying the words
"Hair Peace. Bed Peace." They followed up their honeymoon with another "Bed-In"
for peace, this time held in Montreal at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. During the
second "Bed-In" the couple recorded "Give Peace a Chance", which would go on to
become an international anthem for the peace movement. They were mainly
patronised as a couple of eccentrics by the media, yet they did a great deal for
the peace movement, as well as for other related causes, such as feminism and
racial harmony. As with the "Bed-In" campaign, Lennon and Ono usually advocated
their causes with whimsical demonstrations, such as Bagism, first introduced
during a Vienna press conference. Shortly after, Lennon changed his middle name
from Winston to Ono to show his "oneness" with his new wife. Lennon wrote "The
Ballad of John and Yoko" about his marriage and the subsequent press it
generated.
The
Break-up of The Beatles
The failed Get Back/Let It Be recording/filming
sessions did nothing to improve relations within the band. After both Lennon and
Ono were injured in the summer of 1969 in a car accident in Scotland, Lennon
arranged for Ono to be constantly with him in the studio (including having a
full-sized bed rolled in) as he worked on The Beatles' last album, Abbey Road.
While the group managed to hang together to produce one last acclaimed musical
work, soon thereafter business issues related to Apple Corps came between them.
Lennon decided to quit The Beatles but was talked
out of saying anything publicly. Phil Spector's involvement in trying to revive
the Let It Be material then drove a further wedge between Lennon (who supported
Spector) and McCartney (who opposed him). Though the split would only become
legal some time later, Lennon and McCartney's partnership had come to a bitter
end. McCartney soon made a press announcement, declaring he had quit The
Beatles, and promoting his new solo record.
In 1970, Jann Wenner recorded an interview with
Lennon that was played on BBC in 2005. The interview reveals his bitterness
towards McCartney and the hostility he felt that the other members held towards
Yoko Ono. Lennon said: "One of the main reasons The Beatles ended is because...
I pretty well know, we got fed up with being sidemen for Paul. After Brian
Epstein died we collapsed. Paul took over and supposedly led us. But what is
leading us when we went round in circles? Paul had the impression we should be
thankful for what he did, for keeping The Beatles going. But he kept it going
for his own sake." [6]
Lennon's humour
Some information in this article or section has not
been verified and may not be reliable.
Please check for any inaccuracies, and modify and
cite sources as needed.
Each of The Beatles was known, especially during
Beatlemania, for their sense of humour. Everything and everyone could be made
fun of, and nobody was excluded; not even themselves. Lennon made use of his
talents to mimic by making fun of his early teachers as often as possible. In
his youth Lennon even made fun of disabled people; running up to them and
pulling grotesque, distorted faces. His 1971 solo album Imagine contained the
song, "Crippled Inside", in which he explained that making fun of disabled
people threw the spotlight onto someone else, so that people would never see
that he was also in pain.
Lennon's style of humour was always to combine the
normal with the absurd, and then making it appear as if it was just a normal
comment. After Ringo said "It's been a hard day's (work) night", he laughed, but
then turned it into a song. This surrealist humour and love of wordplay was
later evident in his Milliganesque writings John Lennon: In His Own Write and A
Spaniard In The Works (meaning 'a spanner in the works' — a problem in the
machine).
During live performances of "I Want to Hold Your
Hand", Lennon often changed the words to "I want to hold your gland" (meaning
breast/mammary gland), because no one could hear the vocals anyway, above the
noise of the screaming audiences. John displayed his usual brand of humour when
a reporter asked him: "Does it bother you that you can't hear what you sing
during concerts?" John: "No, we don't mind. We've got the records at home."
Lennon's humour also showed up often in The
Beatles' music and in his solo work. For instance, during the aborted Get Back
sessions, he was recorded introducing "Dig A Pony" by shouting, "I dig a pygmy
by Charles Hawtrey and the Deaf Aids, phase one in which Doris gets her oats!"
The phrase was later edited to precede the first song on Let It Be, the
McCartney-penned "Two of Us".
On one occasion, when asked if Ringo Starr was "the
best drummer in the world", Lennon replied, "He isn't even the best drummer in
The Beatles", showing again how he would turn things upside down to create
laughter. Perhaps regretting the remark, Lennon in later years was outspoken in
his conviction of Starr's importance to the band.
It was Lennon, who, at the Royal Variety Show in
1963, in the presence of numerous members of the British royalty, told the
audience, "Those of you in the cheaper seats can clap your hands. The rest of
you, if you'll just rattle your jewellery."
Lennon's humour was apparent during The Beatles'
first American press conference, immediately after they stepped off their plane
in February 1964.
Reporter: "Will you please sing something for us?"
Lennon: "No, we need money first."
Reporter: "What is it about your music that excites
people so much?" Lennon: "If we knew, we'd form another group and be managers."
His humour, however, could go from one extreme to
the other, as shown when he mocked Brian Epstein by altering the lyrics of "Baby
You're A Rich Man" to "Baby you're a rich fag-Jew".[1]
Once, in an elevator of a hotel in New York where
they were staying, Brian Epstein asked John what a good title would be for the
autobiography he was planning to write. John answered: "How about Queer Jew?"
Brian was extremely upset by his remark. Later, when John learned that the title
of the book would be A Cellarful of Noise, John said to a friend: "More like A
Cellarful of Boys."
Lennon would sometimes use his humour to be
extremely sarcastic, and caustic, in interviews. "We created Apple so someone
wouldn't have to go down on their knees in an office — probably yours." Whilst
the other Beatles laughed, he would glare to make his point, although nobody was
quite sure if he was joking or not.
Lennon's partnership in songwriting with McCartney
involved him — many times — in opposing McCartney's upbeat, positive outlook,
with a sarcastic counter-point, as one of their songs, "Getting Better"
demonstrates:
McCartney: I've got to admit it's getting better,
it's getting better all the time.
Lennon:
It can't get no worse!
The Beatles often made fun of George Martin, as
they once sang "tit-tit-tit", as backing vocals instead of "dit-dit-dit" on the
1965 song "Girl" from the LP Rubber Soul. When Martin (who was upstairs in the
control room and could not see them) asked, "Boys, was that dit, or... tit?" "It
was dit, George", Lennon replied, as the others doubled up in silent laughter.
They thought of George Martin (who was always dressed in a suit and tie) as
being part of the establishment, and therefore open to jokes, but never
ridicule.
Even Paul McCartney realised that The Beatles had a
strange sense of humour (which was fuelled by Lennon) as he once said:
"The chauffeur's window was closed, and there were
just the four of us in the back of that car, laughing hysterically. We knew what
we were laughing at; nobody else can ever know what it was about... I doubt if
even we know, in truth." [7]
Pseudonyms
Throughout his solo career, Lennon appeared on his
own albums (as well as those of other artists like Elton John) under such
pseudonyms as Dr Winston O'Boogie, Mel Torment (a play on singer Mel Tormé), and
The Reverend Fred Gherkin. He and Yoko (as Ada Gherkin "ate a gherkin", and
other sobriquets) also travelled under such names, thus avoiding unwanted public
attention.
Solo
career
Of the four former Beatles, Lennon had perhaps the
most varied recording career. While he was still a Beatle, Lennon and Ono
recorded three albums of experimental and difficult music, Unfinished Music
No.1: Two Virgins, Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions, and Wedding
Album. His first 'solo' album of popular music was Live Peace in Toronto 1969,
recorded in 1969 (prior to the breakup of The Beatles) at the Rock 'n' Roll
Festival in Toronto with The Plastic Ono Band, which included Eric Clapton and
Klaus Voormann. Apparently, they learned the whole set of songs on the plane
from England to Canada. Lennon remembered that the conversation was mostly
questions like, "Is it in E, or A?"
He also recorded three singles in his initial solo
phase, the anti-war anthem "Give Peace a Chance", "Cold Turkey" (about his
struggles with heroin addiction) and "Instant Karma!"
Following The Beatles' split in 1970, he released
the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album, a raw, brutally personal record, heavily
influenced by Arthur Janov's Primal therapy, which Lennon had undergone
previously. The influence of the therapy, which consists literally of screaming
out one's emotional pain, is most obvious on the songs "Mother" ("Mama don't
go!/Daddy come home!") and "Well Well Well". The centrepiece is "God," in which
he lists all the things he does not believe in, ending with "Beatles". His
growing political radicalisation is especially evident on the song "Working
Class Hero", whose use of the word "fucking" got it banned from the airwaves.
Many consider Plastic Ono Band to be a major influence on later hard rock and
punk music. Lennon continued this effort to demythologise his old band and
reclaim his individuality with a lengthy, no-holds barred interview published in
Rolling Stone magazine.
This was followed in 1971 by Imagine, his most
successful solo album, which alternates in tone between dreaminess and anger.
The title track has become an anthem for anti-religion and anti-war movements,
and was matched in image by Lennon's "white period" (white clothes, white piano,
white room, etc.). He specifically wrote one track, "How Do You Sleep?" as a
biting personal attack against McCartney, but later admitted that, in the end,
it was really about himself. George Harrison played slide guitar on the incisive
song.
Perhaps in reaction, his next album, Some Time in
New York City (1972), was loud, raucous, and explicitly political, with songs
about prison riots, racial and sexual relations, the British role in the
sectarian troubles in Northern Ireland, and his own problems in obtaining a
United States Green Card. Lennon had been interested in left-wing politics since
the late 1960s, and was said to have given donations to the Trotskyist Workers
Revolutionary Party. [8]
It was during the period of the recording of this
album that his links to this group were perhaps at their strongest. On 30 August
1972 Lennon and his backing band Elephant's Memory staged two benefit concerts
at Madison Square Garden in New York; it was to be his last full-length concert
appearance. Lennon and Ono also did a week-long guest co-host stint on the Mike
Douglas Show, in an appearance that showed Lennon's wit and humour still intact.
In 1972, Lennon released an anti-sexism song,
"Woman Is the Nigger of the World", implying that as black people were
discriminated against in some countries, so were women globally. Radio refused
to broadcast the song, and it was banned nearly everywhere, although he managed
to play it to television viewers during his second appearance on The Dick Cavett
Show.
Lennon rebounded in 1973 with Mind Games, which
featured a strong title tune and some vague mumblings about a "conceptual
country" called "Nutopia", which satirised his ongoing immigration case. His
most striking song of that year was the wry "I'm the Greatest", which he wrote
for Ringo Starr's very successful Ringo album.
The
Anti-War Years and the Deportation Battle
“Give Peace a Chance,” recorded in 1969 at the
height of the Vietnam War, marked Lennon’s transformation from loveable mop-top
to anti-war activist, and began a process that culminated in 1972 when the Nixon
Administration sought to silence him by ordering him deported from the US.
The Vietnam War mobilized a generation of young
people to take a stand opposing US government policy, but few pop stars joined
them – antiwar protest was something for folkies like Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.
Lennon however was determined to use his power as a superstar to help end the
war, especially after he left the Beatles and teamed up with Yoko Ono. They
declared their honeymoon at the Amsterdam Hilton in March 1969 a "bed-in for
peace," winning world-wide media coverage. At a second bed-in in Montreal in
June, 1969, they recorded “Give Peace a Chance” in their hotel room; the song
quickly became the anthem of the anti-war movement, and was sung by half a
million demonstrators in Washington DC at Vietnam Moratorium Day in November
1969.
When John and Yoko moved to New York City in August
1971, they became friends with antiwar leaders Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, and
others, and planned a national concert tour to coincide with the 1972
presidential election. It would have been the first US tour by any of the
ex-Beatles since the lads had waved farewell at Candlestick Park in San
Francisco at the end of their 1966 tour. But it would not have been the usual
rock tour. 1972 was the first year 18-year-olds had been given the right to vote
in the US, and Lennon wanted to help persuade young people to register to vote
and vote against the war, which meant voting against Nixon. Thus the planned
tour was to combine rock music with anti-war organizing and voter registration.
The Nixon Administration found out about Lennon’s
plans from an unlikely source: Republican Senator Strom Thurmond, who suggested
in a February, 1972 memo that “deportation would be a strategic
counter-measure.” The next month the Immigration and Naturalization Service
began deportation proceedings against Lennon, arguing that his 1968 misdemeanour
conviction for cannabis possession in London had made him ineligible for
admission to the US. Lennon spent the next two years in and out of deportation
hearings, constantly under a 60-day order to leave the country, which his
attorney managed to get extended each time.
The 1972 concert tour never happened, but Lennon
and his friends did do one of the events they had been thinking about: the “Free
John Sinclair” concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan in December 1971. Sinclair was a
local antiwar activist who was serving ten years in the state prison for selling
two joints of marijuana to an undercover cop. Lennon appeared onstage along with
Stevie Wonder and other musicians, plus antiwar radical Jerry Rubin and Bobby
Seale of the Black Panthers. 20,000 attended; two days after the concert, the
state of Michigan released John Sinclair from prison.
While his deportation battle was going on, Lennon
spoke often against the Vietnam War, appearing at rallies in New York City and
on TV shows, including a week hosting the Mike Douglas Show in February 1972,
where Jerry Rubin and Bobby Seale appeared as his guests.
In the end, Nixon left the White House in the
Watergate scandal, and Lennon stayed in the USA, winning his green card in 1975.
The full story didn’t come out until after Lennon’s murder, when historian Jon
Wiener filed a Freedom of Information request for FBI files on Lennon. The FBI
admitted it had 281 pages of files on Lennon, but refused to release most of
them, claiming they were national security documents. In 1983 Wiener sued the
FBI with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.
The case went all the way to the Supreme Court before the FBI settled it in
1997, releasing all but ten of the contested documents. (The pages are
reproduced in the book Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files, by Jon
Wiener; some of them are posted online at http://www.LennonFBIfiles.com.) The
story is told in the documentary, "The U.S. Versus John Lennon," by David Leaf
and John Scheinfeld, released by Lions Gate in September, 2006.
The
lost weekend
In 1973, Yoko approached May Pang — their personal
assistant at the time — with a unique proposal. Ono, who thought May Pang would
be an "ideal companion" for Lennon, asked her to "be with John and to help him
out and see to it that he gets whatever he wanted." Lennon's personal life then
fell into disrepair after Yoko kicked him out of the house. Lennon and Pang soon
moved to Los Angeles, a period which had been dubbed the "lost weekend" though
it lasted until the beginning of 1975. During their time together, Pang claims
to have encouraged Lennon to spend time with his son, Julian Lennon, and become
friends with Cynthia Lennon. Lennon also spent his time during these months with
his close friend; singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson, and an assortment of his
drinking buddies (Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, Alice Cooper, Mickey Dolenz and
others) who collectively dubbed themselves the Hollywood Vampires. Though
Lennon's public drunkenness had been the subject of gossip during 1974, Pang
wrote that he was usually sober in his private life and created a large body of
work.
Despite alleged episodes of drunkenness, Lennon put
together the well-received album, Walls and Bridges (1974), which featured a
collaboration with Elton John on the up-tempo number one hit "Whatever Gets You
Thru the Night". Another top ten hit from the album was the Beatlesque reverie
"#9 Dream". Also, on the album, he made his last reference to primal therapy in
his song "Nobody Loves You (When You're Down and Out)", referring to Janov as
"the one-eyed witch-doctor leading the blind." Lennon capped the year by making
a surprise guest appearance at an Elton John concert in Madison Square Garden
where they performed "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Whatever Gets You Thru
the Night" and "I Saw Her Standing There" together. It was to be his last-ever
concert appearance in front of a rock audience. Following the performance,
Lennon travelled to Florida and it was here that he signed the papers finally
breaking up The Beatles legally. Following the Christmas holidays, he returned
to Yoko Ono in New York.
“Give Peace a Chance,” recorded in 1969 at the
height of the Vietnam War, marked Lennon’s transformation from loveable mop-top
to anti-war activist, and began a process that culminated in 1972 when the Nixon
Administration sought to silence him by ordering him deported from the US.
The Vietnam War mobilized a generation of young
people to take a stand opposing US government policy, but few pop stars joined
them – antiwar protest was something for folkies like Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.
Lennon however was determined to use his power as a superstar to help end the
war, especially after he left the Beatles and teamed up with Yoko Ono. They
declared their honeymoon at the Amsterdam Hilton in March 1969 a "bed-in for
peace," winning world-wide media coverage. At a second bed-in in Montreal in
June, 1969, they recorded “Give Peace a Chance” in their hotel room; the song
quickly became the anthem of the anti-war movement, and was sung by half a
million demonstrators in Washington DC at Vietnam Moratorium Day in November
1969.
When John and Yoko moved to New York City in August
1971, they became friends with antiwar leaders Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, and
others, and planned a national concert tour to coincide with the 1972
presidential election. It would have been the first US tour by any of the
ex-Beatles since the lads had waved farewell at Candlestick Park in San
Francisco at the end of their 1966 tour. But it would not have been the usual
rock tour. 1972 was the first year 18-year-olds had been given the right to vote
in the US, and Lennon wanted to help persuade young people to register to vote
and vote against the war, which meant voting against Nixon. Thus the planned
tour was to combine rock music with anti-war organizing and voter registration.
The Nixon Administration found out about Lennon’s
plans from an unlikely source: Republican Senator Strom Thurmond, who suggested
in a February, 1972 memo that “deportation would be a strategic
counter-measure.” The next month the Immigration and Naturalization Service
began deportation proceedings against Lennon, arguing that his 1968 misdemeanour
conviction for cannabis possession in London had made him ineligible for
admission to the US. Lennon spent the next two years in and out of deportation
hearings, constantly under a 60-day order to leave the country, which his
attorney managed to get extended each time.
The 1972 concert tour never happened, but Lennon
and his friends did do one of the events they had been thinking about: the “Free
John Sinclair” concert in Ann Arbor, Michigan in December 1971. Sinclair was a
local antiwar activist who was serving ten years in the state prison for selling
two joints of marijuana to an undercover cop. Lennon appeared onstage along with
Stevie Wonder and other musicians, plus antiwar radical Jerry Rubin and Bobby
Seale of the Black Panthers. 20,000 attended; two days after the concert, the
state of Michigan released John Sinclair from prison.
While his deportation battle was going on, Lennon
spoke often against the Vietnam War, appearing at rallies in New York City and
on TV shows, including a week hosting the Mike Douglas Show in February 1972,
where Jerry Rubin and Bobby Seale appeared as his guests.
In the end, Nixon left the White House in the
Watergate scandal, and Lennon stayed in the USA, winning his green card in 1975.
The full story didn’t come out until after Lennon’s murder, when historian Jon
Wiener filed a Freedom of Information request for FBI files on Lennon. The FBI
admitted it had 281 pages of files on Lennon, but refused to release most of
them, claiming they were national security documents. In 1983 Wiener sued the
FBI with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.
The case went all the way to the Supreme Court before the FBI settled it in
1997, releasing all but ten of the contested documents. (The pages are
reproduced in the book Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files, by Jon
Wiener; some of them are posted online at http://www.LennonFBIfiles.com.) The
story is told in the documentary, "The U.S. Versus John Lennon," by David Leaf
and John Scheinfeld, released by Lions Gate in September, 2006.
On 18 April 1975, John Lennon made his last public
appearance on ATV's special A Salute to Lew Grade. During the event Lennon
performed "Imagine" and "Slippin' and Slidin" from his Rock 'n' Roll LP. John's
bandmates, known as "Etc.", were costumed in two-faced masks during the
performance. The "two-faced" stunt, and the line "... don't want to be your fool
no more" (from "Slippin' and Slidin") were seen as digs at Grade, who Lennon and
McCartney had been in conflict with due to his previous control of The Beatles
publishing concerns. Dick James had sold the publishing to Grade from under the
group in 1969. During "Imagine" Lennon interjects the line "... and no
immigration too...", a reference to his then-unresolved battle to remain in the
United States.
In 1975, Lennon released the Rock 'n' Roll album of
cover versions of old rock and roll songs of his youth. This project was
conceived several years earlier, and moved ahead in fits and starts. It was
complicated by the unpredictable Phil Spector's involvement as producer and by
several legal battles; the result received generally negative reviews, though it
yielded a powerful, lauded cover of "Stand by Me".
House-husband
At this point Yoko Ono was pregnant with what would
be their first child, and Lennon — regretful of the limited relationship he had
with first son Julian — retired from music and dedicated himself to family life.
This was made easier in 1976 when his US immigration status was finally resolved
favourably, after a years-long battle with the Nixon administration that
included an FBI investigation involving surveillance, wiretaps, and agents
literally following Lennon around as he travelled. Lennon claimed the
investigation was politically motivated. A related film directed by David Leaf
and John Scheinfeld called The U.S. vs. John Lennon [9] premieres in September
2006.
Also in 1975, David Bowie achieved his first US
number one hit with "Fame", co-written by Bowie, Lennon (who also contributed
backing vocals and guitar) and Carlos Alomar.
Starting over
Lennon's retirement, which he began following the
birth of his second son, Sean in 1975, lasted until 1980, when Lennon wrote an
impressive amount of material during a lengthy Bermuda vacation and began
thinking about a new album. For this comeback, he and Ono produced Double
Fantasy, a concept album dealing with their relationship. The name came from a
flower Lennon saw at the Bermuda Botanical Gardens; he liked the name, and
thought it was a perfect description of his marriage to Yoko. The plant still
exists.
The Lennons once again began a series of interviews
and video footage to promote the album. Although Lennon would say in interviews
for the album that he had not touched a guitar for five years, several of the
tunes, such as "I'm Losing You," and "Watching the Wheels", had been worked on
at home in the Dakota in various stages with different lyrics from 1977 onward.
"(Just Like) Starting Over" began climbing the singles charts, and Lennon
started thinking about a brand new world tour. Lennon also commenced work on
Milk and Honey which he would leave unfinished. It was some time before Ono
could bring herself to complete it.
Towards the end of his life, Lennon expressed his
displeasure with the scant credit he was given as an influence on George
Harrison in the latter's autobiography I Me Mine. According to Ono, he was also
unhappy that Paul McCartney's Beatles songs, such as "Yesterday", "Hey Jude" and
"Let It Be" were more covered than his own contributions. In a Playboy interview
Lennon claimed that some of his Beatles songs were subconsciously sabotaged, and
that the group put more work and attention into McCartney's songs, whereas with
his, they tended to experiment. At the end of his life Lennon was highly
ambivalent about his time with The Beatles and the group's legacy, often
comparing them to his old high school buddies. In the same interview, he would
say they were probably the best band ever and that he found fault with every
track they ever did.
In one of the last interviews in his life,
published in Playboy immediately before his death, Lennon was asked if he was
friends or enemies with the other Beatles, and he said he was neither and they
simply did not encounter each other much. He also said the last time he had
gotten together with Paul they watched the episode of Saturday Night Live where
Lorne Michaels made his (small) cash offer to get The Beatles to reunite on the
show. The two had seriously considered running down to the studio to appear on
the show, but ultimately they were too tired.
Murder
At 10:50 p.m. on 8 December 1980, Mark David
Chapman shot and fatally wounded John Lennon in front of Lennon's residence, the
Dakota, when Lennon and Ono returned from recording Ono's single "Walking on
Thin Ice" for their next album.
Earlier that day at around 5 p.m., Lennon and Ono
left their apartment in the historic Dakota on Central Park West in New York
City to go to their recording studio to supervise the transfer of some of the
Double Fantasy album numbers to singles. David Geffen, their record producer and
friend, said that more than 700,000 album copies had already been sold up to
that time.
As they were leaving the Dakota, they were
approached by several people who were seeking autographs. Among them was a man
who would be later identified as Mark David Chapman. John Lennon scribbled an
autograph on the Double Fantasy album cover for Chapman.
The Lennons spent several hours at the studio on
West 44th Street — returning to the Dakota at about 10:50 p.m. They exited their
limousine on the 72nd Street curb even though a car could have driven through
the entrance and into the courtyard.
Three witnesses (a doorman at the entrance, an
elevator operator, and a cab driver who had just dropped off a passenger) saw
Chapman standing in the shadows by the arch.
The Lennons walked by, and after Ono had opened the
inner door and had walked inside — when Lennon was the only person inside the
entrance archway — Chapman called out, "Mr. Lennon." Then he dropped into "a
combat stance" and shot Lennon four times with hollow point rounds from a
Charter Arms .38 revolver. According to the autopsy, two shots struck Lennon in
the left side of his back and two in his left shoulder. All four caused serious
internal damage and bleeding. The fatal shot pierced Lennon's aorta. There is a
rumor that a Thompson SMG was used and not a .38.
According to police, Lennon staggered up six steps
to the room at the end of the entrance used by the concierge, said, "I'm shot,"
and then collapsed. After shooting Lennon, Chapman calmly sat down on the
sidewalk and waited. The doorman walked to Chapman and reportedly said, "Do you
know what you've just done?" Chapman replied, in a matter-of-fact tone, "I just
shot John Lennon."
The first policemen at the scene were Officers
Steve Spiro and Peter Cullen, who were in the patrol car at 72nd Street and
Broadway when they heard a report of shots fired at the Dakota. The officers
found Chapman sitting "very calmly" on the sidewalk. They reported that Chapman
had dropped the revolver after firing it, and that he had a paperback book, J.D.
Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and a cassette recorder with over 10 audio
cassettes, which had 14 hours of Beatles songs on them.
The second police team at the Dakota — Officers
Bill Gamble and James Moran — rushed Lennon to Roosevelt Hospital. Officer Moran
said they stretched Lennon out on the back seat and that the singer was
"moaning." Moran asked, "Do you know who you are?" Lennon nodded slightly and
tried to speak, but could only manage to make a gurgling sound. Lennon lost
consciousness shortly after.
John Lennon, at the age of forty, was pronounced
dead on arrival at Roosevelt Hospital at approximately 11:15 p.m. by Dr. Stephen
Lynn. The cause of death was reported as hypovolemic shock, as a result of
losing more than 80% of his blood volume. Dr. Elliott M. Gross — the Chief
Medical Examiner — said after the autopsy that no-one could have lived more than
a few minutes with such injuries. The use of hollow point bullets allowed for
substantial internal bleeding. Chapman's killing of Lennon was intended to be
merciless.
Yoko Ono, crying "Tell me it's not true", was taken
to Roosevelt Hospital and led away in shock after she learned that her husband
was dead. Geffen later issued a statement in her behalf: "John loved and prayed
for the human race. Please do the same for him."
Within the first minutes after the news broadcasts
announcing the shooting, people began to gather at Roosevelt Hospital and in
front of the Dakota, reciting prayers, singing Lennon's songs and burning
candles.
The first national transmission of the news across
the USA was on the fledgling Cable News Network, on which anchorwoman Kathleen
Sullivan reported that Lennon had been shot and was en route to a New York
hospital (his death had not yet been confirmed).
When Lennon was shot, the ABC television network
was in the midst of airing an NFL game between the Miami Dolphins and New
England Patriots on Monday Night Football. After having the news fed directly to
his headset by ABC News chief Roone Arledge, legendary football announcer Howard
Cosell (who had interviewed Lennon on MNF on December 9, 1974) announced the
news of the murder:
"This, we have to say it, is just a football game,
no matter who wins or loses. An unspeakable tragedy, confirmed to us by ABC News
in New York City. John Lennon, outside of his apartment building on the West
Side of New York City, the most famous perhaps of all of The Beatles, shot twice
in the back, rushed to Roosevelt Hospital, dead on arrival."
The news was broken on competing network NBC in a
traditional manner: a comedy piece on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
was interrupted by an anonymous announcer voicing the news bulletin over a text
slide visual, then returning, in what had to seem surreal to viewers, to the
Carson sketch that had been interrupted.
When reporters questioned Paul McCartney on how he
felt about his friend's death, McCartney, who had been caught off guard,
muttered "Drag, isn't it?" This seemingly glib response was criticised at the
time, though McCartney was clearly shaken, and later stated in a Playboy
interview that "I had just finished a whole day in shock and I said, 'It's a
drag.' I meant drag in the heaviest sense of the word, you know: 'It's a —
DRAG.' But, you know, when you look at that in print, it says, 'Yes, it's a
drag.' Matter of fact." George Harrison prepared a more comprehensive press
release and re-wrote the song "All Those Years Ago" for Lennon. Ringo Starr and
his wife flew to New York to comfort Ono.
On 14 December 1980, all around the world, people
paused to stand alone or come together in silence, heeding a plea from Yoko Ono
that they take 10 minutes to remember the former Beatle.
"Lennon had a macabre sense of humour about dying
in a plane crash. "We'll either go in a plane crash or we'll be popped off by
some loony.'"[2] Several 1960s Beatles concerts in the United States and Canada
did have strengthened security because of threats against the individual lives
of the group members, and Starr himself claims to have performed at a Montreal
concert with his cymbals positioned so as to block his view from the audience.
In retrospect, although Lennon might have meant it as a joke and did not expect
it to happen, the comment turned out to be chillingly accurate. Another comment
was made in his last interview (recorded on the morning of his death), where he
mentioned that he often felt that somebody was stalking him (although he was
referring to federal agents in the 1970s who had tried to deport him).
Lennon was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in
Hartsdale, New York, and his ashes were kept by Yoko Ono.
Chapman pleaded guilty to second degree murder and
was sentenced to 20 years to life. He has been denied parole several times and
remains incarcerated at Attica Correctional Facility.
Memorials and tributes
A much-missed figure, Lennon has been the subject
of numerous memorials and tributes, principally the Strawberry Fields Memorial,
constructed in Central Park across the street from the Dakota building. In 2002,
Liverpool also renamed its airport the Liverpool John Lennon Airport, and
adopted the motto "Above us only sky".
Every December 8 - the anniversary of his death -
there is a memorial in front of Capitol Records on Vine Street in Hollywood,
California. It includes speakers discussing Lennon, musical tributes, and group
singing.
The 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death on
December 8, 2005, was a particularly emotional milestone for Beatles and Lennon
fans. Celebrations of John Lennon's life and music occurred in London, New York
City, Cleveland, and Seattle. A tribute concert took place at John Lennon Park
at Havana, Cuba, with a special guest appareance by Kents, Luis Molina and
X-Alfonso.
Literature
Numerous biographies of John Lennon have been
published. Notable are Lennon: The Definitive Biography by Ray Coleman and the
relentlessly hostile and unreliable The Lives of John Lennon by Albert Goldman.
John Lennon wrote three books himself: John Lennon:
In His Own Write, A Spaniard in the Works, and Skywriting by Word of Mouth (the
last published posthumously). A personal sketchbook with Lennon's familiar
cartoons illustrating definitions of Japanese words, Ai: Japan Through John
Lennon's Eyes, was published posthumously.
Julia Baird (with Geoffrey Giuliano), John Lennon
My Brother— 1989, Grafton Books. ISBN 0-586-20566-7
Fenton Bresler, The Murder of John Lennon — 1989,
Mandarin, ISBN 0-7493-0357-3)
Ray Coleman, Lennon: the definitive biography,
1992, Harper
E. Thomson and D. Gutman (editors), The Lennon
Companion: Twenty-Five Years of the Comment — 2004, ISBN 0-333-43965-5
Albert Goldman, The Lives of John Lennon — 2001,
Chicago, ISBN 1-55652-399-8
Larry Kane, Lennon Revealed — 2005, Running Press,
ISBN 0-7624-2364-1
Cynthia Lennon, John — 2005, Crown Publishers, ISBN
030733855
Elizabeth Partridge, John Lennon: All I Want is the
Truth — 2005, Viking Juvenile, ISBN 0-670-05954-4
Steven Roseta, (Just Like) Starting Over — A 2006,
stage play, largely based on an unpublished John Lennon and Yoko Ono interview
from 8 December 1980.
Jon Wiener, Come Together: John Lennon In His Time,
1985, Random House
Jon Wiener, Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI
Files, 2000, Univ. of California
****
Notes
1 Lennon: The Definitive Biography; Ray Coleman;
Pan Publishing; 1984; p559
2 Coleman, Ray; Lennon: The Definitive Biography,
1992, Harper
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