John Lennon; The Life, The Times And The Beatles
The Beatles to his later solo career, Lennon has inspired and amazed the world several times over with his hypnotizing lyrics and melodies. His music sounds as fresh today as it did when he first stepped onto the music scene in 1962 with The Beatles. It's this sort of influence that has propelled him into much more than super-stardom, even in death.
During the time before The Beatles, Lennon had a band called The Quarrymen, which, over the course of a few years, evolved into The Beatles. He first met Paul McCartney at the Quarrymen's second concert in 1957. During the brief encounter, John had decided to ask Paul to help him with the song writing. At first McCartney's family did not want him to hand around such an influence, however, McCartney agreed.
McCartney later convinced John to let George Harrison join The Quarrymen as a lead guitarist, Lennon thought him to be too young at the time. Stu Sutcliffe, a friend from the art-school Lennon attended, joined then as the bassist of the band. Lennon was considered the leader of the group, McCartney later revealed in an interview; "We all looked 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." And so, after a series of name changes, The Beatles were born.
Allen Williams became their first manager in 1960 after hearing them play in his Jacaranda club. A few months later he booked them with the Indra club in Hamburg, Germany. Sutcliffe, however, had already decided to leave The Beatles to focus on his art-work and to be with his girlfriend, Astrid Kirchherr. McCartney then took over the bass playing. Both McCartney and drummer Pete Best were deported from Hamburg on the grounds of arson after nailing a condom to the wall of the club and setting it ablaze. Harrison was also deported from Hamburg because of his age. To worsen it, a few days later, Lennon's work permit was dismissed and he went home via train.
After George Harrison had turned 18 and the immigration problems had been solved, The Beatles went back to Hamburg in April 1961. They recorded My Bonnie. In 1962, they went back yet again to play at the Star-Club and were informed that Sutcliffe had died all but two days before their arrival. It was a blow to Lennon, who had also recently lost both his uncle and mother. During this time, Lennon met Ringo Starr who filled in for Pete Best in 1961 at the Cavern Club. Starr later replaced their former drummer Pete Best on August 16th of 1962.
In 1961, The Beatles performed at the Cavern Club unknowingly in the presence of Brian Epstein, who was impressed with their performance. Epstein later proposed the idea becoming their manager and they agreed even though Epstein had no real prior experience of artist management. However, he had a strong influence on their early dress-code and attitude during performances. He insisted that they wear suits and ties and that they were to stop swearing, drinking, eating, and smoking onstage. He also suggested the infamous synchronized bow at the end of their shows. At first, Lennon didn't want to wear such a formal outfit, but later agreed, saying; "I'll wear a bloody balloon is some-body's going to pay me". Epstein then began auditioning the group to major record labels of the time, they were rejected by all of them. However, the persistence payed off on May 9th 1962 when George Martin signed The Beatles to EMI's comedy label; Parlophone.
On February 11th, 1963, The Beatles recorded their first album, Please Please Me in one day. The album hit number one in Britain, and EMI records offered the album to their U.S. counter-part Capital Records, but they rejected it. Epstein later secured a deal with Vee-Jay records, a primarily black R&B and Gospel label. Neither the singles off the album, or the album itself, renamed Introducing...The Beatles, was successful in the U.S. They were dropped from Vee-Jay and once again, Capitol refused to sell their records. Eventually, the album did his number one in the U.S. in January of 1964, after Capitol Records finally agreed to release a single off of the album, I Want To Hold Your Hand. After their historic performances on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Beatles set out on a two year non-stop journey of productivity; writing hit songs, never-ending international tours, and making movies.
Lennon often complained that nobody could hear them play due to all the screaming fan-girls at their shows and that their musicianship was beginning to suffer because of it. By the time the 1965 single Help! was released, Lennon had put on some weight (later referring to it as his "Fat Elvis" period) and realized that it was a subconscious cry for help and wanting change.
The incentive for such change came to him on March 4th 1966, when he was interviewed for London's Evening Standard, and talked about Christianity saying that; "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink... We're more popular than Jesus now - I don't know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity." The comment went unnoticed in England but crated a large controversy when quoted by the American teen magazine Datebook nearly five months after it had been said. The burning of Beatles records, the involvement of the Ku Klux Klan, and threats against Lennon was part of the main reason the band decided to stop touring.
Lennon stated that he felt lost without the group, "No more touring... Life without The Beatles, it's like a black space in the future". He started considering about whether or not he should want to leave the band at this point. With the band's live performance days gone past, they decided to start concentrating on studio recording and song-writing. Up to this point, Lennon had been the main songwriter, but with the album Revolver , McCartney became the "driver" of the band. Harrison had also become a proliferant song-writer. Epstein's death, which was shortly after the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band, also changed the dynamics's within the group.
McCartney composed the band's first post-Epstein project, the movie Magical Mystery Tour, which became the group's first flop. "I knew we were in trouble then", Lennon reminisced on it later. "I didn't have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music, and I was scared."
As if to only make things harder, The Beatles became, as Lennon once put it, "became businessmen" and formed their own record (and film, electronics, publishing, and clothing) company, Apple. By now, Lennon had met Yoko and was falling into his own world of drugs, McCartney had also met his future wife, Linda Eastman, and the band had come to see that they needed professional management of Apple. Lennon went to American music executive Allen Klein, despite warnings from Mick Jagger (Klein had managed The Rolling Stones), McCartney didn't like the idea either, he wished his future in-laws to take over. Starr and Harrison, however, agreed with Lennon and went with Klein. Tensions were mounting.
Lennon left the group in September 1969, after The Beatles released their final album Abby Road, but did not make an announcement while the band was renegotiating their recording contract. Instead, he became livid when McCartney issued a self question-and-answer interview in April of 1970, announcing that he was no longer a Beatle. Lennon's reaction was. "Jesus Christ! He gets all the credit for it!" Lennon would later come to tell Rolling Stone Magazine that, "I was not a fool not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record" (which would be McCartney's first solo album) and later wrote the statement of "I started the band. I finished it."
John Lennon's solo carrier was a rather fruitful one, chucking our hit songs and number one albums. After Lennon and Ono were married, they released a series of 14 Lithographs called "Bag One" about the honeymoon. Eight of the tracks were dubbed "Indecent" by the press and media, and most of them were banned and/or confiscated. The couple then went of to produce three other albums of experimental music together; Unfinished Music Number One; Two Virgins, Unfinished Music Number Two; Life with the Lions, and Wedding Album.
Lennon's first true solo album was Live Peace In Toronto - 1969 which, was recorded prior to The Beatles break-up with the Plastic Ono Band. He also came out with three solo singles, Instant Karma!, Give Peace a Chance, and Cold Turkey. The John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band was released in 1970. A raw album dealing with Lennon's emotional pain,the single "Working Man" was banned from the BBC radio for it's excessive use of the work Fu**ing.
In 1971 he released the album Imagine, the title song would later become the anthem for anti-war movements. The track "How Do You Sleep?" was released on the album, a clear musical attack on the former Beatle Paul McCartney. In the mid-70's, however, Lennon claimed he wrote the song about himself. And, once again in 1980, he re-issued the statement claiming; "I used my resentment against Paul... To create a song... Not a terrible vicious horrible vendetta... I used my resentment and withdrawing from Paul and The Beatles, and the relationship with Paul to write 'How Do You Sleep?'. I don't really go 'round with those thoughts in my head all the time."
Then, On August 31st 1971, Lennon left England for New York. He released the now worldly famous Christmas single "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)" in the December of the following year. To advertise it, he and Yoko paid billboards in 9 different major cites around the world and in all languages to declare: "WAR IS OVER!...if you want it". "Some Time in New York City" was next released in 1972. It contained songs about race relations, Britain's role in Northern Ireland, women's rights, and Lennon's own problems over obtaining his United States Green Card. The Album had been recorded with Elepahant's Memory and Lennon had donated the proceeds to the Trotskyist worker's Revolutionary Party'.
"Woman Is the Nigger of the World" was released in 1972. Most radio stations refused to play the song, however, Lennon was allowed to perform it on The Dick Cavett Show. Then, on August 30th 1972, Lennon and Elephant's memory performed two benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden in New York for the patients at the Willowbrook State School Mental Facility on Staten Island. They became Lennon's last full-length concert performances.
In the November of 1973, Lennon released Mind Games, which had been credited to The Plastic U.F.Ono Band. He also went on to write I'm the Greatest for Ringo Starr's album, Ringo. Lennon released Walls and Bridges along with the single "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night" (which was a duet with Elton John). There was a second single from the album, labeled "#9 Dream", released in December. Lennon also wrote "Goodnight Vienna" once again for Starr, and also played piano on the recording. At Elton John's Thanksgiving concert at Madison Square Garden John appeared after winning a bet that "Whatever Gets You" would reach the number one spot. Lennon performed "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night", and "I Saw Her Standing There".
In the January of 1975, John co-wrote and recorded with David Bowie and Carlos Alomar, "Fame" (featuring Lennon) became Bowie's first umber one U.S. hit. Lennon went on to release Rock 'n' Roll, an album completely composed of cover songs, in February 1975.
His last stage appearance would be on the ATV shows special called "A Salute to Lew Grade." on April 18th, 1975.
In 1977, Lennon took a break out from the music scene. He announced in Tokyo; "We have basically decided, without any great decision, to be with our baby as much as we can until we feel we can take time off to indulge ourselves in creating things outside of the family". During this time, he posthumously published a book (Skywriting by Word of Mouth) and also posthumously published a series of several drawings. He came out of his "retirement" in 1980, with the release of Double Fantasy, featuring Ono. He had wrote the songs in Bermuda the previous year. He was planning his follow-up, Milk and Honey, when he was shot.
John met his first wife, Cynthia Powell, in 1957 while attending the Liverpool College of Arts back in his "Teddy Boy" days. Although he wasn't much Cynthia's type, she admitted to being attracted to him. She even dyed her hair blond after hearing John say he had a crush on another female student who looked like Brigitte Bardot.
Eventually, Lennon asked Powell out to a pub with some friends. Once there, Powell stated she was promised to another man. Lennon left in a rage yelling; "I didn't ask you to fu**ing marry me, did I!?" He was known to be quite the jealous lover with Cynthia, once slapping her into a wall after catching her dancing with Stu Sutcliffe.
The two hooked up eventually, and in mid-1962, Cynthia discovered she was pregnant. They got married in a rush in August of 1962, there was no honey moon due to the fact that Lennon was currently on tour with The Beatles. Then, on April 8th, 1963 John-Charles Julian Lennon was born. Lennon didn't get to see his new-born son for three days, once again due to the same Beatles tour being extended.
However, the couple filed for divorce on November 8th 1968 due to John's increasing drug use and an infidelity he had with Yoko Ono, proved by her pregnancy. Cynthia got custody of Julian, £100,000, and their house.
There are two stories as to how Lennon met his second wife, Yoko Ono. The first is at an art show where she had a display that Lennon wanted to take part in (possibly in 1966) and the second is the she was going around compiling original music scores (possibly late 1965), supposedly, she asked McCartney first who told her to go ask John instead, John complied. The music compilations was for John Cage's book Notations.
John and Ono's relationship ultimately took off when he returned from India. They wrote the Two Virgins album and according to Lennon, made love at dawn. Cynthia was not yet back from her vacation to Greece. However, when she did return, she opened the door to John and Yoko having tea, Yoko was in Cynthia's bath-robe. When caught, he didn't make a scene, the simple reply was; "Oh, Hi." Cynthia later filed for divorce that year on the grounds that Lennon had committed infidelities against her, which, were later proved when Yoko Ono discovered that she was pregnant. Unfortunately, Yoko later miscarried the baby on November 21st 1968.
The press and media had deemed their relationship to be an odd one, and indeed it was. Yoko once told the media; "I used to say to him, 'I think you're a closet fag, you know?' Because after we started to live together, John would say to me, 'Do you know why I like you? Because you look like a bloke in drag.'" John often referred to Yoko as a "Magical Being" that solved all his problems. It was a mere illusion though, she often openly cheated on him with gigolos.
The couple was married in Gibraltar on March 20th, despite their weird quirks, and the honeymoon was in Amsterdam. During the last few years of The Beatles, the couple began to protest against the Vietnam War. Such protests were highlighted in their single albums. Later, after the Beatles broke up, Yoko suggested that they permanently move to New York City to leave behind the mordancy of the split. They moved to New York together in 1971, relocating within the city once due to a robbery in the apartment next door.
Sean Lennon, John's technical third son, was born of he and Yoko on his own 35th birthday, October 9th 1975. He quickly too a break from the music scene, he'd been under a label and contract since he was 22, to take time out for his son and Yoko. He wanted to be with the two as much as he could, becoming a house-hold father and husband. He later reappeared on the charts in 1980 with the release of his new album, Double Fantasy. He was shot and killed, however, before his album had become properly known.
"I'll probably be popped off by some loonie." Those were his words in an old interview with The Beatles back in the 60's. His words, though, turned out to be all but false. At 10:50pm, the night of December 8th, 1980, Lennon was shot four times in the back by Mark David Chapman out-side of his New-York apartment. Chapman, as it turns out, had not only gotten Lennon's autograph on a copy of his newly released album, Double Fantasy, earlier that day, but had also been feverishly stalking the musician since October of that year. Lennon was rushed to the nearest hospital, but sadly, was pronounced dead on arrival at 11:07pm, just one hour after the shooting. "There is not funeral for John." Yoko Ono released the press statement the next day. "John loved and prayed for the human race. Please pray the same for him. Love, Yoko and Sean."
The legacy John left behind, though, has lived on through the years; an eternal flame of sorts burning brightly to give hope to all. The influence he's had on modern music is almost unheard of, inspiring bands such as The Young Veins, Blink-182, Oasis, and even the world-renowned Jonas Brothers. His lyrics still fuel today's generation as the did back in the 60's, 70's, and early 80's; You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one. It would seem his dream is beginning to manifest itself, with the recent release of The Beatles Rock Band edging on a new age Beatles Mania thousands are discovering and rediscovering his life's amazing. bringing together the young and the old alike all around the world.
He was called a King, a Hero, and a Savior throughout his life-time. He humbly denied all claims, stating that he was "Just human". So, on this day, let's remember him as John Lennon, The Man as he would of preferred and celebrate not him, but his music.
RIP; 08/12/80
