John Lennon

Template:Infobox musical artist 2 John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE (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 songwriting partnership Lennon-McCartney throughout the 1960s.

Lennon's songwriting was an integral part of The Beatles' profound commercial and critical impact. His melodies, written during the Lennon-McCartney era, and later, in his solo career, are distinctive and unashamedly romantic. 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.

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 in December 1980.

In 2002, the BBC polled the British public about the 100 Greatest Britons of all time. Respondents voted Lennon into eighth place.

Youth

John Lennon was born John Winston Lennon in Liverpool. 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) decided that her sister could provide a better family setting, and so gave him to her sister Mimi. 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 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 skeptical about a lot of things, including his claim that one day he would be famous. She is suposed to have once said "That guitar is okay but you'll never make a living with it".

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" (a tribute to Buddy Holly's Crickets), which was later shortened to The Beatles. He married Powell in 1962, after she became pregnant with Julian, whose birth name was John Charles Julian Lennon.

Role in The Beatles

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John Lennon in 1964.

Lennon always believed that he was the leader of The Beatles. "Johnny and the Moondogs" is one example, as was "Long John and the Silver Beetles". He invited McCartney to join his band, and was resentful of the fact that McCartney started to take control after Epstein's death; Magical Mystery Tour. Lennon said, before McCartney joined (Anthology), "I was the singer, and the leader".

Lennon invited Stuart Sutcliffe to join the band — even though Sutcliffe was not a gifted musician — because Sutcliffe was a friend of Lennon's.

John was also the only one to break the golden rule of The Beatles, which was that if any single member objected to an idea, then it was not accepted by the band as a whole.

McCartney, in a [[ ]] interview,[1]said, "Yeah, I definitely did. 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."

When McCartney "broke-up" The Beatles, Lennon was hurt that it was not his decision, but that the break-up was finalised by McCartney. Lennon had once left The Beatles, as had the other members, but for McCartney to make it official was his main grievance.

"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.

"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 a teen magazine called Datebook reprinted part of the quote on the front cover. [2]

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, Illinois, 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[3] 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.

The Beatles then became a "studio band". Freed from the problems of having to compose music they could recreate live on stage, they could explore the technological limits of music and create unique and original sounds.

The "bigger than Jesus" controversy has been mocked several times in pop culture since its creation, notably in an episode of The Simpsons called "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" in which Homer tells the story of his failed barbershop quartet career. Bart asks if he did something stupid, like "screw up like the Beatles and say you were bigger than Jesus?" Homer replies, "Oh, all the time. It was the title of our second album!"

More recently it has been mocked on the Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert. In a parody of an exploitative pay-per-view Lennon séance, [4]Colbert talks to Lennon's "ghost".

John Lennon's Spirit: "I am bigger than Jesus."

Stephen Colbert: "Now you got into a lot of trouble the last time you said that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus."

John Lennon's Spirit: "No, not the Beatles. I am bigger than Jesus. I've met the man, and I've got to tell you, I've got at least two inches on him." [5]

Lennon could also be vicious in his replies to reporters during press conferences. Take this example from a press conference in Indianapolis during the Beatles' 1964 U.S. tour:

Reporter: "What's your excuse for that shoulder-length hair?"

Lennon: "We don't need an excuse; you need an excuse!"

Overweight reporter: "You shouldn't need 1,000 policemen to control these crowds."

Lennon: "Well, maybe you wouldn't. You're fatter than we are."

Reporter: "What are you going to do when the bubble bursts?"

Lennon: "Count the money."

   Simply put, he was a communist.

Lennon and his families

It is known that 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." (It should be noted that John's actual quote had been, "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 [[ ]], 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

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John Lennon and Yoko Ono with Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, 22 December, 1969 Ottawa, Ontario

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. 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 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

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Portrait of John Lennon by Richard Avedon.

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 superior 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

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", 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."

On one occasion, when asked if Ringo Starr was "the best drummer in the world", he replied, "He isn't even the best drummer in The Beatles", showing again how he would turn things upside down to create laughter.

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", and also by taking a simple song like "Ya Ya" (written by Dorsey/Lewis/Robinson) on Walls and Bridges (with young Julian on drums) and turning the rock & roll lyrics into a simple kids' song about being on the toilet: "Sitting in the La La, waiting for the Ya Ya, uh huh".

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!

Lennon returned his M.B.E. with the quote that he was returning it because of the war in Vietnam and "because 'Cold Turkey' is slipping down the charts". To put the Vietnam war together with a chart position was a typical example of his humour.

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]

It is probably a sad fact that The Beatles broke up when the humour, and the laughter, stopped altogether. Even Lennon said, "The game is over — it's not funny anymore".

Solo career

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John Lennon, early 1970; his Beatle locks shorn — as were Yoko's — for a charity auction.

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 " ing" 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 with a long, confrontational 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-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 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 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 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 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.

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John Lennon’s 1975 performance on the TV special A Salute to Sir Lew Grade.

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 complicated by 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 , 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.

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John Lennon and Yoko Ono in one of their last s, 21 November 1980

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. The lyrics and Ono's songs, though, for the most part, were created as they stated. "(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 interview Lennon claimed that his Beatles songs were sabotaged, and that the group put more work and attention into McCartney's songs. 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 [[ ]] 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.

Entrance to the Dakota building where Lennon lived.

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 lbum 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 lbum 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 Yoko 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.

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," 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? Get out of here!"

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.

The police said that he had dropped the revolver after firing it, and that Chapman 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, took Lennon to Roosevelt Hospital. Officer Moran said they stretched Lennon out on the back seat and that the singer was "moaning." He said he asked, "Are you John Lennon?" and that Lennon had moaned, "Yeah."

Dr. Stephen Lyman of Roosevelt Hospital said Lennon was dead when the policemen arrived with him. At approximately 11:15 p.m., he was pronounced dead. 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 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.

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.

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, ABC TV channel 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 years earlier) 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, simply muttered "Drag, isn't it?" This glib response was criticised at the time, though McCartney was clearly shaken, and later stated in a 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.

When asked once in the 1960s how he expected to die, Lennon's offhand answer was "I'll probably be popped off by some loony." Several Beatles concerts in the United States and Canada in fact did see strengthened security forces 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 chillingly accurate comment was made in his last interview (recorded 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. Some believe his ashes were scattered in Strawberry Fields, a place dedicated to him in New York City.

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 Sullivan Correctional Facility.

Memorials and tributes

Main article: List of John Lennon Tributes

Strawberry Fields Memorial in Central Park, New York City.

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.

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.

Literature

Numerous biographies of John Lennon have been published. Notable are Lennon: The Definitive Biography by Ray Coleman and 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 0586205667
• Fenton Bresler, The Murder of John Lennon — 1989, Mandarin, ISBN 0749303573)
• E. Thomson and D. Gutman (editors), The Lennon Companion: Twenty-Five Years of the Comment — 2004, ISBN 0333439655
• Albert Goldman, The Lives of John Lennon — 2001, Chicago, ISBN 1556523998
• Larry Kane, Lennon Revealed — 2005, Running Press, ISBN 0762423641
• Cynthia Lennon, John — 2005, Crown Publishers, ISBN 030733855
• Elizabeth Partridge, John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth — 2005, Viking Juvenile, ISBN 0670059544
• 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.

Discography

Further information: John Lennon discography

Trivia

Main article: List of John Lennon Trivia

Documentaries and films

• The U.S. Versus John Lennon
• Imagine: John Lennon

See also

• Category:The Beatles
• The Beatles trivia

External links

• Official John Lennon website
• Official website of the "Liverpool Lennons" - John, Cynthia & Julian
• BBC Lennon Site
• John Lennon at IMDb
• John Lennon as an artist
• Ref. to deed poll name change.
• "Man of the Decade" interview transcript
• "Power to the People: The Lost John Lennon Interview" by Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn
• Radio Dial Scan of the night Lennon died
• British TV's reaction to the death of John Lennon
• The US Versus John Lennon
• John Lennon's Will, 12 November, 1979
• Roy Kerwood's Montreal Bed In Site May 1969 (Rehersal Photo above)