Singer, songwriter, co-founded the Beatles; from
Liverpool. The murder of John Lennon, who in so many ways represented the heart
and soul not just of the Beatles but of all '60s rock'n'roll, was perhaps the
most emotionally felt of all rock deaths. Certainly there was an equal
outpouring of emotion for Elvis Presley, and perhaps as much in some quarters
for Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin. But John Lennon's death was
more stunning than any of them. He was just emerging from a long period of
silence with a vigor as surprising as it was refreshing, and he seemed in
command of his powers as never before, at a time when rock'n'roll and the world
desperately needed his voice. It was the time immediately following the first
landslide election of Ronald Reagan, a discouraging prospect to so many who had
embraced all that Lennon seemed to stand for and believe in. If the two events
were unrelated, and clearly they were, they are indelibly linked on an emotional
level. Not only had Ronald Reagan been elected president, with all his cold,
brutal values coming to ascendance -- but the one rock star who seemed the
warmest and most human (much of that merely public image, as it turned out) had
been summarily slain a month later. Asked about Lennon's death within days of
its happening, Ronald Reagan cupped a hand to an ear and then shrugged and
grinned, saying something affably inaudible toward the crowd of reporters. He
obviously didn't care.
But don't get mixed up about John Lennon. His true genius, which he practiced
all his life, was to make people love him. As a human being, he was seriously
troubled, the result of a lifetime of festering pain. Separated from his parents
as an infant (his father went off to sea and his mother on to good times, the
next relationship, and eventually an early death), he was raised by his aunt,
Mimi Smith, in a middle-class British setting. He was a behavior problem all
through school, but early on found something like salvation, or at least balm,
in U.S. rock'n'roll, which he loved. He formed his first band at age sixteen.
Paul McCartney attended a performance in 1957 and shortly afterward became a
member. McCartney's musical skills impressed Lennon -- and Lennon's savvy
impressed McCartney. Soon they had agreed that everything written by either
would from that point on be credited to "Lennon-McCartney," a promise
they kept for nearly fifteen years. George Harrison eventually joined and,
later, Pete Best, who was replaced on the brink of the group's breakthrough by
Ringo Starr. Known variously as the Quarry Men, Johnny & the Moondogs, and
the Silver Beatles, they finally settled on the name the Beatles, after the
Crickets, whom they idolized, with Lennon misspelling it to make the pun on
"beat group." In 1960, a four-month stint in Hamburg, Germany, playing
some eight hours a night, helped them get their impressive performing act
together and provided the physical endurance training they needed to survive
Beatlemania when it hit. The last pieces to fall in place were a manager and a
record deal, both of which had happened by mid-1962. Lennon, who had been deeply
involved with Cynthia Powell since 1957, married her in 1962 when she became
pregnant with Julian. The Beatles' enormous success, which followed almost
immediately, was overwhelming beyond belief. As mere mortals, we can only try to
imagine what it was like to be a Beatle between 1964 and 1970. Lennon on
touring: "Oh, it was a room and a car and a car and a room and a room and a
car." Fast-forward to Lennon in a 1966 interview with British journalist
Maureen Cleave: "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't
argue that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus
now." He was to pay dearly for those remarks, which raised a stink some six
months later in the U.S. and earned him and the group lasting enmity from many.
The Beatles retired from the road shortly after that, at the end of 1966 -- in
hindsight that was the beginning of the end. In November of 1966 Lennon met Yoko
Ono at a gallery opening; almost immediately they hit it off, and she pursued
him. But Lennon was not available yet. He was still married, and he was also
busy making his contributions to the vastly celebrated Sgt. Pepper. In reality
it was an album all too sorely wanting in concept and containing more filler
than the two previous outings (Revolver and Rubber Soul) combined. But still it
has somehow insinuated itself as a lasting hippie totem and a permanent symbol
of the times. Then the Beatles embarked on a very sad and a very silly time,
with LSD adventures at home, TM adventures in India, the death of Brian Epstein,
the dissolution of Lennon's marriage, and the formation of Apple. Meanwhile, as
the moral center of the U.S. dissolved the Beatles had somehow become an
integral part of it, every step of the way. No one knew quite how or why or what
it all meant, but few denied it. The White Album seemed to capture the sense of
1968. Abbey Road seemed to capture the sense of 1969. Let It Be seemed to
capture the sense of 1970. It didn't matter when any of them were really
recorded. How did they do that?
And then, finally, the group broke up. Lennon, switching his psychic allegiance
and expectations from McCartney to Yoko, was ultimately traumatized by it, as
his public statements and behavior of the time made clear. But the overall
impact of this difficult time on him nonetheless resulted in some of his most
fascinating and enduring work: 1970's John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and 1971's
Imagine, both of them startling testaments to scathing self-disclosure. Somehow,
when Lennon opened up and exposed all his running sores, everyone's first
impulse was to respond with love. There was his true genius again, the evidence
of which really became obvious after his death. Those gut-wrenching albums set
the tone for Lennon in the '70s, a decade that was not good to him despite the
stories that claimed otherwise. He spent the first half fighting the U.S.
Immigration Department for his green card, drinking heavily, and yawping
non-stop for peace (for which we almost have to assume that Lennon, an unusually
violent man in his personal life, was driven by his overwhelming need for the
"of mind"- type even more than the end to armed conflict, despite his
overt, conscious focus on war; he doubtless understood the interconnectedness
therein at some level, or so we may hope). He spent the second half in seclusion
after the birth of his son Sean. Reports conflict on his activities then, some
claiming that he baked approximately as many loaves of bread as Jesus
distributed with the fishes in the miracle described in the Bible, others
reporting a series of ugly psychotic episodes. The ("just gimme some")
truth is no doubt somewhere in between, and we will likely never know it. Yoko,
at any rate, was in charge of their financial affairs, and Lennon was mostly on
sabbatical from life. Then a sudden creative fit in 1980 resulted in the
material for Double Fantasy. The album came together extraordinarily quickly and
was released in November. Still in a creative frenzy, the couple were already at
work on their next project when, coming home late from a session, Lennon was
hailed by a man to whom he'd given an autograph earlier that day, M*** D****
C******. Lennon turned and C****** shot him five times with a .38 revolver.
Lennon was rushed to the hospital but pronounced dead on arrival from a massive
loss of blood. C****** later claimed it was Lennon's remarks in 1966 on Jesus
that drove him to his act, but more likely he was just a idiot in search of
fame. He found it. (taken from the Rock Obituary site)
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