WORKING CLASS HERO OF JOHN LENNON

BIOGRAPHY

If John Lennon had only been one of the four members of the Beatles, his artistic immortality would already have been assured. The so-called "smart Beatle," he brought a penetrating intelligence and a stinging wit both to the band's music and its self-presentation. But in such songs as "Strawberry Fields Forever," "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)," "Rain" and "In My Life," he also marshaled gorgeous melodies to evoke a sophisticated, dreamlike world-weariness well beyond his years. Such work suggested not merely a profound musical and literary sensibility - a genius, in short -- but a vision of life that was simultaneously reflective, utopian and poignantly realistic.

While in the Beatles, Lennon displayed an outspokenness that immersed the band in controversy and helped redefine the rules of acceptable behavior for rock stars. He famously remarked in 1965 that the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus" - a statement that was more an observation than a boast, but that resulted in the band's records being burned and removed from radio station playlists in the U.S. He criticized America's involvement in Vietnam, and, as the Sixties progressed, he became an increasingly important symbol of the burgeoning counterculture.

But it was only after the breakup of the Beatles in 1970 that the figure the world now recognizes as "John Lennon" truly came into being. Whether he was engaging in social activism; giving long, passionate interviews that, once again, broadened the nature of public discourse for artists; defining a new life as a self-described "househusband;" or writing and recording songs, Lennon came to view his life as a work of art in which every act shimmered with potential meaning for the world at large. It was a Messianic attitude, to be sure, but one that was tempered by an innate inclusiveness and generosity. If he saw himself as larger than life, he also yearned for a world in which his ego managed at once to absorb everyone else and dissolve all differences among people, leaving a Zen-like tranquility and calm. "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one," he sang in "Imagine," which has become his best-known song and an international anthem of peace. "I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one."

Such imagery, coupled with the tragedy of his murder in 1980, has often led to Lennon's being sentimentalized as a gentle prince of peace gazing off into the distance at an Eden only he could see. In fact, he was a far more complex and difficult person, which, in part, accounts for the world's endless fascination with him. Plastic Ono Band (1970), the first solo album he made after leaving the Beatles, alternates songs that are so emotionally raw that to this day they are difficult to listen to with songs of extraordinary beauty and simplicity. Gripped by his immersion in primal-scream therapy, which encouraged its practitioners to re-experience their most profound psychic injuries, Lennon sought in such songs as "Mother" and "God" to confront and strip away the traumas that had afflicted his life since childhood.

And those traumas were considerable. Lennon's mother, Julia, drifted in and out of his life during his childhood in Liverpool - he was raised by Julia's sister Mimi and Mimi's husband, George - and then died in a car accident when Lennon was seventeen. His father was similarly absent, essentially walking out on the family when John was an infant. He disappeared for good when Lennon was five, only to return after his son had become famous as a member of the Beatles. Consequently, Lennon struggled with fears of abandonment his entire life. When he repeatedly cries, "Mama, don't go/Daddy come home," in "Mother," it's less a performance than a scarifying brand of therapeutic performance art. And in that regard, as well as many others, it revealed the influence of Yoko Ono, whom Lennon had married in 1969, leaving his first wife, Cynthia, and their son Julian in order to do so.

The minimalist sound of Plastic Ono Band was significant too. Lennon had come to associate the elaborate musical arrangements of much of the Beatles' later work with Paul McCartney and George Martin, and he consciously set out to purge those elements from his own work. Co-producing with Ono and the legendary Phil Spector, he built a sonic environment that could not have been more basic - guitar, bass, drums, the occasional piano -- whatever was essential and absolutely nothing more. Lyrically, he turned away from the psychedelic flights and Joycean wordplay of such songs as "I Am the Walrus" and "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" - as well as his books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works -- and toward a style in which unadorned, elemental speech gathered poetic force through its very directness.

On his next album, Imagine (1971), Lennon felt confident enough to reintroduce some melodic elements reminiscent of the Beatles into his songs. Working again with Ono and Spector, he retains the eloquent plainspokenness of Plastic Ono Band, but allows textural elements such as strings, to create more of a sense of beauty. The album's title track alone ensured its historical importance; it is a call to idealism that has provided solace and inspiration at every moment of social and humanitarian crisis since it was written.

From there Lennon turned to a style that was a sort of journalistic agit-prop. Sometime In New York City (1972) is as outward-looking and blunt as Imagine was, for the most part, soft-focused and otherworldly. As its title suggests, the album reflects Lennon's immersion in the drama and noise of the city to which he had moved with Yoko Ono. And as its cover art suggests, the album is something like a newspaper - a report from the radical frontlines on the political upheavals of the day. His activism would create enormous problems for Lennon, however. The Nixon administration, paranoid about the possibility that a former Beatle might become a potent leader and recruiting tool of the anti-war movement, attempted to have Lennon deported. Years of legal battles ensued before Lennon finally was awarded his green card in 1976.

Lennon's political struggles unfortunately found their match in his personal life. He and Ono split up in the fall of 1973, shortly before the release of his album, Mind Games. He moved to Los Angeles and later described the eighteen months he spent separated from Ono as his "lost weekend," a period of wild indulgence and artistic drift. Like Mind Games, the albums he made during this period, Walls and Bridges (1974) and Rock N Roll (1975), are the expressions of a major artist seeking, with mixed results, to recover his voice. None of them lack charm, and their high points include the lovely title track of Mind Games; Walls and Bridges' "Whatever Gets You Through the Night," a rollicking duet with Elton John that gave Lennon his first number-one single as a solo artist; and the sweet nostalgia of Rock N Roll, a covers album that was Lennon's tribute to the musical pioneers of his youth. But none of those albums rank among his greatest work.

In 1975, Lennon reunited with Ono, and their son Sean was born later that year. For the next five years, Lennon withdrew from public life, and his family became his focus. Then, in 1980, he and Ono returned to the studio to work on Double Fantasy, a hymn to their life together with Sean. The couple was plotting a full-fledged comeback - doing major interviews to support the album's release, recording new songs for a follow-up, planning a tour. Then, shockingly, Lennon was shot to death outside the apartment building where he and Ono lived on the night of December 8, 1980.

Lennon's death broke hearts around the world. In the U.S., it recalled nothing so much as the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, an event for which, ironically, the arrival of the Beatles a few months later had provided a welcome tonic. In the twenty-five years since, Lennon's influence and symbolic importance have only grown. His music, of course, will live forever. But he has survived primarily as a restless voice of change and independent thought. He is an enemy of the status quo, a bundle of contradictions who insisted on a world in which all the various elements of his personality could find free, untrammeled expression. Innumerable times since his death Lennon has been sorely missed. And just as many times and more he has been present - evoked by all of us who find ourselves and each other in the music he made and the vision that he articulated and tried to make real.

-- Anthony DeCurtis

 

History

October 9, 1940 - As sirens wailed during a German Luftwaffe attack, John Lennon is born at Oxford Street Maternity Hospital in Liverpool, England to Julia Stanley and Alfred Lennon.

1956 - John's mother buys him a guitar. He forms his first group, the Quarrymen, with pals Pete Shotton, Nigel Whalley, and Ivan Vaughan.

July 6, 1957 - John meets Paul McCartney at the Woolton Parish Church in Liverpool during a performance by the Quarrymen.

1958 - John writes his first song, "Hello Little Girl," which is later recorded by the Beatles at their 1962 audition for Decca Records.

July 15, 1958 - John's mother is killed while crossing the road by an off-duty policeman.

1960 - In his final year of art school in Liverpool, John forms a group with Paul, George, and Stu Sutcliffe.

August 1960 - Pete Best joins The Silver Beetles as drummer for their six week residency at a strip bar in Hamburg. Stu eventually leaves the group, and Paul takes over on bass.

January 1961 - The Beatles debut at the Cavern Club, Liverpool.

January 24, 1962 - The Beatles agree verbally to be managed by Brian Epstein

June 4, 1962 - George Martin signs The Beatles to Parlophone EMI.

August 23, 1962 - John marries Cynthia Powell as news hits the press that Brian Epstein has fired Pete Best.

February 1963 - The Beatles begin their first U.K. tour. They take one night off to record the album Please Please Me in one session.

April 8, 1963 - John Charles Julian Lennon is born to Cynthia and John at Sefton General Hospital, in Liverpool.

August 3, 1963 - After almost three hundred performances at the venue, The Beatles play their farewell show at the Cavern Club.

February 7, 1964 - The Beatles embark on their first US tour.

February 9 and 16, 1964 - The Beatles headline twice on the "Ed Sullivan Show."

March 1964 - With "Can't Buy Me Love" topping the charts both in Britain and America, shooting begins on the Beatles' first feature film, A Hard Day's Night.

April 1964 - John's first book of stories and poems, In His Own Write, is published.

August 1964 - After touring Austrailia, The Beatles visit the U.S. for a 32-day tour. Bob Dylan introduces them to marijuana.

January 1965 - John composes "Help!"

Spring 1965 - A friend of George Harrison's secretly spikes coffee with LSD, sending John, his wife Cynthia, George, and Patti Boyd on their first LSD trip.

June 1965 - John's second book, A Spaniard In The Works, is published.

July 29, 1965 - Help! premieres in London's West End.

August 1965 - The Beatles visit Elvis Presley at his home. Elvis refers to each of them as "Beatle," not knowing their individual names.

December 3, 1965 - Rubber Soul is released.

June 20, 1966 - The American album Yesterday and Today is released with the infamous "butcher cover." It was later recalled after complaints.

August 5, 1966 - Revolver is released.

August 29, 1966 - After major difficulties on the road, including death threats, The Beatles perform their final concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. They are now solely a studio group.

November 1966 - Yoko Ono and John Lennon meet at Indica Gallery in London.

February 1967 - John and Paul receive the Song of the Year Grammy� Award for "Michelle."

June 1, 1967 - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is released.

September 1967 - John writes "I Am the Walrus."

November 27, 1967 - Magical Mystery Tour is released in America.

February 1968 - George convinces The Beatles to visit the Maharashi in India.

August 22, 1968 - Cynthia files for divorce. Paul soon writes "Hey Jude" to comfort Julian.

November 11, 1968 - John and Yoko's first of three experimental albums is released. The cover of Two Virgins is a photograph of the couple standing naked.

November 22, 1968 - The Beatles [The White Album] is released.

January 13, 1969 - Yellow Submarine is released.

January 30, 1969 - The Beatles perform together as a group for the final time on the roof of the Apple building, during the filming of Let It Be.

March 20, 1969 - John and Yoko marry in Gibraltar.

May 26, 1969 - Life with the Lions, the second experimental collaboration between John and Yoko, is released.

September 1969 - Lennon releases the single "Cold Turkey," about his heroin withdrawl.

September 26, 1969 - Abbey Road is released.

October 20, 1969 - Wedding Album is released.

December 12, 1969 - Lennon's impromptu concert in Toronto with Eric Clapton assisting on guitar is released as Live Peace in Toronto, 1969.

December 11, 1970 - Plastic Ono Band is released.

May 8, 1970 - Let It Be is released.

September 3, 1971 - John leaves the U.K. for New York, never to return.

September 9, 1971 - The album Imagine is released.

June 12, 1972 - John and Yoko release the more mainstream Sometime in New York City/Live Jam.

October 1973 - John travels to Los Angeles, later calling his eighteen-month separation from Yoko his "lost weekend."

November 2, 1973 - John releases the album Mind Games.

September 26, 1974 - Sessions from the "lost weekend" are released as Walls and Bridges.

February 17, 1975 - Rock 'N' Roll is released.

October 5, 1975 - U.S. Court of Appeal overturns John's deportation order, granting him residency.

October 9, 1975 - Sean Taro Ono Lennon is born at New York Hospital on John's thirty-fifth birthday.

November 17, 1980 - The Double Fantasy album is released.

December 8, 1980 - Returning home from the studio, John Lennon is assassinated while walking toward the entryway of his building.

The Murder of John Lennon: Mark David Chapman's Statement

Then this morning I went to the bookstore and bought The Catcher in the Rye. I'm sure the large part of me is Holden Caulfield, who is the main person in the book. The small part of me must be the Devil.

I went to the building. It's called the Dakota. I stayed there until he came out and asked him to sign my album. At that point my big part won and I wanted to go back to my hotel, but I couldn't. I waited until he came back. He came in a car. Yoko walked past first and I said hello, I didn't want to hurt her.

John Lennon

Then John came and looked at me and printed me. I took the gun from my coat pocket and fired at him. I can't believe I could do that. I just stood there clutching the book. I didn't want to run away. I don't know what happened to the gun. I remember Jose kicking it away. Jose was crying and telling me to please leave. I felt so sorry for Jose. Then the police came and told me to put my hands on the wall and cuffed me.

— Statement of Mark David Chapman to police at 1 a.m., Dec. 9, 1980, three hours after the murder of John Lennon.

And I will not appeal any decision you have. If it's a decision to keep me here in the prison, I will not appeal it, and I never will. I'd like the opportunity to apologize to Mrs. Lennon. I've thought about what it's like in her mind to be there that night, to see the blood, to hear the screams, to be up all night with the Beatle music playing through her apartment window.

And there's something else I want to say. I feel that I see John Lennon now not as a celebrity. I did then. I saw him as a cardboard cutout on an album cover. I was very young and stupid, and you get caught up in the media and the records and the music. And now I I've come to grips with the fact that John Lennon was a person. This has nothing to do with being a Beatle or a celebrity or famous. He was breathing, and I knocked him right off his feet, and I don't feel because of that I have any right to be standing on my feet here, you know, asking for anything. I don't have a leg to stand on because I took his right out from under him, and he bled to death. And I'm sorry that ever occurred.

And I want to talk about Mrs. Lennon again. I can't imagine her pain. I can't feel it. I've tried to think about what it would be like if somebody harmed my family, and there's just no way to make up for that, and if I have to stay in prison the rest of my life for that one person's pain, everybody else to the side for a second, just that one person's pain, I will.

Again, I'm not saying these things for for you to give me any kind of consideration for letting me go. I'm saying that because they are real, and it happened to me, and I felt her pain then, and I can honestly say I didn't want to feel it up until then. It's a horrible thing to, you know, realize what you've done.}