The Troubled Beatle - John Lennon Biography, history of John Lennon ,
John Lennon Biography
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Early Life
With bombs falling around the hospital, JohnLennon was born on October 9th, 1940, in the midst of World War II. His mother Julia gave him the middle name‘Winston’ in honor of Britain’s leader at the time. His father, Alfred, was a merchant marineand was absent at John’s birth, as he would be for much of John’s childhood. Lennon’s childhood was unsettled, with anabsent father and a mother who simply couldn’t handle motherhood... After the age of four, Lennon didn’t evenlive with his mother, instead living with his childless Uncle George and Aunt Mimi. The two were a stern, but loving influenceon Lennon throughout his childhood, though Mimi did what she could to discourage Lennon’slove of music. It was she who famously told him “The guitar’sall very well, John, but you’ll never make a living out of it.” Lennon’s mother was more supportive of hismusical interest, in fact, it was Julia who bought the guitar for him.Though Lennon didn’t live with his mother,he remained close to her, regularly visiting her house where the two would listen to Elvisrecords and pluck chords on the banjo, ukelele, and guitar. Julia was also a frequent visitor at her sister’shouse, where she spent mornings drinking tea with Mimi and chatting with her son. After one of these tranquil visits, tragedystruck. As Julia crossed the street to head home oneday, she was struck and killed by a passing car. John was sixteen years old when his motherdied, and he carried the weight of the tragedy with him for the rest of his life... At the time Julia died, Lennon was alreadyhaving trouble in school. He was smart, no doubt about that, but hiswit and attitude got him into trouble with teachers. He created comics of teachers and fellow studentsin a work he titled “The Daily Howl,” and detention sheets from Quarry Bank HighSchool show that Lennon once received three detentions in one day, with offenses overthe years ranging from fighting in class, to sabotage, to “just no interest whatsoever.” While he was goofing off in school, Lennonwas paying close attention to his music. He was playing in a band called the Quarry Men -
it was one of this band's gigs that would ultimately lead to the formation ofThe Beatles.. On July 6th, 1957, the Quarry Men played theWoolton village fete and one of Lennon’s bandmates decided Lennon should be introducedto a friend of his. And who was that friend? Well, you might have heard of him - that wouldbe Paul McCartney.
That day, McCartney, who was two years John’sjunior, taught Lennon how to tune a guitar and impressed him with a rendition of thesong Twenty Flight Rock. The atmosphere of the day stuck with Paul,even if the exact year didn’t: “At Woolton village fete I met him. I was a fat schoolboy and, as he leaned anarm on my shoulder, I realised he was drunk. We were twelve then, but, in spite of hissideboards [sideburns], we went on to become teenage pals.” It was only two weeks before Paul was askedto join the Quarrymen, and he agreed. Shortly thereafter, Paul introduced John andthe other band members to his friend George Harrison. It was 1958, and three of the four Beatleshad found each other. But music couldn’t be John’s only focus. Though he had failed his exams upon leavinghigh school, Lennon’s aunt and former headmaster pulled strings and persuaded the LiverpoolCollege of Art to accept the rambunctious teen who did show incredible promise in thearts. Lennon started attending the Liverpool Collegeof Art in the fall of 1957. He didn’t fare much better at the art schoolthan he had in a traditional school, though he did meet his first wife Cynthia Powell. Lennon never had the right equipment for hisclasses, and was always borrowing Powell’s tools. It was also up to Powell to help Lennon onhis exams, though he ultimately failed them anyway... For all the help she gave him, Lennon wasnot a kind and loving boyfriend to Powell. In fact, he could be downright abusive, evenacknowledging as much by later, saying: “I was in sort of a blind rage for two years. I was either drunk or fighting.
It had been the same with other girlfriendsI'd had. There was something the matter with me." The relationship lasted, though, and in 1962Powell discovered she was pregnant with Lennon’s child. In keeping with the expectations of the time,the two were married in a simple civil ceremony in Liverpool. Lennon’s music career had already takenpriority over all else, and they skipped a honeymoon so he could play a gig the nightof their wedding. Cynthia gave birth to Julian Lennon in 1963,and with the Beatles’ star on the rise in Liverpool, John didn’t pay much attentionto his son. In fact, his relationship with his son wasno better than it was with his wife, something Julian publicly and angrily spoke about asan adult. "Dad could talk about peace and love out loudto the world but he could never show it to the people who supposedly meant the most tohim: his wife and son. How can you talk about peace and love andhave a family in bits and pieces—no communication, adultery, divorce?” John was the only married Beatle, and theonly one with a child, and the group’s manager tried to keep this information about Lennonunder wraps as he marketed the group. Girls wanted their pop stars to be singleand cute - not married. Beatles Years The Beatles’ rise to fame began at the CavernClub, but it was interspersed with performances in Germany.
Along with Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison,bandmates Stu Sutcliffe and Pete Best made up the band’s lineup for their infamousstays in Hamburg, Germany at the Kaiserkellar club. The boys, no more than 22, and George only17, lived in horrid conditions and survived on pills and alcohol during their stay. But the audiences loved them, especially Lennon’sonstage antics. One night he was supposed to be onstage, butinstead was fooling around with a woman and the two only broke up when the club’s bouncerdumped cold water on them. Instead of getting dressed to go onstage,Lennon grabbed his guitar and joined his bandmates only wearing underwear and a toilet seat aroundhis neck. When the Beatles returned to Liverpool andresumed playing at the Cavern Club, they caught the attention of a young record store ownerin the area. Familiar with the group from their visitsto his store, Brian Epstein went to one of their performances, saw their potential, andsigned on as their manager. He got them a record contract and was by theirside until his death in 1967. Epstein was gay, and homosexuality was stillillegal in England during the 1960s. Over the years, rumors have persisted thatLennon and Epstein had an affair, largely stemming from a vacation the two took togetherto Spain in 1963 - mere weeks after his son was born. Lennon denied the rumors, saying: “I was on holiday with Brian Epstein inSpain, where the rumours went around that he and I were having a love affair.
Well, it was almost a love affair, but notquite. It was never consummated. But it was a pretty intense relationship.” By early 1964, the Beatles were hitting theairwaves in America. Then, on February 7, 1964, their plane toucheddown at the newly renamed Kennedy Airport in New York City. Crowds of teenagers greeted them, hangingover railings, screaming, and waving signs. When they made their way through the crowdsto speak to the press, Lennon treated the American media to a dose of his classic wit. When a reporter asked why people loved theBeatles so much, Lennon replied, “If we knew we’d form another group and be managers.” Two days later, the lads from Liverpool madetheir first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. As the studio audience screamed and 73 millionAmericans watched from home, the Beatles performed five songs. During the show, each Beatles name appearedon the screen. Lennon’s name had an addendum, though - itread “Sorry girls, he’s married.” Keeping Cynthia and Julia’s existence quietwas not possible for a man about to become one of the most recognizable in the world. 1964 saw the release of both the movie andalbum, A Hard Day’s Night, marking all four Beatles’ foray into the film industry. Lennon would later appear in a satirical filmcalled “How I Won The War.” Not to be constrained by only two artisticmediums, Lennon also published a book in 1964 entitled “In His Own Write,” which helater followed up with a volume entitled “A Spaniard In The Works.” As the sixties continued on, the Beatles stayedat the top of the pop culture world, and that high profile meant Lennon’s mouth couldget him and the band into trouble very easily. In 1966, he famously told a reporter thatthe “Beatles were more popular than Jesus.” When the remark was published, it caused anuproar. So-called ‘Beatle Burnings’ were heldaround the United States, during which teens and their parents burned albums, photos, andother Beatles memorabilia.
In 1967, the Beatles took rock n’ roll tonew heights with the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a psychedelicconcept album that featured a collage of historic figures and celebrities on its cover. Initially, Jesus was supposed to be amongthose pictured in the artwork, but after Lennon’s 1966 remarks he was removed from the array. One of the songs on Sgt. Pepper, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, haslong been thought to be drug-related as the major words in the title create the acronym‘LSD.’ However, Lennon said that his inspirationfor the song’s imagery came from one of his favorite works of literature, Alice inWonderland, with the overall idea stemming from one of Julian’s childhood drawingsof a school friend named Lucy. During this time period, Lennon had begunmoving in avant garde artistic circles, primarily due to his new relationship with artist YokoOno. He had met Ono at one of her gallery shows,and at the time their meeting consisted solely of her handing him a card that said nothingbut ‘breathe’ on it. Though Lennon was still married to Cynthia,he and Ono began spending time together, even recording an album called “Two Virgins”that featured both of them standing fully nude on the cover.
Lennon and Cynthia did not officially divorceuntil 1968, though the relationship between Ono and Lennon was well known, with Ono spendingtime in the recording studio as the Beatles worked, and even lent her voice on the WhiteAlbum song “Bungalow Bill.” In 1969, Lennon and Ono married in a ceremonyat the Rock of Gibraltar, an event that was famously chronicled in the song “The Balladof John and Yoko”: “Finally made the plane into Paris, honeymooning down by the Seine. Peter Brown called to say, you can make itokay; you can get married in Gibraltar near Spain.” While their wedding was a relatively isolatedaffair, they welcomed the world to their honeymoon. Lennon and Ono set up camp in a bed at theAmsterdam Hilton to promote world peace, lying in bed fully clothed for a week. They repeated the stunt two weeks later inMontreal, and it was at the Montreal bed-in that they recorded “Give Peace A Chance,”surrounded by members of the press and other friends and followers. By this time, Lennon was fully dedicated tohis life with Ono, and each of the Beatles had started to move in their own directions. Ono’s presence in the recording studio andher input on their music irked the other Beatles, and they had all also begun exploring differentartistic worlds.
The disintegration of the world’s most famousband had begun. Lennon was the first to tell the others hewas leaving the group, and did so in September 1969. But it was Paul McCartney who broke the newsto the world publicly that he was leaving, and the Beatles officially split on April10th, 1970. Post-Beatle years Though he had left the Beatles behind, Lennondid not abandon music. His first post-Beatles album was releasedin 1970, with many of the songs inspired by primal scream therapy he had begun practicingas a method of dealing with the trauma he experienced in his childhood. The song that perhaps most demonstrates theinfluence of primal scream is “Mother,” which includes the lyrics, “Mother, youhad me but I never had you, I wanted you, you didn't want me, So I, I just gotta tellyou, Goodbye, goodbye.” By the time Lennon released his next soloalbum, he and Ono were living in the United States, settling into the luxurious Dakotaapartment building in New York City. It was here that he wrote the most iconicof his solo work - Imagine. The song and the album were huge hits, andnearly 40 years after Lennon’s death the song remains an international anthem of peaceand love. Lennon and Ono enjoyed living in New YorkCity, but the U.S. government did not enjoy having the counterculture icons in the midstof the largest American metropolis. In 1972, eighteen year olds would have theright to vote for the first time - and 18 year olds listened to John Lennon when hesang and spoke about the evils of war and the actions of the government. That made him a threat to Richard Nixon’sre-election, and in 1972, the government revoked Lennon’s visa based on these fears. They threatened deportation, and not wantingto be separated from Ono, Lennon essentially stopped his involvement with counterculturalactivities, but as threats of deportation continued, Lennon was forced to hire attorneysand continuously appeal to stay in the country.
In 1976, only after the Nixon presidency fellapart under the pressure of Watergate, Lennon received his green card and was safe to stayin the United States. During the struggle to obtain his green card,Lennon was also struggling with his relationship with Ono. The two essentially separated for over a year,and Lennon even moved out to California to live with a former secretary, May Pang, withwhom Ono had encouraged him to begin a relationship. Lennon later referred to this period of hislife as the “Lost Weekend,” as it was fueled by alcohol and drugs and marked byaggressive behavior from Lennon. He once tried to strangle Pang, and got thrownout of a club for drunkenly heckling the Smothers Brothers. By Lennon’s absence, Ono realized that sheneeded him in her life. She ultimately came to blame society’s pressures,and not him, telling Playboy: “John was a fine person. It was society that had become too much...I’mthankful to John’s intelligence, that he was intelligent enough to know this was theonly way that we could save our marriage, not because we didn’t love each other butbecause it was getting too much for me.” When the two reunited, Ono quickly becamepregnant. She gave birth to Sean Lennon on John’s35th birthday, October 9th, 1975. With the birth of Sean came a sea change inLennon’s life. Where he had been an absent father to Julian,he was a doting father to Sean, giving up music and instead spending his time as a househusband.
Lennon also began spending time with Julianagain during the 1970s; Julian visited New York and Lennon taught his first son guitartechniques. For five years, Lennon focused on domesticlife, but by 1980 he felt the tug of the artistic muse again. He began writing songs, recorded an album,and officially re-entered the music scene with the release of Double Fantasy in thefall of 1980. John Lennon was back. Death But his return was not to last. Two months after Double Fantasy was released,Lennon and Ono headed to the recording studio to work on new songs he had written. On their way to the studio, Lennon stoppedto sign a copy of Double Fantasy for Mark David Chapman, a fan who was waiting outsidethe Dakota. On their return shortly before 11:00 PM, Chapmanwas still waiting outside the Dakota.
As Lennon and Ono walked by, Chapman pulleda gun and fired five shots at Lennon. An hysterical Ono called for help, and theNYPD arrived, officers loaded the wounded Lennon into the back of a cruiser, and drovehim to Roosevelt Hospital. But their efforts were fruitless, John Lennonwas declared dead on arrival at 11:00 PM, December 8th, 1980. The United States heard the news via a MondayNight Football broadcast, and the news quickly made it to the rest of the world. Crowds began to show up at the Dakota, singingLennon’s songs and carrying signs in his memory. No funeral was held; instead Ono had his bodycremated and scattered his ashes in Central Park. The location is now “Strawberry Fields,”a memorial dedicated to Lennon that is visited by legions of fans each year. John Lennon’s public life was dedicatedto art and to the promotion of peace. While his private life was quite a bit morecomplicated and dramatic, there is no doubt that he holds a special place in the livesof those who grew up with him and his music, as well as the children and grandchildrenof those baby boomers who have come to love his music and his legacy. A groundbreaking musician, an experimentalartist, Lennon turned his private pain into beauty for the world. His legacy has lived on for decades afterhis death, and surely will continue to live on long after we’re all gone.
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