“Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say that 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”
– John Lennon
And with those words begins one of the most beloved songs in popular music history. Imagine is a song of hope – for a better, kinder, gentler future. It is a song that speaks of the unity of men in a world where borders and divisions are just memories of the past. It is a song with an idealism that only a few in popular music could ever express. It is a song that will forever be associated with one name – the immortal John Lennon.
The Fab Four
Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, Starr – these four names make up what is without doubt one of rock & roll’s greatest and most influential bands. In fashion terms they were trend-setters with their mop tops and their clothing sense. In musical terms, they broke new ground by being the world’s first self-contained pop group that wrote and performed their own songs and played their own instruments. They were thus the mould which all future bands have directly or indirectly shaped themselves on.
And the music? Let us not forget the music as that is, after all, the main reason behind any musician’s popularity. Or at least it should be. But I digress. What about the Beatles’ music then? Eclectic would be one word to use as they managed to switch between classic pop, folk, harder edged rock & roll and psychedelic. More than that though, many of them possessed a wonderful turn of phrase in their lyrics that can only be described as pure poetry.
What else can we call such lines as found in Strawberry Fields Forever,
“Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see
It’s getting hard to be someone but it all works out It doesn’t matter much to me”.
except a work of pure brilliance? In just under 30 words, that verse manages to run through the gauntlet of personal reflection, introspection, regret and acceptance.
A poet
- John Lennon and Yoko Ono standing in front of an anti-war poster in Alaska.
There is no doubt that without John Winston Ono (he added on the name after his marriage to Yoko Ono) Lennon’s contributions to The Beatles, they would have just been considered a very good band rather than a great band. His mesmerising genius helped lift The Beatles to greater heights just as his natural cynicism provided a foil to regular song writing partner Paul McCartney’s cheery optimism.
That being said though, he (Lennon) was also capable of some wonderfully witty phrases in his lyrics such as in I Am The Walrus, where he wrote:
“Semolina pilchard, climbing up the Eiffel Tower Elementary penguin singing Hari Krishna Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe.”
It was pure doggerel worthy of Edward Lear and just like Lear’s poems and limericks, the seemingly nonsensical verses bring about a myriad of images to the mind that can only raise a smile.
In the history of modern popular music there are few singers and songwriters who could be compared to Lennon as far as being a poet is concerned. Probably only the likes of Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, Lou Reed, Jonathan Richman, Elvis Costello, Morrissey, Shane MacGowan and Freddie Mercury would be (with reference to Strawberry Fields Forever) “in his tree”.
How many other artistes are there that can write verses of such vivid and expressive imagery as the one found in Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, as seen below?
“Picture yourself in a boat on a river,
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes”
Working Class Hero
To better understand John Lennon though, one would need to visit his childhood. He was born during “interesting times” to say the least. As it so happened that on the 9th of October in 1940, when Julia Stanley Lennon was giving birth to a son in the Oxford Street Maternity Hospital in Liverpool, Luftwaffe bombers were blitzing the city of Liverpool. The baby that was born during such a tumultuous period would later create a bang of his own in the world of music and popular culture.
John Lennon’s early life was definitely no bed of roses. His father Alfred “Freddie” Lennon abandoned the family twice. His mother, Julia, defied the popularity morality of the time by openly having an affair with another man when she was still married – in name if not in deed – to Freddie. There was thus a streak of rebelliousness in John that some could say came from his own parents’ rejection of conventional morals.
His formative years were therefore spent, not with Julia or with Freddie (who had by then moved to New Zealand) but with his Aunt Mimi, Julia’s elder sister. A, by all accounts, stubborn and strict woman with a sense of humour that John shared with her, Mimi Smith played a part in creating a literary streak in John by buying him books of short stories and crossword puzzles.
His musical talents though were nurtured by Julia who, during visits by John, would teach him how to play the banjo and the piano and listen to records by Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley. She was also the one who presented John with his first guitar about which Mimi said, “The guitar is all very well, John, but you’d never make a living out of it.” Years later, when Beatlemania was at its height, John gave Mimi a silver platter with those words engraved on it.
It was quite an idyllic life, although John concentrated more on his music than on his studies (much to the despair of Mimi). But the dream was soon shattered in 1958, when at the age of 17, he lost Julia in a car accident. This loss along with the feelings of abandonment caused by his father leaving his family was revealed later on in his life, after The Beatle’s disbanded when he attended Primal therapy with Dr. Arthur Janov. His song Mother is a reflection of such feelings, “Mama don’t go/Daddy come home”. He would also name his first son Julian in memory of his mother.
They’re going to crucify me…
“Christ you know it ain’t easy,
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going
They’re going to crucify me.”
– The Ballad of John and Yoko
As with many geniuses, Lennon’s personality was far more complex than most people’s. That he was capable of a brilliant introspection and humorous irreverence has already been established above. His wit, for which he is most famous, could be extremely devastating when used against people and when he was younger, he used to make fun of cripples and other physically disabled people. Another example of the cruel streak he had in him was evident when he was asked if Ringo Starr was the best drummer in the world, to which he replied, “He’s not even the best drummer in The Beatles”. It was a statement that he would later spend trying to rectify by emphasising on Ringo’s contributions to the band.
John Lennon was no saint, but neither was he an out-an-out scoundrel. If one can classify such a complex character as anything, then the nearest would be that he personifies the famous Scouse wit. He was definitely capable, in his earlier days, of acts of violence such as when he (allegedly) kicked his friend Stuart Sutcliffe, an associate member of the early Beatles, in Germany. Sutcliffe’s death from a brain haemorrhage that followed shortly would also be another source of guilt for him.
It would probably be more proper to say that Lennon’s sense of humour was dryer and perhaps more cynical than others but not malicious. There were also acts of pure brilliance and of simple mischief such as when during live performances of I Want To Hold Your Hand, he would sing “I want to hold your gland” instead of “hand”. It was a direct reference to breasts and in a British society that was still mostly conservative, it was a risqué piece of business. Another example of his humour displayed itself in 1963 when during the Royal Variety Show, which was attended by Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the Royal Family, he said, “Those of you in the cheaper seats can clap your hands. The rest of you, if you’ll just rattle your jewellery”.
Lennon definitely knew how to court controversy. The most famous or notorious case in point (according to one’s views) would be his statement, “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink… I don’t know what will go first, rock & roll or Christianity. We’re more popular than Jesus now…” The statement inflamed conservative America in the Bible Belt where Beatles’ records were burnt in public.
Along with the controversial streak though came bravery and a sense of what is right and wrong. This manifested itself during his courtship of Yoko Ono. At the time, he was still married to Cynthia Lennon nee Powell and had a five-year-old son, Julian. When Cynthia filed for divorce and named Yoko as a co-respondent, the British press were up in arms; writing scathing articles about Yoko that were in some ways thinly veiled pieces full of racism along the likes of “Evilminded, manipulative foreign Oriental woman seduces Britain’s greatest musical hero and breaks up happy family”.
The Lennon – Ono relationship was one of the most high profile inter-racial relationships in Britain at that time and in her defence, Lennon once said in anger, “There is no John and Yoko. We are one person, JohnandYoko”. It was this proximity to Ono (whom he brought to the recording studios in violation of a long standing band policy banning wives and girlfriends from the studio) and an increasingly bitter creative dispute with Paul McCartney that later led to the break-up of The Beatles.
Give Peace a Chance
By 1968, Lennon and indeed the rest of The Beatles had changed as did the world. As individuals, they became more enamoured of Eastern mysticism as espoused by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Gone were the mop tops and dark suits that represented their earlier days. It was time for the long hair and the beards to come out. It was also the time of the escalation of the Vietnam War, which Lennon and Ono protested against in anti-war rallies. The British Government’s support for America during the Vietnam conflict was one of the reasons he gave behind him returning his MBE (Member of the British Empire) medal.
Lennon’s involvement with the Peace Movement was significant mainly because he was the first mainstream pop star to throw his hat into the ring. At that time, the Anti-War movement was supported mainly by folk singers such as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez; Lennon saw an opportunity to utilise his popularity to generate publicity for the cause. After all, The Beatles were still big and if a Beatle were to do something, the press would be sure to jump on it.
Thus in 1969, after marrying Yoko Ono, they would spend their honeymoon in Amsterdam performing their famous “bed in” for peace. A similar “bed in” took place later in Montreal where they would record Give Peace A Chance, which would become one of the anthems of the movement.
By 1970, the couple had moved to the United States where they continued in their support for the Anti-War movement. Fearing Lennon’s popularity would affect the decisions of the voters in the 1972 elections (as it was the first time that 18 year olds were allowed to vote), the Nixon Administration initiated deportation proceedings against him by using the reason that an earlier conviction of cannabis possession in London made him ineligible for entry into the United States. It was a long and arduous court battle, which also included systematic spying and harassment of the Lennons by the FBI.
In 1971, between his entry into the United States and the deportation proceedings, Lennon released what is probably his most celebrated album “Imagine”. The title track, of which we had already spoken of before, became and still remains one of the most potent rallying calls for world peace.
By 1974, Nixon was forced to resign due to the Watergate scandal and in 1975, Lennon finally received his Green Card. But the days of John Lennon the rock star was over. Yoko gave birth to a son, Sean, and the next five years were spent as a househusband taking care of Sean. In a way, his spending time with Sean was a way for him to make up for the time he did not get to spend with Julian when he was growing up. It was a halcyon period that would, alas, not last long.
Imagine
The 8th of December 1980 was a dark day for music. The stopwatch started ticking at 5 pm when the Lennons left their home at the Dakota in New York to supervise the creation of singles from Double Fantasy, Lennon’s comeback album after five years in hiatus. As he was leaving, several people approached him for autographs including a certain Mark David Chapman. Having obliged his fans, he left for the Geffen studios.
At 10.50 pm, the couple returned from the studio and as Lennon was walking towards the entrance, a voice called out, “Mr. Lennon!”. He stopped to turn around and all of a sudden Chapman, who had been waiting for him, fired five hollow point bullets at Lennon. Four of them found their target, including one that ruptured his aorta. It was to be fatal and John Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at the Roosevelt Hospital at 11.15 pm.
Why did Mark Chapman shoot John Lennon? Many theories have abounded – ranging from anger over Lennon’s alleged blasphemy for the “we are bigger than Jesus” remarks to one where Chapman, a Beatles fan, was desperate for attention and decided that murdering John Lennon would be the best way to garner that attention. The most popular theory though centres around his (Chapman) devotion to the book The Catcher in the Rye and its message of anti-phoniness. For Chapman, Lennon (his hero) was a “phoney” because of his personal wealth despite him singing, “Imagine no possessions”.
John Winston Ono Lennon was only 40 years old when he was murdered. If his car had pulled into the courtyard thus negating his need to walk to the door, what might have been? We can only ask what would John Lennon make of all the events that took place after his death – Reaganism, Thatcherism, Gorbachev, the end of the Cold War, the New World Order, September 11, the Iraq War. Unfortunately, we’d never know the answer for sure. All we can do is just… imagine.
