John Lennon

Born: John Winston Lennon
October 9, 1940
Liverpool, England

Died: December 8, 1980
New York City, New York, USA

It seems inappropriate to have John Lennon here without the rest of the Beatles, but Lennon stands as the man who founded, and ended, The Beatles.  They set the tone for rock music in their prime, after, and up to the present.  This biography was researched, and excerpts are included from Wikipedia

John Lennon was born in Liverpool to Julia Stanley Lennon and Alfred "Freddie" Lennon, supposedly during the course of a German air raid during the World War II Battle of Britain.  (Historical records show a minor raid on Merseyside during the night of 9-10 October.)  Lennon's father, a merchant seaman, walked out on the family when John was five years old.  Years later Lennon met him again, during the height of Beatlemania.  Both of his parents had musical backgrounds and experience, though neither pursued music seriously.

Aunt Mimi and Uncle George

Due to a lack of home space and concerns expressed about her relationship with a male friend, John's mother handed over his care to her sister, Mary Smith (known as Mimi), after receiving a considerable amount of pressure from both Mimi and child services to do so. Throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence, Lennon lived with his "Aunt Mimi" and her husband, George Smith at 251 Menlove Avenue, Mendips, Liverpool.

He was raised as an Anglican.  Like much of the population of Liverpool, Lennon had some Irish heritage. While Lennon had little exposure to his Irish background 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.  On July 15, 1958, when Lennon was 17, his mother was struck and killed by a car driven by a drunk, off-duty police officer, as she returned from Mimi's house.  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 named his firstborn son Julian after his mother, and later wrote a song, "Julia", as a love song for her.

School

Lennon attended Dovedale County Primary School until he passed his Eleven-Plus, and from September 1952 to 1957 he attended Quarry Bank Grammar School in Liverpool, which he referred to as the start of his misery.  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 mimicking their odd characteristics.

John Lennon and Cynthia Powell in Liverpool, 1957

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 should have some sort of academic qualifications.  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 ultimately he dropped out.

The Move to Music  [ top ]

He then devoted himself to music, 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, but hoped that he would soon grow bored of it.

Though she loved John, Mimi was skeptical about a lot of things, including his claim that one day he would be famous, telling him frequently, "The guitar's all very well, John, but you'll never make a living out of it."

Years later, when The Beatles were the top act in show business, he presented her with a silver platter, engraved with those words.

Early Bands

Lennon started a skiffle band in grammar school that was called The Quarry Men after his alma mater, Quarry Bank Grammar School.  With the addition of Paul McCartney and George Harrison, the band switched to playing rock 'n' roll, taking the name "Johnny and The Moondogs", followed by "The Silver Beetles" , which was later shortened to The Beatles spelled with an "a" in reference to their identification with "beat groups".

Lennon was usually considered the "leader" of The Beatles, as he founded the original group, inviting his art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe and McCartney to join.  Although Lennon thought George Harrison was too young, McCartney invited him to join also.  Most group decisions were democratic, with the unwritten rule that if any member objected to an idea, the group wouldn't pursue it.

The Beatles  [ top ]

Allan Williams became the Beatles' first manager in May 1960, after they had played in his Jacaranda club.  A few months later he booked them into Bruno Koschmider's Indra club in Hamburg, Germany.  Lennon's Aunt Mimi was horrified when Lennon told her about the trip to Hamburg, and pleaded with him to continue his studies. 

After the first residency, Sutcliffe left The Beatles to concentrate on his artwork, and to be with his girlfriend.  McCartney took over as bass player for the group.  Koschmider reported McCartney and drummer Pete Best for arson after the two attached a condom to a nail in the 'Bambi' (a cinema where they were staying) and set fire to it.  They were deported, as was George Harrison for working under age.  A few days later Lennon's work permit was revoked and he went home by train.

After Harrison turned 18 and the immigration problems had been solved, The Beatles went back to Hamburg for another residency in April 1961.    While they were there, they recorded "My Bonnie" with Tony Sheridan.  News of Sheridan and The Beatles' record was published on the front page of Mersey Beat—a Liverpool music magazine—which was available at Brian Epstein's music store, and prompted Epstein to order extra copies from Polydor.  Epstein would soon become The Beatles manager.

In April 1962, The Beatles went back to Hamburg to play at the Star-Club, and were told that Sutcliffe had died two days before they arrived.  This was another shock for Lennon, after losing his Uncle and his mother.

Lennon and Cynthia in Hamburg, 1962 (left)

On May 9, 1962, George Martin signed The Beatles to EMI's comedy label, Parlophone.  After their first recording session, Martin voiced his displeasure with drummer Pete Best.  It was decided that Ringo Starr, drummer with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, should join, although it was left to manager Epstein to inform Best.  Epstein dismissed Best on August 16, 1962, which was almost exactly two years after Best had joined the group.

John Lennon married his long-time girlfriend, Cynthia Lillian Powell, whom he had met at The Liverpool College of Art in 1957.  They married on August 23, 1962 at the Mount Pleasant Registrars Office in Liverpool after  learning she was pregnant with Lennon's son, Julian.  Lennon's aunt Mimi did not approve of Cynthia, and was somewhat hostile and distant toward her after the wedding, which she did not attend.

Beatles fans were unaware of his marital status.  The press learned about Cynthia in 1963, and she was hounded by the media and Beatles fans for years after.  Lennon was quite open to the American media about Cynthia, who was with him on the band's first North American tour in early 1964.

The Beatles released their first double-sided original single, "Love Me Do"/"P.S. I Love You" on October 5.  It reached #17 on the British charts (although Starr did not play on these tracks, Martin having secured the services of Andy White, a session drummer, before he knew Best had been replaced).

Lennon usually played rhythm guitar, while George Harrison played lead guitar and McCartney bass guitar.  Lennon also frequently played keyboards, as did McCartney.  Ringo Starr played drums.

Lennon often sang lead, with McCartney and Harrison providing the harmony parts; or Lennon would take the harmony role when McCartney, Harrison, or Starr were singing lead, especially in live performances.  As recording technology improved, and they were doing more work in the studio than live, overdubbing was used so that Lennon might provide the harmony parts as well as the lead for his songs.

The unique and recognizable "Beatles" sound, however, was the classic three-part harmony with Lennon or McCartney at lead and harmony provided by the others.

On February 11, 1963, the group recorded their first album, "Please Please Me". They recorded the entire album in one day with Lennon suffering from a common cold. 

Originally, the Lennon-McCartney songs on the first pressing of the album, as well as the single "From Me to You", and its B-side, "Thank You Girl", are credited to "McCartney-Lennon", but this was later changed to "Lennon-McCartney".

Lennon and McCartney usually needed an hour or two to finish a song; most of which were written in hotel rooms after a concert, at Wimpole Street (Jane Asher's home), at Cavendish Avenue (McCartney's home), or at Kenwood (Lennon's house).

The album and single hit #1 in Britain, and EMI offered the album to their U.S. subsidiary, Capitol Records, but they turned it down.  Epstein finally secured a deal with Vee-Jay Records, a predominantly black R&B and gospel label.  Neither the single or the accompanying album, "Introducing The Beatles," were successful in the US.

By the time the group recorded "She Loves You", they were dropped from Vee Jay and once again, Capitol declined to release their records.  EMI were forced to release it on the even more obscure Swan Records label.   It did eventually hit #1 in January 1964, after Capitol Records finally released "I Want To Hold Your Hand" in America.

Following the historic Ed Sullivan Show appearances, The Beatles would embark on a two-year non-stop period of productivity: constant international tours, making movies, and writing hit songs.  Lennon wrote two books, "In His Own Write" and "A Spaniard In The Works".

The Beatles achieved recognition from the British Establishment when they were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire in the 1965 Queen's Birthday Honours.

Lennon complained that nobody heard them play for all the screaming, and their musicianship was beginning to erode.  By the time he wrote his 1965 song "Help", he said he was subconsciously crying out for help and seeking change.

"More Popular Than Jesus"  [ top ]

The catalyst for this change occurred on  March 4, 1966, when Lennon was interviewed for the London Evening Standard by Maureen Cleave, and talked about Christianity by saying: "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I do not 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." 

Five months later, an American teen magazine called Datebook reprinted part of the quote on its front cover.  The American Bible Belt protested in the South and Midwest, and conservative groups staged public burnings of Beatles' records and memorabilia.  Many radio stations banned The Beatles' music, and some concert venues cancelled performances.

At a press conference in Chicago, on 11 August 1966, Lennon addressed the growing controversy:

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 apologize?

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; however, the Southern Baptist Convention, the predominant religion in the U.S. Bible Belt, did not.

No More Touring  [ top ]

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.  Their concerts were poorly organized with  inadequate sound systems and amplification, no technical support, and poor, if any, security for the huge venues they were playing.

The Beatles played their final concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park (top left) August 26, 1966.  They 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.  Lennon wrote later "I always remember to thank Jesus for the end of my touring days."

Lennon largely abandoned his leadership role under the influence of LSD and Timothy Leary's book The Psychedelic Experience, believing he needed to "lose his ego" to become enlightened.  He resented McCartney's taking effective control of the band after Brian Epstein's death in 1967, and disliked some of the resulting projects, such as Magical Mystery Tour, and particularly Let It Be ("That film was set up by Paul, for Paul," as he said later to Rolling Stone).

Lennon was the first to break the band's all-for-one sensibility, and also the rule that no wives or girlfriends would attend recording sessions, as he brought Yoko into the studio.

Although Lennon admitted having several affairs with other women over the years he was with Cynthia, it was his relationship with Yoko Ono that decided the fate of their marriage.  Decree nisi was granted to Cynthia and John Lennon on November 8, 1968, effectively ending their six year legal marriage.

Cynthia was given custody of Julian and allowed to return to the Lennon's residence, Kenwood, in Weybridge, England.  John and Yoko moved into the basement of Ringo's London flat.

Break-up of The Beatles  [ top ]

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, Let It Be.

While the group managed to hang together to produce one last acclaimed 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.

With the public unaware of the details, McCartney appeared to be the one who dissolved the group, depriving Lennon of the formalities.  Lennon told Rolling Stone "I was a fool not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record," and later wrote "I started the band. I finished it."

McCartney later admitted Lennon had been the first to quit, re-explaining the circumstances to CBS-TV's 48 Hours in 1989. In a subsequent Playboy interview, McCartney asserted "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."

Lennon and His Families  [ top ]

According to his first wife Cynthia (left), in a 1995 interview, there were problems throughout their marriage, partly because of the pressures of the Beatles' fame and rigorous touring, partly because of Lennon's increasing use of drugs. He was also distant to his son, Julian, who felt closer to McCartney than to him.

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."

Cynthia and Julian, 1968 (right).

John is quoted as saying: "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 jokingly 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 conducted in September 1980, three months before his death — published in the January 1981 issue of Playboy— 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 (right), 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."

Both Julian and Sean Lennon went on to have recording careers years after their father's death.

Lennon and Yoko Ono

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

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; Cynthia filed for divorce later that year, on the grounds of John's adultery with Ono which was evidenced by Yoko's apparent pregnancy and miscarriage of their son.

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 - frequently with racist overtones - with 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) — which he had received from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II during the height of Beatlemania — "in protest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing [a reference to the Nigerian civil war of 1967-70], 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 name to John Winston Ono Lennon. Lennon wrote "The Ballad of John and Yoko" about his marriage and the subsequent press it generated.

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