John Lennon

Who is John Lennon

John Winston Ono Lennon (at birth John Winston Lennon; October 9, 1940 - December 8, 1980) - British singer and songwriter, Commander of the Order of the British Empire, one of the founders and member of the Beatles - the most commercially successful group in history popular music. Together with another member of the Beatles, Paul McCartney, he created the famous duet, in which it was written a large number of famous songs.

Born and raised in Liverpool, John developed a passion for skiffle as a teenager and formed his first band, the Quarrymen, which were replaced by the Beatles in 1960. When the band disbanded in 1970, Lennon embarked on a solo career, releasing the albums "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band" and "Imagine", as well as songs such as "Give Peace a Chance", "Working Class Hero" and "Imagine". After marrying Yoko Ono in 1969, he changed his name to John Ono Lennon. In 1975, John ended his musical career and devoted the next 5 years to raising his son Sean, but in 1980 he returned with the new album "Double Fantasy". Three weeks after the album's release, John Lennon was assassinated.

Lennon had a rebellious nature and acerbic wit, which manifested itself in his music, literary works, drawings, films and interviews. Lennon was a political activist and actively fought for peace. He moved to Manhattan in 1971 and his criticism of the Vietnam War led the administration of President Richard Nixon to deport him several times, some of his songs were considered anti-war and counterculture anthems.

As of 2012, Lennon's solo albums have sold over 14 million copies in the United States. 25 of John's songs reached number one on the US Hot 100 chart. In 2002, the BBC Corporation (BBC) conducted a poll, according to which Lennon took eighth place in the ranking of "100 Greatest Britons" (100 Greatest Britons). In 2008, Rolling Stone magazine honored him as the 15th Greatest Singer of All Time. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987. In 1988 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Beatles, and in 1994 as a solo artist.

Childhood of John Lennon

John Lennon was born in England during the war on October 9, 1940 at the Liverpool Maternity Hospital. His parents are Julia (née Stanley, 1914-1958) and Alfred Lennon (1912-1976). His father was from Ireland and served as a sailor in the merchant marine, he was not present at the birth of his son. His parents named him John Winston Lennon, after his paternal grandfather John "Jack" Lennon and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. John's father was not at home, but regularly sent money home to 9 Newcastle Road, where the boy lived with his mother. The money stopped coming in February 1944 when Julia received word that her husband had deserted. After six months, he came home and wanted to take care of his family again, but Julia, who at the time was expecting a child from another man, refused his proposal. After her sister Mimi Smith complained about her twice to Liverpool Social Services, Julia gave the baby to her sister to raise. In July 1946, Lennon's father visited Smith and secretly took his son to Blackpool, intending to emigrate with him to New Zealand. Julia followed them along with her partner Bobby Dykins. After a heated argument, the father told his five-year-old son to choose between him and Julia. Lennon chose his father twice, but when his mother walked away, he cried and ran after her. Only 20 years later, John met his father again.

The boy lived his childhood and adolescence with his aunt and uncle, Mimi and George Smith, who had no children of their own, at 251 Mendips, Menlove Avenue, Woolton. His aunt bought him many short story books, and his uncle, a milkman on his family's farm, bought him harmonica and did crossword puzzles with him. Julia was a regular visitor to Mendips, and when John was 11 years old he often came to visit her at 1 Bloomfield Road, Liverpool. She played Elvis Presley records for him, taught him how to play the banjo, taught him how to play the song "Ain" t That a Shame" by Fats Domino. In September 1980, Lennon spoke about his family and rebellious nature:

"Part of me wanted to be accepted by the whole society, and not just be a loud eccentric poet/musician. But I can't be what I'm not ... I was the one that the parents of all boys, including Paul's father, warned about: " Stay away from him! "... Parents instinctively understood that troubles should be expected from me, that I did not obey the rules and would have a bad influence on their children, which, in fact, I did. I tried to disrupt the usual way of life in my homes friends... Partly out of envy, because I didn't have a so-called "home"... but in fact I did... There were five women in my family. Five strong, smart, beautiful women, five sisters "One of them was my mother. (She) couldn't handle life. She was the most younger sister, her husband left her and went to sea, there was a war and she could not raise me, so I was given to her older sister. Now these women would be considered eccentric... So I got my first feminist education... I wanted to get into the heads of other boys. I wanted to tell them: "Parents are not gods, because I do not live with mine, and therefore, I know."

John often visited his cousin Stanley Parks, who lived in Fleetwood. Parks, who was seven years older than Lennon, took him on walks and to the movies. During the school holidays, Parks often visited John with Layla Harvey, another of his cousins, who traveled to Blackpool two or three times a week to watch performances. They went to circus shows to Blackpool Tower to see artists such as Dickie Valentine, Arthur Eskey, Max Bygraves and Joe Loss. Parks recalls that Lennon adored George Formby. After the Parkes family moved to Scotland, the three guys often spent school break together. Parks recalls that she, John and Layla were very close at the time. "From Edinburgh we drove by car to family farm in Durness. John was 9 years old at the time, we kept coming to the farm until John was 16." On June 5, 1955, when the boy was 14, his uncle George died of liver damage at the age of 52.

Lennon attended an Anglican church and attended Dovedale Primary School. From September 1952 to 1957, after passing his final eleven plus, he attended Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool. Harvey described the boy as: "easy-going, good-natured, easy-going, lively fellow." He often drew comic cartoons that he published in his own homemade school magazine, the Daily Howl, but despite his artistic talent, his teachers gave him a killer characterization: "definitely on the way to failure ... hopeless ... clown in class. ..wasting other students' time."

In 2005 National Postal Museum in the United States acquired a collection of stamps, which Lennon collected as a boy.

John's mom bought him a first acoustic guitar in 1956, it was an expensive Gallotone Champion for five pounds ten shillings. The mother and son agreed that the guitar would be kept at her house, and not at Mimi's house. Julia was well aware that her sister did not approve of John's passion for music. Mimi did not approve of his passion for the guitar and was skeptical about his words that one day he would become famous. She hoped that music would bore him and therefore often repeated: "The guitar is a good thing, but it will never help you earn a living!" On July 15, 1958, when Lennon was 17, his mother, who was walking home after visiting the Smiths, was hit by a car and killed.

Lennon failed his high school leaving exams (GCE O-levels), but was accepted into the Liverpool College of Art thanks to the intervention of his aunt and the headmaster. In college, he was known as a dude because of his manner of dressing, and also distinguished himself by disrupting classes and making fun of teachers. In the end, he was banned from attending painting classes, and after that, a course in graphic art. While drawing from life, he sat on the lap of a naked model, for which he was threatened with expulsion from college. He failed his yearly exams despite the help of classmate and future wife Cynthia Powell and was "kicked out of college before finishing his senior year."

John Lennon's career

At the age of 15, Lennon formed the skiffle band the Quarrymen. The group was formed in September 1956 and was named after the school Quarry Bank (Quarry Bank). By the summer of 1957, the band was playing "high-energy songs" in the skiffle and rock and roll genres. The first meeting with Paul McCartney took place during the second performance of the Quarrymen on July 6 in Woolton at St. Peter's Church. John invited Paul to join the band.

McCartney recalls that Aunt Mimi "was very worried that John's friends were from the lower classes" and therefore was often arrogant with him when Paul came to visit Lennon. According to Paul's brother Michael, McCartney's father also disapproved of his friendship with Lennon. He believed that John would get Paul "in trouble", however, he later allowed the young band to rehearse in his living room at 20 Fortlin Road. During this period, 18-year-old Lennon wrote his first song "Hello Little Girl", which almost five years later became a hit with The Fourmost and entered the UK Top 10.

McCartney suggested that his friend George Harrison be included in the band as lead guitarist. Lennon felt that Harrison, who was 14 at the time, was too young. McCartney arranged an audition on the top floor of a Liverpool bus, George sang "Raunchy" and was accepted into the band. Stuart Sutcliffe, a friend of Lennon's from art college, became the bass player in the band. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Sutcliffe formed The Beatles in early 1960. In August of the same year, the Beatles went on tour to Germany in the city of Hamburg, signing a contract for 48 performances. Since the band needed a drummer, they invited Pete Best to join them. Lennon was 19 years old, and his aunt, frightened by his intention to leave for Hamburg, begged him to continue his studies at an art college. After the first tour of the group in Hamburg, the second trip to this city took place in April 1961, the third - in April 1962. Lennon, along with the rest of the band, regularly took preludin in Hamburg, as well as amphetamines, which stimulated their activity during nightly performances.

Brian Epstein, manager of the Beatles since 1962, had no experience in the music business, but he had a strong influence on their dress and stage behavior. Lennon resisted his attempts to impose a stage persona on the band, but ultimately relented, saying, "I'll wear a blood balloon if someone pays me to do it." After leaving the group Sutcliffe, who decided to stay in Hamburg, McCartney began playing bass guitar, and Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best on drums. Thus was formed the Beatles in the form in which it lasted until its disbandment in 1970. The group's first single "Love Me Do" was released in October 1962 and peaked at number 17 in the UK charts. The musicians recorded their first album "Please Please Me" in less than 10 hours on February 11, 1963. Lennon had a cold during the recording of the album, which affected his vocals on the last song that was recorded that day, "Twist and Shout". Eight of the fourteen songs on the album were co-written by Lennon-McCartney. All of Lennon's songs on this album, with a few exceptions (such as the song that gave the album's title), can be heard in his love of wordplay: "We just made songs... pop songs with the only desire being to make a sound. And the meaning of the words did not play a special role. In a 1987 interview, McCartney revealed that the other members of the band worshiped John: "He was like our personal Elvis... We all treated him with respect. He was older than us and was our leader. John was the smartest and most intelligent from U.S."

The Beatles boomed in the UK in early 1963. Lennon was on tour when his first son, Julian, was born in April. During a royal variety show in London at the Prince of Wales Theatre, which was attended by the Queen Mother and British high society, Lennon addressed the audience with the phrase: "I ask for your help during the performance of our next song. Those who sit in cheap seats, clap your hands. And the rest of you - (gesture towards the royal box) - just jingle your jewels." A year after gaining popularity in the UK and starting Beatlemania, the Beatles achieved worldwide fame with their historic appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. Over the next two years, the group constantly toured, made films, wrote songs. Lennon wrote two books during this period, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works. On June 12, 1965, an official announcement appeared in the press about the awarding of members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in honor of the Queen's Birthday, which meant official recognition of the group's musical merits by the British authorities.

Lennon was worried that the screams of the fans during their performances did not hear the music, and also that their musical skills suffered for this reason. Lennon's song "Help!", written in 1965, reflected his feelings about this: "That's exactly what I wanted to talk about ... It was me singing help." During this period, John gained excess weight (at that time he called himself "fat Elvis") and felt that he was subconsciously looking for a way out of this situation. In March of that year, he unknowingly tried LSD. It happened when John and George and their wives attended a dinner at the dentist's who put the drug in their coffee. When the guests wanted to leave, the owner of the house told them that they had taken LSD and urged them to stay in the house due to possible consequences. Later that evening, when they were in the elevator, they thought it was on fire: "We were all screaming... excited and hysterical." In March 1966, Lennon, in an interview with journalist Maureen Cleave, who worked for the London Evening Standard newspaper, said the following: "Christianity will go. It will disappear and wither ... Now we are more popular than Jesus; I do not know what will disappear first - rock and roll or christianity." This phrase of Lennon went unnoticed in the UK, but when John's phrase, taken out of context, was published in an American magazine five months later, a scandal began in the USA. Public burning of the band's records followed, threats from the Ku Klux Klan to John Lennon, which ultimately led to the cessation of the Beatles' concert activity.

The last concert of the group took place on August 29, 1966. After giving up live performances, Lennon felt lost and wanted to leave the band. Having taken LSD for the first time unintentionally, over time he used the drug more and more often, throughout 1967 he was under its influence. According to biographer Ian MacDonald, the constant use of LSD for a year brought the musician "close to losing his personality." In 1967, the song "Strawberry Fields Forever" was released, Time magazine praised the musicians for "amazing ingenuity". The song is followed by the iconic album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band for the Beatles, which clearly showed the difference between Lennon's lyrics and the simple love lyrics of Lennon-McCartney songs in the early years of the group's existence.

In August, the musicians met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and traveled to Bangor, Wales, for a seminar on transcendental meditation. While at the seminar, they learned about Epstein's death. “I then realized that we were in trouble,” Lennon later described this situation. "I didn't imagine we were capable of doing anything other than music, and I was scared." Influenced by Harrison and Lennon's fascination with Eastern religion, the Beatles traveled to India to the Maharishi's ashram to continue their studies. During their stay in India, the musicians wrote most of the songs for their new album "Abbey Road".

In October 1967, How I Won the War, a satirical anti-war black comedy, starring John Lennon, opened in theaters. It's the only one feature film, which does not feature other members of the Beatles. McCartney was the mastermind behind the band's new project after Epstein's death, the TV movie Magical Mystery Journey. The musicians independently wrote the script, acted as producers and directors of the film, which was released in December of the same year. The film was not a success with the public and critics, but the soundtrack to the film, which included Lennon's famous song "I Am the Walrus", which the musician was inspired by the works of Lewis Carroll, was successful. After Epstein's death, all members of the group became involved in entrepreneurial activities, in February 1968, Apple Corps was created, a multimedia corporation that included the Apple Records record label and several others. subsidiaries. Lennon called the venture an attempt to gain "creative freedom within a commercial structure," but Apple needed professional guidance, and Lennon was busy experimenting with drugs and infatuated with Yoko Ono, and McCartney was planning his wedding. Lennon offered Lord Beeching to become the company's manager, but he turned down the offer and advised John to continue recording songs. Lennon turned to Allen Klein, who was the manager of the Rolling Stones and other bands during the "British Invasion". Klein was named president of Apple, and a management contract was signed by Lennon, Harrison, and Starr, but McCartney did not sign the document.

In late 1968, Lennon starred in The Rolling Stones Rock 'n' Roll Circus as a member of the Dirty Mac band, the film was not released until 1996. The supergroup included John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Mitch Mitchell and Keith Richards, backing vocalist Yoko Ono. Lennon and Yoko married on March 20, 1969, shortly after the wedding a series of "Bag One" lithographs containing scenes from their honeymoon was released, eight images were found obscene, and most of the lithographs were banned and confiscated. Lennon's creative focus shifted more and more from the Beatles to experimental music, so from 1968 to 1969 he and Yoko recorded three albums together: "Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins" (which gained fame for the cover, not the music), "Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions" and "Wedding Album". In 1969, the Plastic Ono Band was formed and the album Live Peace in Toronto 1969 was released. From 1969 to 1970, Lennon released the singles "Give Peace a Chance" (the song became an anthem against the Vietnam War in 1969), "Cold Turkey" (in this song Lennon described "withdrawal" after stopping heroin) and "Instant Karma !" In protest of Britain's invasion of Nigeria during the Biafro-Nigerian War (Nigerian Civil War), as well as Britain's support for the American invasion of Vietnam, and (perhaps jokingly) the fall of his song "Cold Turkey" from the charts, Lennon returned to the Queen his order of the Commander of the British Empire. This act on the part of the musician had no effect on his status as a knight, since the order cannot be abandoned.

Lennon leaving the Beatles

Lennon left the Beatles in September 1969. The musicians agreed that they would not inform the media until all members of the band had renegotiated their recording contracts. Lennon was furious when he learned that McCartney had announced his departure from the group by releasing his debut solo album in April 1970. Lennon reacted like this: "Damn it!" He 'skimmed all the cream' in that situation." Lennon later said: "I created this band. I have to let her go. Just like two and two." In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Lennon expressed his feelings of bitterness towards McCartney: "I was a fool not to do the same as Paul. He used the situation to sell his album." John talked about the other members' hostility towards Yoko Ono, and how he, Harrison and Starr were "tired of being Paul's 'orchestras'... After Brian Epstein's death, we broke down. Paul became our leader and guided us. But what's the point in managing if we've been going in circles?"

In 1970, Lennon and Ono underwent psychotherapy with Arthur Yanov in Los Angeles, California. The result of therapy was to be a release from the emotional pain that had accumulated since childhood. Sessions were held twice a week and lasted half a day, the course of therapy was 4 months. The doctor wanted the couple to complete their course of treatment, but his patients refused and returned to London. Lennon's first solo debut, John Lennon/Plastic Ono (1970), was critically acclaimed. Critic Greil Marcus commented, "John's singing in the last verse of 'God' is the best performance in the history of rock music." The album included the song "Mother", in which Lennon talked about how he felt rejected as a child, as well as the song "Working Class Hero", containing vicious criticism of the bourgeois social order. Radio stations were banned from airing the song because of the line "you"re still fucking peasants". In the same year, John Lennon was interviewed by Tariq Ali, whose revolutionary political views inspired the musician to create the song "Power to the People". John, along with Ali, participated in a protest against the persecution of Oz magazine, which began in connection with the accusation of publishing obscene materials. Lennon called these accusations "disgusting fascism", he and Ono (with the Elastic Oz Band) released a single "God Save Us/Do the Oz" and joined the march in support of the magazine.

Lennon's next album "Imagine" (1971) was critically acclaimed. Rolling Stone magazine said that "the album contains a lot of good music", but warned of the possibility that "his rhetoric will soon seem not only boring, but obsolete". The album's title track became an anti-war anthem, while "How Do You Sleep?" - a musical attack on McCartney, a response to the lyrics of his songs from the album "Ram". Lennon felt that the lyrics were written about him and Yoko, a fact Paul later confirmed. However, in the mid-1970s, Lennon's attitude towards McCartney became less rigid and he said that the song "How Do You Sleep? was written about himself. In 1980, John admitted: "I used my resentment towards Paul ... to to write a song... not to have a terrible terrible vendetta... I used my resentment and distanced myself from Paul and the Beatles and my relationship with Paul to write the song "How Do You Sleep?" I don't really go over this whole situation in my head over and over."

Lennon and Ono moved to New York in 1971 and released the song "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" in December. In the new year, President Nixon's administration, as a "strategic countermeasure" against Lennon's anti-war speeches and anti-Nixon political agitation, made a four-year attempt to deport the musician. In 1972, Lennon and Yoko attended an event held at the New York home of activist Jerry Rubin after McGovern lost the election to Nixon. The musician was embroiled in a legal battle with the immigration authorities, he was denied a permanent residence permit in the United States (the ban was valid until 1976). Lennon, in a bad mood and in a state of intoxication, had sex with a guest and left Ono in confusion. These events inspired her to write the song "Death of Samantha".

In 1972, the album "Some Time in New York City" was released, recorded jointly with Yoko Ono and the New York group Elephant's Memory. The album touches on women's rights, racial relations, the role of Britain in Northern Ireland, Lennon's visa problems. The album was a commercial failure and did not receive high critical acclaim; "unpleasant to hear" - one of the critics gave the album such a description. Песня "Woman Is the Nigger of the World", выпущенная в США отдельным синглом (альбом вышел в том же году), была показана в телеэфире 11 мая в шоу Дика Каветта (The Dick Cavett Show). Многие радиостанции отказались транслировать песню из-за слова "ниггер" ("nigger"). Lennon and Ono with Elephant's Memory gave two charity concerts in New York to raise money for Willowbrook public school for children with mental retardation. The concert, held at Madison Square Garden on August 30, 1972, was Lennon's last full concert performance.

John Lennon's breakup with Ono

During the recording of Mind Games (1973), John and Ono decided to part ways. Their separation lasted 18 months, which Lennon later called the "lost weekend". John at this time lived in Los Angeles and New York with May Pang. The album "Mind Games", recorded by the Plastic U.F.Ono Band, was released in November 1973. Lennon also wrote the song "I"m the Greatest" for Starr's 1973 album Ringo, also released in November (another version of this song, recorded during the same 1973 Ringo session in which John was the lead vocalist, was released on the John Lennon Anthology compilation.

In early 1974, Lennon drank heavily and his adventures with Harry Nilsson, committed under the influence of alcohol, hit the front pages of newspapers. Two incidents took place at the Troubadour Club in March. The first incident was when Lennon stuck a menstrual bag on his forehead and got into a fight with a waitress, the second time, two weeks after the first incident, Lennon and Nilsson were kicked out of a club after they disrupted a performance by comedians the Smothers Brothers. Lennon decided to help Nilsson release the Pussy Cats album, Pang rented a beach house in Los Angeles for all the musicians, but they continued to rowdy, recording sessions turned into chaos. Lennon left with Pang for New York to finish the album. In April, Lennon wrote the song "Too Many Cooks (Spoil the Soup)" for Mick Jagger, but the song was not released under the terms of the contract for another 30 years. Pang provided a recording of the song, which was eventually included on the album "The Very Best of Mick Jagger" (2007).

Returning to New York, Lennon recorded the album "Walls and Bridges". The album was released in October 1974 and included the song "Whatever Gets You thru the Night", which reached number one in the US on the Billboard Hot 100. It is Lennon's only solo song to reach number one on the US charts. Elton John sang backing vocals on this song and played the piano. The second single from this album "#9 Dream" was released at the end of the year. Lennon again participated in the recording of Starr's new album "Goodnight Vienna" (1974), he composed a short song and played the piano. On November 28, Lennon made a surprise Thanksgiving appearance at Elton John's concert in Madison Square Garden to fulfill his promise to sing with the singer if his song "Whatever Gets You thru the Night", which Lennon doubted had commercial potential, would reach number one. in the hit parade. Lennon performed the song, as well as "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "I Saw Her Standing There", which he introduced as "a song written by my absent fiancee named Paul".

In September 1975, David Bowie's "Fame" was recorded, co-written by him with John Lennon. Lennon also sang backing vocals and played guitar. In the same month, a cover version of Elton John's "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" reached number one on the charts. Lennon sang the guitar and backing vocals on the song. On the cover of the single, Lennon is credited under the pseudonym " Dr. Winston O Boogie. Soon after, John and Yoko reunited again. In February 1975, the album "Rock" n "Roll" was released, which included cover versions of rock and roll hits. The song "Stand by Me" became a hit in the UK and US and was the final single for the next five years. Lennon's last concert performance was on ATV's Salute To Lew Grade, a 30th anniversary show that was recorded on April 18 and televised in June. Lennon played acoustic guitar with an eight-piece band and performed songs from the Rock 'n' Roll album: "Stand by Me", which was not shown on TV, "Slippin" and Slidin" and "Imagine". name Etc. were wearing masks, it was a "joke" from Lennon, who considered Grade hypocritical.

Break in Lennon's musical career

When Lennon's second son, Sean, was born on October 9, 1975, the musician decided to end his musical career and devoted himself to his son and family for the next five years. Within a month, he closed his contractual obligations with EMI/Capitol and released another album, "Shaved Fish", a compilation that included previously recorded songs. He dedicated himself to his son Sean, getting up at 6 am every day, preparing meals for him and spending time with him. John wrote the song "Cookin" (In the Kitchen of Love)" for Ringo Starr's album "Ringo's Rotogravure" (1976), the recording of this song was the last recording in which Lennon participated, until 1980. John officially announced his decision to end his musical career in Tokyo in 1977: "We decided, without any "high-profile" decisions, to spend as much time with our child as possible until we again feel that we are ready to create something or outside the family. During this break in his career, he created several series of drawings and drafted a book, which included autobiographical material and "crazy things," as John put it. All of these materials were published after Lennon's death.

Resurrection of Lennon's musical career

Lennon resumed his musical career in 1980 with the single "(Just Like) Starting Over", followed by the album "Double Fantasy" the following month, which included songs written by the musician while traveling to Bermuda on a sailing yacht in June 1980. The album reflected Lennon's satisfaction with his stable family life. Additional musical material created during the recording session was to be included on the Milk and Honey album, which was released posthumously in 1984. The album was released jointly by Lennon and Ono to critical acclaim, with music weekly Melody Maker calling it "indulgently sterile...and yawn-inducing".

‎Murder of John Lennon

At 10:50 p.m. on December 8, 1980, as Lennon and Ono were returning to their New York home, the Dakotas, Macr David Chapman fired 4 shots into John's back under the archway of his house. Lennon was taken to the Roosevelt hospital, but attempts to save him were in vain - he died at 23:00. That evening, Lennon gave Chapman an autograph - signed the cover of the album "Double Fantasy".

The next day, Ono made a statement, "There will be no funeral for John," and finished, "John loved the entire human race and prayed for them." Please pray for him." He was cremated at the Ferncliff Cemetery crematorium in Hartsdale, New York. It scattered his ashes in New York's Central Park, where the Strawberry Fields memorial was later erected. Chapman was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with the right to seek pardon after 20 years.In 2016, Chapman's ninth pardon was denied.

Personal life of John Lennon

John Lennon's first wife

Lennon and Cynthia Powell (1939-2015) met in 1957, they were both students at the Liverpool College of Art. Although she was afraid aggressive behavior Lennon and she did not like his appearance, she heard that he was obsessed with French actress Brigitte Bardot, so Cynthia dyed her hair blonde. Lennon asked her out on a date, but when she told her she was engaged, he yelled, "I didn't ask you to marry me, did I?" She often accompanied him to Quarrymen concerts and visited him in Hamburg with McCartney's girlfriend. Lennon, jealous by nature, treated her like his own property and often horrified her with his anger and physical abuse. Lennon later admitted that prior to meeting Ono, he never thought about his chauvinistic attitude towards women. In the Beatles song "Getting Better", he says he tells his own story: "I was rough with my woman, and physically with all women. I was a 'bouncer'. I couldn't express myself and I hit. I've fought men and I've beaten women. That's why now I always stand for peace."

Recalling his reaction to the news that Cynthia became pregnant in July 1962, John says, "There's only one thing left for us, Sin. We have to get married." The couple married on August 23 at the Civil Registry Office in Mount Pleasant. The wedding took place just at the time when "Beatlemania" began in the UK. He performed on the evening of the same day his wedding took place, and has continued to tour almost daily since then. Epstein, who feared news of the Beatles' marriage would scare off fans of the band, asked Lennon to keep their marriage a secret. Julian was born April 8, 1963. At this time, Lennon was on tour and saw his son only after 3 days.

Cynthia believed that her marriage began to fall apart after John's acquaintance with LSD, her husband gradually lost interest in her. When the group traveled by train to Bangor, Wales, in 1967 for a Maharishi Yogi seminar on transcendental meditation, the police did not recognize her and did not allow her to board the train. She later recalled that this incident symbolized the end of her marriage. Arriving home in Kenwood and finding Lennon with Yoko, Cynthia left home and stayed with friends. Alexis Mardas claimed to have slept with her that night, and a few weeks later he told her that Lennon wanted to divorce her and get custody of Julian because of her infidelity. The couple negotiated, and as a result, Lennon capitulated and agreed to divorce her on the grounds of infidelity. The couple divorced in November 1968, with Lennon giving her £100,000 (US$240,000) and a small annual payment and maintenance for Julian.

Was John Lennon homosexual?

In November 1961, the Beatles were playing at the Cavern Club, after their afternoon gig they were introduced to Epstein. Epstein was a homosexual. According to biographer Philip Norman, one of the reasons Epstein wanted to be the band's manager was that he was partial to Lennon. Almost immediately after the birth of Julian, Lennon left with Epstein for the holidays in Spain, this trip led to rumors about their relationship. When Lennon was asked about it later, he replied: "Well, it was almost love story, but not exactly. This story has never been completed. We had a very intense relationship. Since this was my first relationship with a homosexual, I tried to figure out if I was a homosexual. We were sitting in a cafe in Torremolinos, looking at all these guys, and I said: "Do you like this one? And this one? - I enjoyed this new experience and saw myself as a writer all this time - I'm experiencing it all." Shortly after their return from Spain, during McCartney's 21st birthday party in June 1963, Lennon beat up entertainer Bob Wooler, who asked, "How was your honeymoon, John?" Bob, known for his puns and snarky remarks, was only joking, but it had been ten months since Lennon got married and his honeymoon was still delayed and was due in two months. Lennon was drunk at the time and did not like what was said: "He called me a homosexual, and I hit him hard in the ribs."

Lennon enjoyed making fun of Epstein for being homosexual and for being Jewish. When Epstein asked what he should title his autobiography, Lennon suggested "A Homosexual Jew". Upon learning that the book's final title was A Cellarful of Noise, he parodied, "More like Cellarful of Boys." Visiting Epstein, he asked: "Did you come to blackmail him? If not, then you are the only moron in London." During the recording of the song "Baby, You" re a Rich Man", she replaced the lines of the song with "Baby, you" re a rich fag Jew ".

Son of John Lennon

Lennon's son Julian was born at a time when "Beatlemania" was gaining momentum and the Beatles were taking all of Lennon's strength and time. At the time of Julian's birth on April 8, 1963, John was on tour. Julian's birth, as well as John's marriage to Cynthia, were kept secret as Epstein was convinced that revealing the information would hinder the group's commercial success. Julian recalls how, four years ago, when he was still a little boy and lived in Weybridge: “I was walking home from school with one of my watercolors. There were stars on the canvas and a girl with blond hair who studied with me at school. And dad asked: “What is it?” I answered: “It's Lucy in the sky with diamonds.” Lennon wrote a song for the Beatles based on this story, and although there was a rumor later that the words of the song were inspired by the use of LSD, Lennon insisted that that "this song is not about drugs". McCartney confirmed Lennon's version that Julian came up with Lucy's name. Lennon was not close to his son, and Julian was more attached to McCartney than to his father. During Cynthia and John's divorce, Paul arrived to mother and son to support them and brought them the song "Hey Jules", which later became the song "Hey Jude". Lennon said: "This is his best song. It was conceived as a song for my son Julian... and turned into the song "Hey Jude". I always thought it was about me and Yoko, but Paul said it wasn't."

Lennon's relationship with Julian was strained, and after moving with Ono to New York in 1971, father and son did not see each other until 1973. With Pang's support, Cynthia and Julian's trip to Los Angeles and meeting with Lennon were organized, they went to Disneyland together. Julian and John began to meet regularly, and Lennon allowed him to play percussion on one of the songs from the Walls and Bridges album. Lennon bought his son a Gibson guitar Les Paul, as well as other instruments, and encouraged his interest in music by showing him how to play guitar chords. Julian recalls that his relationship with his father "became much better" during his stay in New York: "We had a lot of fun, we laughed a lot and had a very good time."

During an interview with Playboy magazine's David Schaff shortly before his death, Lennon admitted: "Sean was a planned child, that made all the difference. I didn't love Julian as a child, any less. He's still my son, even if he was born because I took a puff on a bottle of whiskey, or because at that time there were no birth control pills. He is here, he is a part of me, and will always be my son." He said he was trying to reconnect with the 17-year-old and was confident that he and Julian would communicate more in the future. After the death of the musician, it turned out that under the will Julian received almost nothing.

Lennon's romance with Yoko Ono

There are two versions of the acquaintance of Lennon and Ono. According to the first version, which Lennon adheres to, on November 9, 1966, he came to the Indica Gallery in London, where she was preparing her exhibition of conceptual art. John and Yoko were introduced to each other by John Dunbar. Lennon was intrigued by her painting "Hammer A Nail": patrons had to drive nails into a wooden board, thereby creating a work of art. Although the exhibition had not yet begun, Lennon wanted to drive a nail into the board, but Ono stopped him. Dunbar asked her, "Don't you know who this is? He's a millionaire! He could buy your work." Ono had never heard of the Beatles, but relented when Lennon paid her 5 shillings. Lennon recounted the story: "I gave her an imaginary 5 shillings and hammered an imaginary nail into a board with an imaginary hammer." According to the second version, which Paul adheres to, in late 1965 Ono was in London and collected the original musical scores for John Cage's book "Notations", but McCartney refused to give her his manuscripts for the book, and suggested that Lennon could help her. When she asked Lennon, he gave her a handwritten version of the lyrics to "The Word".

It began to come to his house and call him. When Lennon's wife asked him to explain what was happening, John replied that Ono was just trying to raise money for his "avant-garde nonsense." In May 1968, while Cynthia was in Greece, Lennon invited Ono to his home. They spent the night recording the tunes that would later become the "Two Virgins" album, and after that, according to John, "made love at dawn". When Cynthia returned home, she found Ono in her dressing gown, she was drinking tea with Lennon, who said: "Oh, hello." Ono became pregnant in 1968 but suffered a miscarriage on November 21, 1968, the male child was named John Ono Lennon II. A few weeks later, Lennon divorced Cynthia.

In the last two years of the Beatles' existence, John and Yoko participated in protests against the Vietnam War. They married in Gibraltar on March 20, 1969, and spent their honeymoon at the Hilton Amsterdam where they gave a "bed interview". The couple planned to give another "bed interview" in the US, but their visas were denied, so instead of the US, the interview took place at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, where the musicians recorded the song "Give Peace a Chance". They often combined propaganda and the performing arts, as in John's teachings on "Bagism", which Lennon first spoke about during a press conference in Vienna. During this period, the Beatles' song "The Ballad of John and Yoko" was written. Lennon officially changed his name on April 22, 1969, adding the middle name "It". A small ceremony was held on the roof of the building where Apple Corps was located. The roof of this building became famous three months earlier thanks to the concert of the Beatles, during which the song "Let It Be" was performed on the roof. Although the musician has since used the name John Ono Lennon, in official documents she was listed under the name John Winston Ono Lennon, since he was not allowed to refuse the name given to him at birth. The couple settled in Tittenhurst Park in Sunninghill, Berkshire. After Ono was injured in a car accident, Lennon installed a large double bed in the recording studio where he and the other members of the Beatles worked on the Abbey Road album. To avoid criticism over the breakup of the Beatles, Ono offered to temporarily move to New York, which they did on August 31, 1971.

At first they lived in the St. Regis Hotel at 5th Avenue, East 55th Street, and on October 16, 1971 moved into an apartment at 105 Bank Street, Greenwich Village. After the robbery, they moved into the fashionable Dakota apartment building in 1973 at 1 West 72nd Street.

John Lennon's mistress

Formed in 1968 by Allen Klein as an umbrella company for the ABKCO Records label, ABKCO Industries hired secretary Mai Pang in 1969. Since Lennon and Yoko worked with ABKCO, they met Pang the following year. She became their personal assistant. After Pang worked for them for 3 years, Ono confided to her that she and Lennon had begun to drift apart. She suggested that Pang begin a physical relationship with Lennon, explaining to her: "He really likes you." Pang, who was 22 at the time, was very surprised to hear Yoko's words, but ultimately agreed to become Lennon's companion. After that, the couple left for California, where they spent 18 months, which he later called "a lost weekend." While they were living in Los Angeles, Pang convinced Lennon to rekindle a relationship with Julian, whom he had not seen for 2 years. John also renewed his friendship with Starr, McCartney, Beatles administrator Mel Evans and Harry Nilsson. During one of Nilsson's drinking bouts, Lennon got into an argument with Pang and began to choke her, he only loosened his grip after Nilsson pulled him away from Pang.

Back in New York, they prepared a room for Julian in their rented apartment. Lennon, who until now had been forbidden by Ono to maintain unnecessary contacts, began to restore relations with relatives and friends. By December, he and Pang were considering buying a house, John stopped responding to phone calls It. In January 1975, he agreed to meet with Ono, who stated that she had found a way to quit smoking. But after their meeting, John did not return home to Pang and did not call her. Pang called John the next day, Ono picked up the phone and said that John could not come, as he was sleeping after the hypnosis session. Two days later, Pang and John met in the dentist's office, Lennon was drugged and confused to the point that Pang thought he had been brainwashed. He explained to her that he and Ono were back together and Pang was allowed to remain his mistress.

John Lennon as father

After Lennon and Ono moved in again, Yoko became pregnant, but since her three previous pregnancies ended in miscarriages, she said she wanted to have an abortion. She agreed not to terminate the pregnancy on the condition that Lennon would take care of the household, John agreed to this condition. Sean was born by caesarean section on October 9, 1975, Lennon's 35th birthday. The musician decided to interrupt his musical career for 5 years. John photographed Sean every day and drew a huge number of drawings for him, which were released posthumously in the collection "Real Love: The Drawings for Sean". Lennon later proudly said: "He didn't come out of my stomach, but I swear to God, I created his bones, because I cooked his food every time, watched him sleep, and I know that he swims like a fish" .

Relationship between Lennon and the Beatles

Lennon's relationship with Starr has always remained friendly, even after the breakup of the Beatles, but his relationship with McCartney and Harrison was difficult. John was very close to Harrison at the start of their musical career, but they parted ways when John moved to America. During his "Dark Horse tour" in 1974, Harrison visited New York. Lennon was supposed to take the stage during the concert, but never appeared in front of the audience due to the fact that he refused to sign an agreement that would have permanently annulled the legal partnership of the band members. (Lenno ended up signing the paperwork while on vacation with Pang and Julian in Florida). Harrison tried to stab Lennon in 1980, when George's autobiography came out, in which John was barely mentioned. Lennon told Playboy magazine: "I was in a lot of pain. A glaring omission ... I had absolutely no impact on his life ... he remembers every worthless saxophonist or guitarist he met in later years. And I'm in the book I don't even mention it."

Rivalry between John Lennon and Paul McCartney

Lennon felt the strongest emotions in relation to McCartney. He attacked him in the song "How Do You Sleep?", and also argued with him through the media for three years after the group's breakup. The two musicians began to rebuild the close relationship they had in the past, and in 1974 they even played music together before drifting apart again. In April 1976, the two of them watched an episode of Saturday Night Live at Lennon's home in the Dakota, and Lorne Michael made a $3,000 bet that the Beatles would team up. The musicians wanted to go to the studio, jokingly appear in front of the audience and demand their share of the money, but then they realized that they were too tired. Lennon summed up his feelings for McCartney in an interview he gave 3 days before his death: "All my career I only wanted to work with ... two people - Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono ... And this is a very good choice."

Despite the fact that the musicians did not maintain a relationship, Lennon always competed musically with McCartney and followed his musical works. During a five-year hiatus, Lennon took pleasure in idleness while McCartney created what John considered mediocre musical material. When McCartney released "Coming Up" in 1980, Lennon, who returned to the studio in his final year, noticed the song. "This song is driving me crazy!" he complained jokingly, because he couldn't get the melody out of his head. When asked later that year if the band members were sworn enemies or best friends, he replied that they were neither and added that he hadn't seen either of them yet. for a long time. John also said: "I still love these guys. The Beatles have broken up, but John, Paul, George and Ringo exist."

Political views of John Lennon

Lennon and Yoko spent their honeymoon at the Amsterdam Hilton and had a "bed interview" in March 1969, this event attracted attention and caused ridicule in the world media. During a second "bed interview" at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Lennon wrote and recorded the song "Give Peace a Chance". The song was released as a single and quickly became an anti-war anthem, sung by more than a quarter of a million anti-Vietnam demonstrators during the second demonstration for a moratorium on the war, which took place on November 15 in the city of Washington, DC. In December, John and Yoko paid for billboards in 10 cities around the world that read "The war is over! If you want it" in the national languages.

Later that year, Lennon and Ono supported members of the family of James Hanretty, who was hanged for murder in 1962, who sought to prove his innocence. In Lennon's opinion, the people who condemned Hanratty: "these are the same people who carry weapons in South Africa and kill blacks in the streets. ... These are the same rascals who are now in power, those who run everything, this is a damn bourgeois society". Lennon and Ono in London posted banners reading "Britain Killed Hanratty" and "Silent Protest for James Hanretty" and released a 40-minute documentary about the case. The appeal in this case was considered many years later and Hanratty's sentence was confirmed, DNA tests were carried out, which confirmed his guilt. The Hanratty family continued to file appeals until 2010.

Lennon and Ono showed solidarity with the Clydeside workers who went on strike in 1971 by sending them a bouquet of red roses and a check for £5,000. Moving to New York in August of that year, they befriended two members of the Chicago Seven, peace activists Jerry Rubin and Abby Hoffman. Another political activist, John Sinclair, a poet and co-founder of the White Panther Party, was serving a 10-year prison sentence for selling marijuana, having previously been charged with drug possession. In December 1971, a benefit concert (protest concert) called "The John Sinclair Release Rally" was held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, attended by about 15,000 people, including Lennon, Steve Wonder, Bob Seeger, Bobby Seal of "White Panther Parts" et al. Lennon and Ono, accompanied by David Peel and Rubin, performed 4 acoustic songs from their next album Some Time in New York City, including the song "John Sinclair", the lyrics of which called for his release. The day before the rally, the Michigan Senate passed a bill that substantially reduced the penalties for possession of marijuana, and four days later Sinclair was released, subject to an obligation to reimburse the opposing party for the costs of the appeal. The performance of the artists was recorded, and later two of Lennon's songs were included in The John Lennon Anthology (1998).

After the Bloody Sunday event in Northern Ireland in 1972, on the day 14 unarmed civil rights activists were shot to death by the British Army, Lennon stated that if he had to choose between the British Army and the IRA (which was not involved in the incident ), he would choose the side of the latter. Lennon and Ono wrote 2 songs - "Luck of the Irish" and "Sunday Bloody Sunday", in which they expressed their protest against the actions of the British army in Ireland, these songs were included in the album "Some Time in New York City". In 2000, David Sheiler , former employee British security service MI5 suggested that Lennon was giving money to the IRA, but this accusation was quickly refuted by Ono. Biographer Bill Harry noted that after Bloody Sunday, Lennon and Ono provided financial support to the filmmakers of The Irish Tapes, a Republican political documentary.

According to an FBI report (confirmed by Tariq Ali in 2006) regarding Lennon's surveillance, the musician was sympathetic to the International Marxist Group, a Trotskyist group formed in Britain in 1968. However, the FBI believed that Lennon had limited opportunities as a revolutionary, as he was "constantly under the influence of drugs."

In 1973, Lennon wrote a humorous poem, "Why is it sad to be gay?" ("Why Make It Sad To Be Gay?") for Len Richmond's The Gay Liberation Book.

Lennon's last act of political activity was a declaration of support for the sanitation and cleaning strike in San Francisco, which took place on December 5, 1980. John and Yoko planned to join the labor protest on December 14th. By this point, however, Lennon had almost abandoned his countercultural views which he held throughout the 1960s and 1970s and had become more conservative, though whether Lennon actually became a conservative is debatable.

Following the release of Lennon's songs "Give Peace a Chance" and "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)", which were associated with the anti-Vietnam War movement, President Nixon's administration, having learned of the musician's intention to participate in a concert in San Diego, passing Nixon believed that Lennon's anti-war activities could cost him his seat in the White House, Republican Senator Strom Thurmond, in a memo in February 1972, indicated that "deportation could be a strategic countermeasure" The following month, the United States Office of Immigration and Naturalization began the process of deportation, arguing that the musician's 1968 marijuana charge in London made him ineligible for permission to stay in the United States. Over the next three and a half years, Lennon's deportation case went on until October 8, 1975, when an appeals court denied the musician's deportation, ruling that "the courts do not justify selective deportation on the basis of secret political motives." While the legal battle was going on, Lennon continued to attend rallies and appear on television. Lennon and Ono co-hosted The Mike Douglas Show for a week in February 1972, introducing average Americans to show guests such as Jerry Rubin and Bobby Seale. In 1972, Bob Dylan wrote a letter in defense of Lennon to the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, stating the following:

The voice of John and Yoko means a lot in this world and expresses the opinion of creative organizations. They inspire, transcend, encourage, and thus only help others to see the pure light, and in doing so, they will be able to put an end to this bad taste of petty commercialism, which is presented as true art by the mainstream media. Long live John and Yoko. Let them stay, live here and breathe. There is a lot of free space in this country. Let John and Yoko stay!

On March 23, 1973, Lennon was ordered to leave the United States within 60 days. However, Ono was issued official permission to reside in the country. In response, Lennon and Ono held a press conference on April 1, 1973 at the New York City Bar where they announced the creation of the "Nutopia" state; a place where "there are no lands, no borders, no passports, there are only people." Having hung out the white flag of "Nutopia" (two headscarves), they asked for political asylum in the United States. This press conference was filmed and later featured in the 2006 documentary USA vs. John Lennon. Lennon's 1973 album Mind Games included the song "Nutopian International Anthem", which is 3 seconds of silence. Shortly after the press conference, Nixon's involvement in the political scandal became known, and the Watergate hearings began in Washington, D.C. in June. As a result, the President resigned after 14 months. Nixon's successor Gerald Ford was not interested in continuing to fight Lennon, and the deportation order was canceled in 1975. The following year, a final decision was made regarding Lennon's immigration status, the musician received a "green card", which gave him the right to permanently reside in the United States. Lennon and Ono in January 1977 attended the inaugural ball in honor of the inauguration of President Jimmy Carter.

The truth about John Lennon's death

After Lennon's death, historian John Wiener sent the FBI a Free Information Act request to declassify FBI documents related to the bureau's role in the attempted deportation of the musician. The FBI granted access to page 281 of documents relating to Lennon, but refused to declassify most of the documents on the grounds that they contained classified information. In 1983, Wiener sued the FBI with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. It took 14 years of litigation to get the FBI to declassify the rest of the pages. The American Civil Liberties Union, representing Viner, won a positive decision in their 1991 Ninth Circuit lawsuit against the FBI. The Justice Department appealed this decision to the Supreme Court in April 1992, but the court refused to review the case. In 1997, President Bill Clinton approved a new rule that documents should only be classified if their discovery would cause "foreseeable harm." The Department of Justice settled the most pressing issues out of court and granted access to all but ten of the disputed documents.

Wiener published the results of his 14-year work in January 2000. "Gimme Some Truth": FBI files on John Lennon contain facsimiles of documents, including "lengthy whistleblower reports detailing Everyday life anti-war activists, reports to the White House, transcripts of television shows in which Lennon participated, and a proposal to organize the arrest of Lennon by local police on charges of illegal possession of drugs. "This story is told in the documentary" USA vs. John Lennon ". The last 10 documents that were included in an FBI file regarding Lennon, reported his ties to London anti-war activists in 1971, and were classified as documents containing "national security information provided by a foreign country expressly promised confidentiality" were declassified in December 2006 The documents made no reference to the fact that the British government considered Lennon a serious threat.One example of declassified information is a report about how two prominent British centre-leftists hoped that Lennon would provide money to open a bookstore and a reading room for the Liberal Party.

John Lennon talents

The Beatles biographer notes that Lennon began to draw and write at an early age, his uncle encouraged the boy's creativity. He collected his stories, poems, comics and cartoons, which the boy drew in the Quarry Bank school workbook. The magazine was called "Daily Howl" (Daily Howl). The boy often portrayed mutilated people, and his stories were satirical and replete with wordplay. According to Bill Turner, a classmate of Lennon's, John created The Daily Howl magazine to amuse his best friend and future Quarrymen member Pete Shotton. Lennon showed him the magazine first. Turner said that Lennon "was crazy about Wigan Pier. And this passion of his manifested itself in everything." In Lennon's story "A Carrot in a Potato Mine", "the rich man ended up being Wigan Pier". Turner talked about one of Lennon's comics, which featured a "Bus Stop" sign with the comment "Why?" A pancake was flying in the sky, and on the ground "a blind man in glasses was walking with a blind dog also in glasses."

By the time Lennon was 24, his love of word games and absurd stories with unexpected endings attracted a large audience. Harry notes that In His Own Write (1964) was published after "several journalists who were hanging around the group came to me and I showed them John's writing. They said: "Write a book", that's how it happened that the first of the books appeared. "Like the Daily Howl, the book included works of various kinds, for example, short stories, poems, plays and drawings. One of the stories, "Good Dog Nigel", tells the story of a happy dog ​​pissing on a lamp post, barking, chasing his tail until he suddenly finds out that he will be killed at three o'clock. . The British magazine Times Literary Supplement called the poems and stories "wonderful ... very funny ... the absurd works great, words and images are connected in a single chain of fantasies." Book Week noted: "These are stories of absurdity, but the literary material is worth studying to make sure that Lennon succeeds in this genre. He freely plays with homonyms, words not only have double meanings, but often they are "double-edged"". Lennon was surprised not only by the positive reviews, but also by the fact that the book was reviewed and studied at all. He suggested that readers "took the book much more seriously than I did. I wrote it just for fun."

The books Spaniard in the Wheel A Spaniard in the Works (1965) and In His Own Write formed the basis of The John Lennon Play: In His Own Write. Write), adapted by Victor Spinetti and Adrian Kennedy. Negotiations took place between Lennon, Spinetti and the artistic director of the National Theatre, Sir Laurence Olivier, in 1968 the play opened the new season of the Old Wick Theatre. Lennon and Ono attended the play's premiere, their second appearance together. In 1969, Lennon wrote "Four in Hand", a sketch based on his teenage group masturbation experience. The sketch formed the basis of Kenet Tynan's play "Oh Calcutta! (Oh! Calcutta!) After Lennon's death, the following works of his were released: Skywriting by Word of Mouth (1986); Ai: Japan Through John Lennon" s Eyes: A Personal Sketchbook ( 1992), which includes illustrations by Lennon and definitions of Japanese words; and Real Love: The Drawings for Sean (1999). The collection The Beatles Anthology (2000) also included his literary works and drawings.

John Lennon as a musician

Once, when Lennon was on a bus to visit his cousin in Scotland, the driver liked his playing the children's harmonica very much. The driver promised to give the boy a good harmonica if he came to Edinburgh the next day. The harmonica was left on the bus by one of the passengers, and since then it has been kept at the bus station. The professional instrument quickly replaced Lennon's toy. The musician continued to play the harmonica, often using it during the band's performances in Hamburg, and it became the Beatles' signature sound during their early recording sessions. His mother taught him how to play the banjo and later bought him an acoustic guitar. At 16, he played rhythm guitar with the Quarrymen.

As his career progressed, he played a variety of instruments, primarily Rickenbacker 325, Epiphone Casino, and Gibson J-160E guitars, and early in his solo career, a Gibson Les Paul Junior. The producer of the "Double Fantasy" album said that since his time in the Beatles, Lennon habitually tuned the sixth string of the guitar a little lower than it should, so that his aunt Mimi could distinguish his instrument on the group's records. Lennon occasionally played a six-string Fender Bass VI on songs such as "Back in the U.S.S.R.", "The Long and Winding Road", "Helter Skelter". McCartney plays other instruments on these songs. John's other favorite instrument was the piano, on which he composed many of his songs, such as the song "Imagine", which is called his most famous solo work. While improvising on the piano, Lennon and McCartney wrote the song "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in 1963, which went to number one on the US charts. In 1964, Lennon was the first British musician to acquire a mellotron, but the instrument was not heard on the band's recordings until 1967, when the song "Strawberry Fields Forever" was recorded.

Vocal style of John Lennon

During the recording of "Twist and Shout", the last track from the band's 1963 debut album Please Please Me, which was recorded in one day, Lennon's voice, which had caught a cold during recording, was about to break. Lennon says: "I couldn't sing the damn song, I just screamed." According to biographer Barry Miles, "Lennon simply tore his vocal cords apart in the name of rock 'n' roll." The Beatles' producer George Martin says that "John had an innate dislike for his own voice that I could never understand. He was always asking me, 'Do something with my voice! ...put something on it...Make it sound different." Martin did him a favor and used the double track method and other recording techniques.

Lennon's career in the group smoothly turned into a solo career and the performer found new vocal colors to express his feelings. Biographer Chris Gregory notes that Lennon "timidly begins to express his insecurities in a series of acoustic (confessional) ballads; thus begins a process of 'community therapy' that eventually culminates in primal screams in 'Cold Turkey' and catharsis in 'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band"". Musical critic Robert Christgau calls Lennon's vocals "the greatest vocal performance... from screams to squeals, electronically modulated... echoed, filtered, and recorded on two tracks". According to David Stewart Ryan, Lennon's vocals range from "extreme vulnerability, sensitivity and even naivety" to a harsh "rough" style. Wiener, describing the vocal contrasts of the performer, notes that the singer's voice is "muffled and soft at first, soon almost cracking with despair." Music historian Ben Urish recalls hearing "This Boy" on the radio, which the band played on the Ed Sullivan Show, a few days after Lennon's murder: "When Lennon's vocals were at their peak... such anguish and emotions. But in his voice I heard my emotions. It always happened. "

John Lennon's legacy

Music historians Schinder and Schwartz, describing the transformation of popular music styles between the 1950s and 1960s, argue that the influence of the Beatles cannot be overestimated. The musicians "revolutionized the sound, style and attitude of popular music and opened the doors of rock and roll to an avalanche of British rock bands" and then the group "spent the second half of the 1960s pushing the stylistic boundaries of rock." Liam Gallagher, leader of the Oasis, acknowledged the influence of the Beatles on his musical creativity and considered Lennon to be his idol. In 1999, he named his first child Lennon Gallagher after the famous musician. In 1999, a poll was conducted in Britain, the purpose of which was to identify the most popular song lyrics. On National Poetry Day, the BBC announced the winner - the song "Imagine".

John Viner, writing in The Guardian in 2006, wrote: "Young people in 1972 were very excited about Lennon's courage and confrontation with US President Nixon. His willingness to risk his career and life is one of the reasons why people still bow down before him." Music historians Urich and Bielen call Lennon's most significant achievement "self-portraits...which, in his songs, appeal to human nature, speak out in defense of human nature, and tell about human nature."

In 2013, Downtown Music Publishing entered into a U.S. publishing and management contract with Lenono Music and Ono Music, which own the song catalogs of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, respectively. Under the deal, Downtown will release Lennon's songs "Imagine", "Instant Karma (We All Shine On)", "Power to the People", "Happy X-Mas (War Is Over)", "Jealous Guy", "(Just Like) Starting Over" and others.

Lennon continues to be mourned around the world, he is paid tribute and numerous memorials are erected. In 2002, the airport in Lennon's hometown was named "Liverpool John Lennon Airport". In 2010, in honor of the 70th anniversary of Lennon's birth, the John Lennon Peace Monument was inaugurated in Chavasse Park by Cynthia and Julian Lennon. The monument is called "Peace and Harmony", represents the symbols of peace and the inscription "Peace in the world for the preservation of life In memory of John Lennon 1940-1980".

In December 2013, the Astronomical Union named one of the craters on Mercury after Lennon.

Merits and awards of John Lennon

The musical duo Lennon-McCartney is considered the most influential and successful in the 20th century. 25 of Lennon's songs, which he performed, composed himself or in collaboration with other musicians, took first place in the US Hot 100 hit parade. 14 million copies of his albums have been sold in the US. His album "Double Fantasy" became the best-selling solo album, with 3 million copies sold in the US. The album was released shortly after John's death and received a Grammy Award for Best Album of the Year in 1981. The following year, the BRIT Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music went to Lennon.

Participants in a poll conducted by the BBC in 2002 gave him 8th place in the list of the "One Hundred Greatest Britons". In the period from 2003 to 2008, Rolling Stone magazine included Lennon among the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time" - 15th place; "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" - 38th place. The musician's albums "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band" and "Imagine" were ranked 22nd and 76th respectively in Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Lennon was awarded the Order of the British Empire (MBE) as part of the Beatles in 1965, in 1969 the musician returned this award. Lennon was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

Discography of John Lennon

• Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins (1968)
• Unfinished Music No.2: Life With The Lions (1969)
• Wedding Album (with Yoko Ono) (1969)
• John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)
• Imagine (1971)
• Some Time in New York City (with Yoko Ono) (1972)
• Mind Games (1973)
• Walls and Bridges (1974)
• Rock 'n' Roll (1975)
• Double Fantasy (with Yoko Ono) (1980)
• Milk and Honey (with Yoko Ono) (1984)

The controversial figure of John Lennon still excites the imagination of British fellow countrymen. In 2002, the BBC ranked him eighth in a list of the top 100 British people who, in a poll, were named by their compatriots as the greatest personalities in national history.

What was John Lennon, the creator and destroyer of The Beatles, a group that many consider to be the ensemble of all times and peoples? Who is he, the musician whose most famous song "Imagine" was written after the "Yellow Submarine" sank?

A hippie idol who preached equality and fraternity, peace and freedom, John Lennon was born in the morning hours of a German air raid that hit his native Liverpool on October 9, 1940.

The only son of Julia and Alfred Lennon, who received the middle name Winston from his parents, he did not live long in the status of a prosperous family.

A divorce soon followed, his mother quickly found a replacement for her ex-spouse, and at the age of 4, John had a second family. The boy was taken up by the childless Smith couple, in which George's wife, Mimi, was the aunt of the future creator of the Beatles. Her upbringing methods were strict, because of which John communicated more with George, and when he died, Lennon became close to his mother.

Even as a teenager, John Lennon showed the makings of an outstanding personality and an undoubted leader. School routine was fatal to his sharp mind. His academic performance left much to be desired, he devoted all the impulses of his soul to singing in the choir and publishing a handwritten magazine.

Soon he was transferred to another school, but even there he quickly slipped into a lagging student, not showing himself in the knowledge of the sciences, regularly violating discipline and drawing caricatures of his teachers.

At the same time, Liverpool was under the control of a completely new musical style- rock and roll, pioneered by Bill Haley and his legendary Comets. When Lonnie Donegan took the helm of the skiffle style, there was a genuine flood of skiffle groups in Britain.

And when show business gave the world Elvis Presley, John Lennon realized: it's time to prove himself! He entered the school band as a guitarist, where another teenager “fried” the guitar, one tried to play the banjo, two tortured percussion instruments, and the sixth member of the team specialized in a washboard.

Creating the Greatest Duo Lennon-McCartney refers to July 6, 1957. It was then that John met Paul, dragged him into his group, and soon McCartney's friend George Harrison appeared there. The next few months, events alternated in kaleidoscopic order.

Failing his final exams, John Lennon, however, managed to continue his studies at the Liverpool College of Art. Here he met the future first Beatles bass player Stuart (Stu) Sutcliffe and met his future wife, Cynthia Powell. Then his mother Julia died, this was the greatest shock for John.

He was so strongly attached to her that even after her death he continued to look for the image of his mother in all the women he met in his life. He named his first son Julian in her honor (who, by the way, continued his father's work in show business) and several of his songs.

"The Beatles": beginning, success and decline

1959 was the beginning of a group of all times and peoples. The very next year, the Beatles, who called themselves "Silver Bugs", went to Germany for fame, which was fashionable in those days for English groups. In Hamburg, Lennon met with drugs.

Then one of the two people who own the laurels of The Beatles promotion, Brian Epstein, took over their management. It was he who insisted on his idea to dress all the Beatles in costumes that later became world-famous (the very first Soviet rock band “Singing Guitars” also wore them).

This move was successful, and the group's popularity increased. The second person who had a huge impact on the emergence of the Beatlemania phenomenon was George Martin.

In 1962, Lennon's best friend Stu Sutcliffe died. Soon John registers his marriage with Cynthia, his first son Julian is born. In the summer of 1963 alone, the group's fame crossed the borders of Liverpool and became nationwide. Then John Lennon took over the functions of the leader of the ensemble.

In 1964, he first tried himself as a writer. Unfortunately, in this genre of art, he did not manage to achieve any tangible success, unlike, for example, the brilliant leader of The Doors, Jim Morrison.

Lennon's attempts to prove himself as an actor were also unsuccessful: the film How I Won the War went unnoticed by both the audience and the critics.

Between 1964 and 1966, the Beatles were at the height of their success. In 1966, John showed obvious faux pas when he said in an interview that his group was more popular than Jesus Christ. This phrase was placed on the cover of the American "Datebook".

The result of such self-confidence was the bonfires from the records of the ensemble, which were bred by the inhabitants of the southern states. Lennon had to publicly apologize, but since then the Beatles' popularity has waned. And when, before a concert in Memphis, an unknown person said on the phone that he would kill him, John insisted on stopping the tour.

The Beginning of Withdrawal, Yoko Ono

Lennon's true biography as a public figure began in 1967, when he became addicted to drugs and began to move away from the group, resigning the authority of the leader to Paul McCartney. The result of these actions, oddly enough, was the release of "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" - the best album of all time.

Since then, a black cat has run between the members of the Lennon-McCartney creative tandem, and this was the beginning of the end of The Beatles. Most of the songs (including the great "Yesterday") were written by McCartney, although the double credits remained.

It was at this time that Lennon began to write those works that brought him worldwide fame - Strawberry Fields Forever, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, All You Need Is Love, and others. His apathy affected the image of the group: John Lennon himself put on his famous "Cat Basilio glasses" for the first time, and the rest of the Beatles, looking at him, grew mustaches and beards. The era of hippies has begun...

Since that time, John's relationship with Yoko Ono, whom the other three Beatles call the real reason the collapse of the group of all times and peoples. Of course, having lost interest in his offspring, Lennon simply had to find a replacement for him.

This replacement was the aspiring avant-garde artist, with whom John was introduced in 1966 by Paul McCartney. However, they agreed only in 1968. John Lennon divorced Cynthia, registered his relationship with Yoko a year later and took the middle name Ono instead of Winston.

In general, 1968 can be called the year when John's biography went on completely different tracks. He releases his first solo album Infinite Music Number One: Two Virgins". It's hard to name him musical creation, because the content of the record was a cacophony of sounds, groans and screams.

On the cover were John and Yoko wearing what their mother gave birth to. This absolutely useless work inspired Lennon so much that the following year he released as many as two similar albums, and then created the Plastic It Group, effectively putting an end to the existence of The Beatles.

Policy

From that time until 1972, Lennon was involved in politics. In 1969, he and Yoko gave an interview on the topic of peace, sitting in the beds of an Amsterdam hotel. After repeating this precedent in Montreal, the pacifist anthem "Give Peace a Chance" was born. And the anti-war concert organized by them allowed television people to name John the third politician of the decade, after Kennedy and Mao Zedong.

In 1971, the album "Imagine Yourself" was released, where John outlined his ideas of world equality. By that time, the couple had left for the United States and never returned to England. True to himself, John campaigned for freedom for the Indians and released his last politically biased opus, Some Time in New York, in 1972.

Then the Lennons separated for a year, but in 1975, on his birthday, Yoko's wife gave him a son, Sean, and for the next 5 years, John Lennon was engaged in raising this child. On December 8, 1980, he was shot five times in the back by a fan. Mark Chapman took an autograph from his idol a few hours earlier.

John Lennon is an English musician, poet, composer, artist, one of the founders of the legendary British quartet The Beatles.

John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 in Liverpool (Great Britain). Perhaps both defects had a strong influence on John Lennon's perception of the world, on his artistic thinking and poetic talent. It could also be influenced by the fact that John's mother and father constantly quarreled with each other in front of his eyes, and the episode when he saw his father fighting with his mother's lover made a special impression on him. His mother, Julia, was generally a reckless and reckless woman, however, despite this, John loved her very much and suffered greatly when she died under the wheels of a police car (John Lennon was then 18 years old). Later, John Lennon would dedicate several of his songs to her. When John Lennon was five years old, his parents gave him a choice - with whom he wants to live, with his father or mother. John chose his father, but stayed with his mother, his mother took him to Aunt Mimi and left him with her. She was a totalitarian aunt and strongly oppressed everyone around (including John Lennon).

In 1956 John Lennon founded the team The Quarrymen with school friends, in which John Lennon began to play the guitar. On July 6, 1957, John Lennon met Paul McCartney, who soon joined The Quarrymen. John Lennon entered the Liverpool College of Art, where he met his future first wife, Cynthia Powell.

In 1959, The Quarrymen mutated into the Silver Beetles, and a little later into just The Beatles. The further history of this group is known and deserves a separate article. It is important for us now to point out the next big milestone in the life of John Lennon. Namely: on March 14, 1969, John Lennon married Yoko Ono. The point of view that it was this Japanese avant-garde woman who became the decisive person in the formation and development of that John Lennon is consistently carried out in the article by Gleb Davydov, which deserves one hundred percent acquaintance. Including in this text, the point of view on Yoko Ono as the person who ruined The Beatles is denied. In fact, the group broke up due to the grueling lifestyle that its members led, including John Lennon. By that time, John Lennon was using all kinds of drugs (and especially a lot of LSD) and was a complete paranoid and drug addict. It was Yoko Ono who helped him come to his senses again, and, in particular, thanks to such social actions as Bed-in. Immediately after the wedding, John Lennon and Yoko Ono arrived in Amsterdam and announced a “bed interview” there. Journalists, expecting that John Lennon and Yoko Ono would copulate publicly, flocked to the hotel, but it turned out that John Lennon and Yoko were just sitting in bed and giving out peaceful slogans. White pajamas, flowers everywhere, and the doors of their room are wide open all day long ... Anyone could enter and talk to them. Cameras, photographers, newspaper journalists and more. Later, the action moved to Montreal (where John Lennon publicly recorded the anthem song Give Peace a Chance). It was a media sensation, and thanks to it, the media were full of proposals to end the war in Vietnam. On December 15, 1969, John Lennon and Yoko held an anti-war concert "The war will end if you want it." On December 30 of the same year, British TV showed a program about John Lennon, where he was named one of the three political figures of the decade (the other two are John F. Kennedy and Mao Zedong).

John Lennon also advocated endowing the Indians civil rights, for softening the conditions of detention in prisons, for the release of John Sinclair, one of the leaders of American youth, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for possession of marijuana (thanks to the action of John Lennon Sinclair was released).

In 1971 John Lennon's cult CD Imagine appeared. Since September 1971, John Lennon and Yoko Ono began to live in the United States. Since then, John Lennon has never returned to his homeland, to the UK. For more information about the life of John Lennon and Yoko Ono there, in the USA, see the article by Gleb Davydov.

On December 8, 1980, John Lennon was killed by a crazy maniac,. In 2002, the BBC conducted a poll to determine the 100 Greatest Britons of all time. John Lennon was voted in eighth place.

JOHN LENNON IS THE ALL-TIME ICON

Who was ? Neither his contemporaries nor we could give a definite answer. Many consider him a man who, with all his essence and musical talent, served the cause of peace and the fight against violence.

However, success in show business and the entertainment industry comes with a price. paid it in full.

Strokes for a portrait from John's childhood

The fate of the most famous of the four members of the Beatles ensemble continues to attract attention. His music, views and lifestyle have had and continue to have an impact on the youth of different countries. Life and art Lennon reflect the spiritual quest of an entire generation. But in whom and what did their idol believe – remains a mystery. was literally obsessed with the number nine. He was born on the 9th. On November 9, he met with manager Brian Epstein and his second wife. 1940 John Winston Lennon was born. It could be both the first and the last day of his life. After all, Liverpool then survived one of the heaviest bombings. But fate took pity on the newborn. He was only child Alfred and Julia Lennon. When John was two years old, his father disappeared from the house. The mother soon realized that taking care of her son took all her strength, leaving no time for entertainment, and in 1945 she gave John to her sister Mimi and her husband George, retaining the right to visit her son.

Oh music!

The first signs of a craving for music appeared in John in the mid-1950s, when Liverpool was swept by the massive skiffle craze. By this time he was already decently playing the harmonica. And with the advent of rock and roll, John immediately and unconditionally decided to devote himself to this new genre.

In the spring of 1957 he created his first The group Quarry Men. Soon he met two more guys who were also passionate about music - and George Harrison. Lennon led them to the group that eventually became the Beatles.

with Cynthia Powell

The music captured John completely. No wonder he failed to pass a single final exam. True, in the fall he managed to enter the Art College under patronage, but he was also expelled from there for poor progress. Although it was there that he met his future wife, Cynthia Powell. Four years later Lennon married a girl, and on April 8, 1963, their son Julian was born. It cannot be said that John was very happy with his family life: the Beatles remained his true love, he put all his energy into performing with the group and writing songs.

Outrageous over the edge

Lennon was, of course, an extraordinary personality, and besides, not burdened with excessive modesty. “People like me recognize the signs of genius in themselves already at the age of ten, eight or nine ... I still don’t understand: why didn’t anyone discover me earlier?” And his statement that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ nearly cost the band a tour of the United States.

The public studied literally every step of his, trying to predict what would be in fashion in the near future. John also felt that the Beatles were beginning to stagnate, forced to obey the rigid demands of the tour, performing the same set of songs to a deafening roar in the hall. He wanted to somehow change his life. However, the search for something new, full-fledged, did not give results. John rushed from drugs to spiritual introspection and back, but all this did not bring the desired calm and satisfaction.

In 1966, at the Indica Gallery, he met Yoko Ono is a Japanese avant-garde artist based in London. Her strange work struck him, and he offered to help a new acquaintance arrange exhibitions. They took up joint art projects and eventually fell in love with each other. John decided to leave Cynthia for the opportunity to be with Yoko all the time. For this step, a hail of critical arrows fell upon him from all sides. The press began a wild persecution Lennon for his "shameful" behavior: how dare he leave his pretty English wife and young son for the love of some "jap with a fool"?

endured especially painful John misunderstanding on the part of friends, other Beatles. George and Paul disapproved of the fact that Yoko began to exert a strong influence on John. He felt that being in a band no longer suited his musical tastes. I realized that I ceased to be John Lennon, but turned into John the Beatle, a rock idol. And then he began a crusade for getting rid of an alien image, for the return of his true face.

John Lennon in Search of Freedom

John and Yoko married on March 20, 1969, having a "public honeymoon" advertising world peace while lying in bed and talking to reporters. He inherited a taste for eccentric antics from his mother. Lennon since childhood, he took shocking as part of his behavior. Probably, the desire to shock public opinion can also explain the appearance of the picture on the cover of the first solo record. Lennon"Unfinished Music No. 1. Two Virgins", where he and Yoko were photographed naked. The stores refused to accept this album, and only by hiding it in a thick brown paper wrapper, they managed to put the record into the distribution network ...

Soon Lennons decided to leave forever for America - a country where they were taken seriously, considering them free-thinking artists, and not just "crazy millionaires", as was the case in England. On August 12, 1971, they flew to New York, and John never returned to his homeland. They joined the pacifist movement, began attending anti-war rallies and composing political songs.

A reflection of his then radical left views was the album Sometime in New York City, released in 1972. Then the three-year litigation begins. Lennon with the US authorities for the right to live permanently in the US. The trials cost John and Yoko enormous stress. Emotional stress took its toll, and in October 1973 they parted ways. Lennon went to Los Angeles with an assistant and lived a wild life.

The spat between John and Yoko lasted almost a year and a half (he called this period "the lost weekend"). In October 1975, Yoko (after three miscarriages that she had during her life with John) gave birth to a son. The child who was born on his father's birthday was named. And next year Lennon finally received the long-awaited "green card", giving the right to permanent residence in the United States.

Over the abyss

In August 1980 Lennon returns to creative activity. From the former rebellion is not left and trace. Critics noted the warmth and sincerity of the feelings expressed in the songs. 1980, the musician was killed. Ironically, John died just when his life finally improved and he was full of far-reaching plans and hopes. The musician, who became a symbol of the era, a legend of the twentieth century, was shot not by an FBI or CIA agent, not by a hired killer, but by a 25-year-old crazy fan. What made Mark David Chapman fire five bullets in a row at his idol near his house? This is still unknown. Instead of an excuse, the killer quoted a piece of his favorite book by Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye. The court found him insane and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

John Lennon gone for more than 30 years, but in the memory of fans, he will live for a long time.

DATA

He hated canons and rules. Popularity and success brought Lennon much money, but here lies the main lack of freedom. “I have been under the yoke of a contract since I was twenty years old. They expected one thing from me, another ... I was not free at all, ”he said in an interview with Newsweek magazine shortly before his death.

Song Lennon Imagine was banned from religious Anglican schools because of the words "And no religion". In 2004, Rolling Stone named it one of the best songs in the world. Since 2006, Imagine has been playing in the last minutes of the outgoing year in Times Square in New York.

Updated: March 11, 2018 by: Elena

John Lennon(at birth John Winston Lennon, subsequently changed to John Winston Ono Lennon; English John Winston Ono Lennon, October 9, 1940, Liverpool, UK - December 8, 1980, New York, USA) - British rock musician, singer, poet, composer, artist, writer. One of the founders and member of The Beatles, one of the most popular musicians of the 20th century. After the collapse The Beatles started a solo career, but in 1980 was killed by his fan.

In addition to his musical activities, Lennon was also known as a political activist. He expressed his views both in songs and in public speeches. In a famous song "Imagine" Lennon's thoughts about how the world should be arranged are expressed. Lennon preached the ideas of equality and brotherhood of people, peace and freedom. This made him a hippie idol and one of the most significant public figures of the 1960s and 1970s.

In 2002, the BBC conducted a poll to determine the 100 Greatest Britons of all time. John Lennon ranked eighth on this list. Lennon also took two places in the list of 50 at once. the greatest performers of all time according to Rolling Stone magazine: 1st in the The Beatles and personal 38th. British magazine Classic Rock included Lennon in the list of the greatest guitarists of all time.

Childhood and youth

John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 at 6:30 am, during a German air raid on Liverpool. His parents are Julia (1914-1958) and Alfred Lennon (1912-1976). John was their first and last child - soon after his birth, Julia and Alfred separated.

When Julia Lennon found herself another man, four-year-old John was taken in by his maternal aunt Mimi Smith (1906-1991) and her husband George Smith, who had no children of their own. Mimi was a strict teacher, and Lennon often resented this. Mimi did not approve of his passion for the guitar. John was distinguished by rare wit and malice. When he was learning to play the guitar, Aunt Mimi grumbled: "The guitar is a good thing, but it will never help you make a living!" Later, at the height of his success, John bought his aunt a luxurious mansion on the coast and decorated the hall with a marble plaque with his aunt's words. But Lennon found a common language with his uncle, who replaced his father, but in 1955 George died. Then John became close to his mother Julia, who lived with her second husband and two children from him.

Lennon could not stand the routine of school life, therefore, despite his sharp mind, he fell from the category of the best students to the worst. But at school, he managed to reveal his creative abilities - Lennon sang in the choir and published a handwritten magazine, which he illustrated himself. His favorite books at the time were Alice in Wonderland and The Wind in the Willows. In 1952, Lennon ended up at Quarrybank High School. In his studies, he did not achieve much success here either, quickly finding himself in class "C" for the most backward students. At the same time, Lennon regularly violated discipline and drew caricatures of teachers.

In the mid-1950s, following the release of Bill Haley's "Rock around the Clock", the rock and roll craze began in Liverpool. Lonnie Donegan's song "Rock Island Line" gave birth to the skiffle, which quickly gained popularity among the English youth. Skiffle was notable for the fact that its performance did not require extensive knowledge of music and the ability to play well on any instrument. Thanks to this, in the 1950s, many youth skiffle groups appeared in England. Rock and roll finally gained popularity after the appearance in the United States of Elvis Presley.

The new hobby did not pass by Lennon, and in 1956 he, along with his school friends, founded the group The Quarrymen, named after the school where they all studied. Lennon himself played guitar in the Quarrymen. In addition to him, five people participated in the group: another also played the guitar, two on drums, one man on the banjo and one, John's best friend Pete Shotton, on the washboard. On July 6, 1957, Lennon met Paul McCartney and accepted him into the Quarrymen. McCartney soon brought his friend George Harrison into the group.

After Lennon failed his final exams at school, he managed (with the help of the headmaster) to enter the Liverpool College of Art. There he befriended Stuart Sutcliffe, whom he also attracted to the Quarrymen, and met his future wife Cynthia Powell.

In 1958 (July 15) John's mother died. As she was crossing the road, she was hit by a police officer in her car. Julia's death was a severe shock for Lennon. Later, he dedicated several songs to her - "Julia", "Mother" and "My Mummy's Dead". The death of his mother greatly affected him in the future. Since Lennon was very attached to Julia, he looked for his mother in almost all women.

The Quarrymen ceased to exist in 1959 when the name appeared - at first Silver Beetles, then - The Beatles.

Early The Beatles

First visit to the US, Lennon is far left

In 1960 The Beatles went abroad for the first time - to the German city of Hamburg, where they performed in the clubs of the Reeperbahn, the center nightlife cities. In Hamburg, Lennon tried drugs for the first time. To Germany The Beatles between 1960 and 1963 they came several times. Over the years they have managed to achieve local popularity in Liverpool and Hamburg.

Stuart (Stu) Sutcliffe, the most close person for Lennon during these years. Sutcliffe found a wife in Germany, photographer Astrid Kircher (b. May 20, 1938). On April 10, 1962, Stu died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

At the end of 1961, the manager The Beatles was Brian Epstein. He completely changed their image - the group changed their leather jackets to neat suits with the famous jackets without lapels, the musicians stopped smoking and swearing on stage. Lennon later admitted that he did not like the change of image very much. However, the new image contributed to the rapid growth in popularity. The Beatles.

On August 23, 1962, John Lennon married Cynthia Powell. On April 8, 1963, John and Cynthia Lennon had a son, John Charles Julian Lennon. It was named after Julia, John's mother.

In 1963, Lennon "showed his teeth" for the first time, speaking to the royal family. Announcing the next number, he exclaimed with mischief:

- Those who sit in cheap seats, please applaud. The rest can be limited to the jingling of their precious jewelry!

"Those in cheap seats" met this call with thunderous applause. "The rest" - crowned and uncrowned Windsors - were shocked. Scandalous glory only contributed to the growth of the group's popularity, and from that time Lennon took on the role of leader - he announced numbers at concerts and was always the first to go on stage, although in fact it was impossible to say that one or another member The Beatles more important to the group than the rest. If in the spring of 1963 they were well known only in Liverpool, then in October of the same year the whole country knew about them, and in 1964 world fame came to the Liverpool group.

In addition, Lennon tried himself as an actor. Apart from films made The Beatles, he once starred in a movie: it was the film "How I Won the War" (eng. "How I Won the War" (1967). The film was not successful with either the audience or the critics. However, the film was quite consistent with the spirit of the times, and as a historical artifact (against the background of the events accompanying the Vietnam War) has a well-defined cultural and artistic value.

"More Popular than Jesus"

In 1964-1966 The Beatles were at the height of their glory. They constantly traveled around the world with tours, released albums twice a year, starred in two films: Help! (Eng. Help!) And "Evening a Hard Day" (Eng. A Hard Day "s Night).

In March 1966, Lennon, in an interview with a London newspaper Evening Standard dropped a careless phrase, saying the following:

Christianity will go. It will disappear and dry up. No need to argue; I am right and the future will prove it. Now we are more popular than Jesus; I don't know what will disappear first - rock and roll or Christianity. Jesus was nothing, but his followers are stupid and mediocre. And it is their perversion that destroys Christianity in me.

In the UK, no one paid attention to this phrase, but when, five months later, the phrase taken out of context that The Beatles more popular than Christ, the American magazine "Datebook" placed on the cover, a scandal began in the USA. In the south of the country, whose inhabitants are known for their religiosity, records were publicly burned The Beatles, radio stations stopped broadcasting their songs. Even in the Vatican, Lennon's statement was condemned (in 2008, however, the Vatican forgave the musician, saying that his phrase could be regarded as "witty"). However, The Beatles preparing for a US tour. Lennon was forced to apologize for his words, but the concerts during the tour were missing a huge number of spectators. Lennon was threatened with death: in Memphis, someone called the number The Beatles and said that during the concert he (Lennon) would be killed. After these tours The Beatles made the decision to cancel the concerts. They never performed on stage again.

1967-1968

In 1967, under the influence of Timothy Leary's book The Psychedelic Experience, Lennon became addicted to drugs. He began to distance himself from the rest of the group and gave up the role of its leader. After the death of Brian Epstein, Paul McCartney took over management of The Beatles. In 1967, McCartney took the lead in the group - in the opinion of many, the best rock album of all time "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was conceived and implemented by him, as was the television movie A Magical Mystery Tour. "The film was made by Paul and for Paul," Lennon later told Rolling Stone magazine .

Songs from the albums of 1967-1968, although they were signed by Lennon - McCartney, in the vast majority of cases were the fruit of the work of only one of the Beatles. The "White Album", released in 1968, shows how the members of the group differed from each other during this period.

During these years, Lennon composed songs that many later recognized him as the best works: philosophical "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Across the Universe", psychedelic "I Am the Walrus" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", dark "A Day in the Life" and solemn "All You Need is Love", which became hippie anthem.

The appearance of Lennon, like the rest of the group, has changed a lot. The Beatles stopped dressing in neat suits, grew long hair, mustaches and sideburns. In the image of Lennon, for the first time, the famous round glasses appeared.

In November 1968, Lennon's wife, Cynthia Lennon, divorced her husband. The reason for this was the betrayal of John with Yoko Ono. Cynthia, returning from Greece, saw her husband with his mistress in her bed. On November 8, 1968, the divorce was formalized.

Marriage to Yoko Ono

Lennon met avant-garde artist Yoko Ono in 1966 when he visited her exhibition at the Indica Art Gallery. Their life together began in 1968 when Lennon divorced his first wife, Cynthia. She and Yoko soon became inseparable. As Lennon said then, they are not John and Yoko, but one soul in two bodies, John and Yoko.

On March 20, 1969, the marriage of John Lennon and Yoko Ono was registered in Gibraltar. After his marriage, Lennon changed his middle name Winston to Ono, and now his name was John Ono Lennon.

The couple spent their honeymoon in continental Europe - Paris, Amsterdam and Vienna, after which they visited Montreal. Lennon's song about this marriage, "The Ballad of John and Yoko", was released in 1969; she was recorded together with McCartney (bass, drums).

Breakup of the Beatles

We dreamed of changing something in this world... but everything remained the same. They still sell guns to South Africa and blacks get killed in the street. People still live in poverty, and rats run over them. Only crowds of wealthy loafers walk around London in fashionable rags. I don't believe in the Beatles myth anymore.

Relations within The Beatles finally deteriorated in 1968. Lennon and Paul McCartney have accumulated a lot of claims to each other. Lennon, for example, was not happy with the fact that McCartney pulled the blanket over himself, and he was dissatisfied with Lennon's apathy and constant stay in the studio during Yoko Ono's recordings (although at the beginning of their career, the Beatles agreed not to invite wives and girls to the studio). In addition, they have practically ceased creative collaboration, Lennon leaned more and more towards psychedelic rock ("Strawberry Fields Forever"), acid rock ("I am the Walrus") and avant-garde ("Revolution 9").

In 1968, The Beatles were on the verge of breaking up, and Ringo Starr even announced his departure (although in the end he still remained in the group). Many recordings on the "White Album" were made in an incomplete composition, and the song "Julia" Lennon generally recorded alone.

The Abbey Road album, released in 1969, was also organized by Paul McCartney - the concept of the album belonged to him. "Abbey Road" actually became the last album of The Beatles. Released in 1970, "Let It Be" was almost completely recorded in January 1969 during the studio session that became the basis for the film "Let It Be". By the time the album was released, Lennon and McCartney had already announced that they were leaving the group.

In 1968, two years before The Beatles broke up, John Lennon and Yoko Ono's first album, Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins, was released. According to Lennon, the album was recorded in one night. There was no music on it: the record contained a chaotic array of noises, groans and screams. The cover of the album was notable - a photograph of completely naked Lennon and Yoko Ono was placed on it. In 1969, two studio albums were released: "Wedding Album" and "Unfinished Music No. 2: Life With The Lions", which also contained almost no music. In addition, a live recording of "Live Peace In Toronto 1969" was released. Lennon and Yoko Ono formed a band called the Plastic Ono Band.

Political activism and emigration

John Lennon's period of political activity lasted from 1968 to 1972. The beginning of this period was the song "Revolution", released on the single and its variation "Revolution 1", which ended up on the "White Album". By that time, Lennon had not yet finally decided on his position, which can be understood from “Revolution 1”, where, unlike the original version of the song, the end of the first verse sounds like this:

But when you talk about destruction

Don't you know that you can count me out… in

That is, after the words with which Lennon refuses violence, the word “in” follows, which gives the line an absolutely opposite meaning. Another political song written for album The The Beatles became "Come Together", released on the album Abbey Road. At this time, Lennon had already taken a very definite position - he advocated world peace, and even returned the Order of the British Empire to the Queen - in protest against ... "British intervention in the Nigeria-Biafra conflict, against our support for the American war in Vietnam and against that , What " Cold Turkey“goes down the charts.”

Song recording Give Peace a Chance

By 1969, the first public political actions of Lennon, together with Yoko Ono, belong. After their wedding, they went to Amsterdam and announced that they would conduct a "bed interview". Journalists who decided that the star couple would have sex in public gathered at the hotel, where it turned out that Lennon and Yoko Ono were just sitting in bed and talking about the world. Wearing white pajamas and decorating their hotel room with flowers, John and Youko sat in their beds. The doors of the room were wide open around the clock. Anyone from the street could enter them. And he entered. Television, photographers, newspaper reporters spent days and nights in Lennon's rooms in Amsterdam and Toronto. They did not leave the television screens, from the front pages of newspapers and magazines. And along with the sensation, their call to put an end to the aggression in Vietnam involuntarily seeped into the world.

After Amsterdam, the bed demonstration was repeated in Montreal, where Lennon impromptu composed the song "Give Peace a Chance", which became the anthem of the pacifist movement. On December 15, 1969, the Lennons organized an anti-war concert under the slogan "The war will end if you want it." On December 30 of the same year, British television showed a program dedicated to Lennon and named him one of the three political figures of the decade (along with John F. Kennedy and Mao Zedong).

In 1969, John and Yoko had long hair during the bed action. On January 20, 1970, they cut each other's hair in Denmark. turbulent political and musical activity led to the fact that in early 1970, Lennon began a psychological crisis. Dr. Arthur Yanov, who practiced primal therapy, brought him out of this crisis. With the help of Janov, Lennon managed to return to normal, and the methods of treatment made a deep impression on him, as can be seen on the 1970 John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band album, which became Lennon's most explicit record.

In 1971, the album "Imagine" was released, telling about Lennon's utopian dreams. At this time, his political position changed dramatically - he, along with Yoko Ono, took part in a rally in support of the Irish Republican Army, and on the cover of the "Power to the People" single, the Lennons were depicted in army helmets.

Since September 1971, Lennon and Yoko Ono lived in New York. After a long struggle with the US immigration authorities, who refused to allow the couple to enter because of a drug scandal in 1969, the Lennons nevertheless received the right to reside in the United States. John Lennon never visited the UK again.

Immediately after moving overseas, Lennon became involved in the political life of the United States. He advocated for the empowerment of Indians with civil rights, for the mitigation of prison conditions, for the release of John Sinclair, one of the leaders of American youth, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for possession of marijuana (shortly after Lennon's action in support of Sinclair, he was released).

Lennon's last political album was Some Time In New York City (1972), after which the radicalist period of his work ended. Released in 1973, the album Mind Games showed that Lennon's political songs were a thing of the past.

1973-1980

In early 1973, the US authorities issued Yoko Ono an official residence permit in the country, and Lennon, on the contrary, was ordered to leave the United States within two months. Shortly thereafter, the couple separated for more than a year. John ran off to Yoko's secretary May Pang.

Separation from his wife and creative decline again led to a psychological crisis. Until the summer of 1974, Lennon was practically inactive, and by the time the recording of the new album began in August, he had only one song ready. In October 1974 a new album was released under the title Walls And Bridges. A year later, "Rock'n'Roll" was released, an album of songs that The Beatles sang before the advent of fame.

On October 9, 1975, Lennon's thirty-fifth birthday, his son, named Sean, was born. After that, Lennon announced that he was ending his musical career and devoted the next 5 years to his son. In all these years, he only appeared in public twice - when he was finally given official permission to live in the United States. This happened in 1975, also on October 9th. He was also invited to a private reception by U.S. President Jimmy Carter along with Yoko. The second time was at the Grammy Awards in 1976.

Lennon's next album was released only in 1980. It was called "Double Fantasy" and received good reviews from critics. This disc was destined to be the last in the work of John Lennon, whose life was cut short a few weeks after the release of the disc. Yoko Ono co-wrote the album.

Murder

John Lennon autographs his killer Mark David Chapman, Chapman himself is the man in the photo, standing behind

On December 8, 1980, John Lennon was assassinated by US citizen Mark David Chapman. On the day of his death, Lennon gave his last interview to American journalists, and at 22:50, when John and Yoko were entering under the arch of their Dakota house, returning from the Hit Factory recording studio, Chapman, who earlier that day took Lennon's autograph on the cover the new album "Double Fantasy", which was released three weeks earlier, took five shots in his back, of which four hit the target. Lennon was taken to the Roosevelt Hospital in just a few minutes by a police car called by the doorman of the Dakota. But the doctors' attempts to save Lennon were in vain - due to heavy blood loss, he died, the official time of death was 23 hours and 15 minutes. He was cremated at the Ferncliff Cemetery Crematorium (Greenburgh, Westchester, NY) and Lennon's ashes were given to Yoko Ono.

Chapman is serving a life sentence in a New York prison for his crime. He has applied for parole nine times already (the last time in August 2016), but each time these applications were rejected. Yoko Ono sent a letter to the New York State Department of Liberation in 2000 urging Chapman not to be released early.

John Lennon's posthumous album Milk and Honey was released in 1984. The songs were recorded in the last months of Lennon's life. It mainly consists of sessions for "Double Fantasy".

Family

• Father Alfred Lennon - (December 14, 1912 - April 1, 1976)
• uncle Charles Lennon (1918-2002)
• mother Julia Lennon (Stanley) - (March 12, 1914 - July 15, 1958),
• Aunt Elizabeth Jane Stanley - (1908-1976)
• Aunt Mimi (Mary) Smith (Stanley) - (April 24, 1906 - December 6, 1991),
• uncle George Smith (1903-1955)
• maternal sister Julia Deakins Baird (1947),
• maternal sister Jacqueline Deakins (1949),
• paternal brother David Henry Lennon (1969)
• paternal brother of Robin Francis Lennon (1973).

Personal life

• First wife Cynthia Lennon (Powell) (September 10, 1939 - April 1, 2015) - (marriage: August 23, 1962 - November 8, 1968),
• son Julian Lennon (April 8, 1963) - singer,
• second wife Yoko Ono Lennon (February 18, 1933) - avant-garde artist,
• son Sean Lennon (October 9, 1975) - singer.

Facts and achievements

• Lennon considered his worst songs to be "Run for Your Life" and "It's Only Love".
• On December 8, 1980, John Lennon and Yoko Ono took part in a photo shoot for the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. The photographer was Annie Leibovitz. Five hours after the photo shoot, John Lennon was killed. The magazine was published in 1981. And currently this photo is exhibited at the Swann Auction Galleries.
• The Plastic Ono Band album was ranked #22 among the best of the best by Rolling Stone magazine.
• John Lennon's song "Imagine" was titled " the best composition of all times and peoples" by the professional American publication "Performing Songwriter". According to a survey conducted by the magazine, this anthem for world peace even surpassed the standard of Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust", as well as Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On". These compositions took second and third place, respectively. Since 2006, "Imagine" has been played in the last minutes of the outgoing "old" year in Times Square in New York. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine published the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, in which "Imagine" was ranked 3rd.
• John Lennon's self-portrait was put up for auction for $5 million.
• John Lennon's collection of manuscripts and drawings sold at Sotheby's for nearly $3 million.

Memory of Lennon

Universal Music Group's Svoy and Yoko Ono at the company's office BMI(NY)

• In 1997, with the participation of the Foundation BMI, in memory of John Lennon and his creative legacy, Yoko Ono organized an annual program of music competitions for songwriters in contemporary musical genres. Over $350,000 has been awarded through the BMI Foundation's John Lennon Scholarships to talented young musicians in the United States. This is one of the most respected awards for young songwriters in the US.
• In 2002, Liverpool Airport was renamed in honor of Lennon.
• The asteroid "(4147) Lennon" is named after John Lennon.
• A crater on Mercury is named after John Lennon.
• John Lennon received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• In October 2000, the Lennon Museum was opened in Saitama, Japan. The museum's exposition consisted of more than 130 items, including guitars and stage costumes. It was closed on September 30, 2010.
• John Lennon's albums reissued for his 70th birthday (2010). The box set, prepared for release under the direction of Lennon's widow Yoko Ono, includes 11 discs, which, among others, included 13 previously unreleased "home" recordings of the artist.
• In the same 2010, a £5 coin with the image of a musician was minted in England.
• In 1993, John Lennon Street appeared in Lviv (Ukraine). At that time there were eight such streets in the world.
• In 2016, in the village of Kaliny (Transcarpathian region, Ukraine), Lenin Street was renamed John Lennon Street.
• There is a wall dedicated to John Lennon in Prague. The wall has an interesting location, right opposite is the French embassy.
• In 2014, a new tarantula spider received a name bumba lennoni.
• Monument (bust) in Vilnius (opened in May 2015).

Monuments

Filmography

Film directing (with Yoko Ono)

• 1968 - Two virgins / two virgins
• 1968 - Number 5 / no. 5
• 1969 - Honeymoon / Honeymoon
• 1969 - Abduction / Rape
• 1970 - Feet up forever / Up Your Legs Forever
• 1970 - Freedom / Freedom
• 1970 - Fly / Fly
• 1970 - Apotheosis / Apotheosis
• 1971 - Erection / erection
• 1972 - Imagine / Imagine

Participation in documentaries

• 1968 - All my love / All My Loving
• 1969 - Muhammad Ali, the greatest / Muhammad Ali, the Greatest
• 1969 - Diaries, notes and sketches / Diary Notes and Sketches
• 1970 - Let it be so / Let It Be
• 1971 - Ten for Two: John Sinclair's Release Rally / Ten for Two: The John Sinclair Freedom Rally
• 1972 - John Lennon and Yoko Ono: Face to Face Concert / John Lennon and Yoko Ono Present the One-to-One Concert
• 1972 - Eat a document / Eat the Document
• 1976 - Chelsea Girls and Andy Warhol / Chelsea Girls and Andy Warhol
• 1977 - After The Beatles / The Beatles and Beyond
• 1977 - Music Death Day / The Day the Music Died

Films about John Lennon

• "Imagine: John Lennon" (1988)
• "The John Lennon Story" (2001)
• "John Lennon: Bringer of the Message" (2002)
• USA vs. John Lennon (2006)
• "The Assassination of John Lennon" (2006)
• "Chapter 27" (2007)
• "Becoming John Lennon" (2009)
• "Five Bullets for Lennon" (2009)
• "Naked Lennon" (2010)
• "Wheel to Imagine" - an animated film about John Lennon

Bibliography

• In His Own Write. The book was published on March 23, 1964. In Russian translation, it was published under the title “I write as it is written” (translated by Alexei Kurbanovsky). The foreword to the book was written by Paul McCartney. Together with him, one of the stories was also written - On Safari with Whide Hunter.
• A Spaniard In The Works. The book was published in 1965. In Russian translation, it was published under the title "Spaniard in the Wheel" (translated by Alexei Kurbanovsky).
• Skywriting by Word of Mouth. The book was published after the death of the author, in 1986. In Russian translation it was published under the title "Oral non-writing" (translated by Alexei Tolkachev).

The books are collections of black and absurd humor stories, poems and parodies, containing numerous puns, wordplay and intentional errors. The book was illustrated by the author himself.

Based on the first book, a play was written, which premiered on June 18, 1968 at the London Old Vic Theatre. The play was censored by the Lord Chamberlain of the Court for "blasphemous allusions" and "irreverent reference" to certain politicians of the time (in the story You Might Well Arsk contains puns on the names of Konrad Adenauer, Charles de Gaulle and others).

On October 9, 2012, the book “John Lennon. Letters ”, in which, with the permission of the widow of musician Yoko Ono, personal letters from John Lennon were published, some of which were not previously known to the general public. The publication was prepared by the British journalist and writer Hunter Davis, who is known as the author of the only authorized biographies of the Beatles. In the process of working on the book, he managed to find and collect together about three hundred letters from John Lennon addressed to relatives, friends, fans and just acquaintances of the musician. The book includes short biography John Lennon, as well as a detailed commentary and facsimile for each letter; illustrated with photographs and drawings of the ex-Beatle, contains an index of names and titles.