John Lennon (born John Winston Lennon, later 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, a popular musician of the 20th century.

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

When Julia Lennon found another man, four-year-old John was taken in by his maternal aunt Mimi Smith (English: Mimi Smith 1906-1991) and her husband George Smith, who had no children of their own. Mimi was a strict teacher, and this often caused Lennon rejection. Mimi did not approve of his hobby 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 nice 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 it common language with his uncle, who replaced his father, but in 1953 George died. John then became close to his mother Julia, who lived with her second husband and his two children.

Lennon could not stand the routine of school life, therefore, despite his sharp mind, he slipped 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 himself illustrated. His favorite books at the time were Alice in Wonderland and The Wind in the Willows.

In 1952, Lennon ended up at Quarry Bank High School. He didn't succeed in his studies either. special success, quickly ending up in Class C for the slowest 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. The new hobby did not pass Lennon by, and in 1956, together with his school friends, he founded the group The Quarrymen, named after the school where they all studied. Lennon himself played guitar in the Quarrymen.

On July 6, 1957, Lennon met Paul McCartney and accepted him into the Quarrymen. After Lennon failed his GCSEs, he managed (with the help of his headmaster) to enroll at Liverpool Art College. There he became friends with 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 a car. Julia's death was a severe shock for Lennon. Later he dedicated several songs to her - “Julia”, “Mother” and “My Mummy’s Dead”. His mother's death 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 - first the Silver Beetles, then The Beatles. In 1960, the Beatles went abroad for the first time - to Hamburg, Germany, where they performed in clubs in the Reeperbahn, the center of the city's nightlife. In Hamburg, Lennon tried drugs for the first time.

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, performing in front of the royal family. Announcing the next number, he exclaimed mischievously:
- We ask those who are sitting in cheap seats to applaud. The rest can limit themselves to jingling their jewelry!

The scandalous fame only contributed to the growth of the group's popularity. 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. Not counting the films made by the Beatles, he once starred in a movie: it was the film “How I Won the War” (English: “How I Won the War” (Eng.) (1967). The film was not a success with either audiences or critics.

In March 1966, Lennon, in an interview with the London Evening Standard newspaper, dropped a careless phrase, saying the following: “Christianity will go away. It will disappear and dry up. There is no need to argue; I'm right and the future will prove it. We are now more popular than Jesus; I don't know which will disappear first - rock and roll or Christianity. Jesus was okay, but his followers are stupid and ordinary. 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 American magazine Datebook put the phrase taken out of context on the cover, a scandal began in the USA. In the south of the country, whose residents are known for their religiosity, Beatles records were publicly burned, and radio stations stopped broadcasting their songs. Even the Vatican condemned Lennon’s statement (in 2008, however, the Vatican forgave the musician, saying that his phrase could be regarded as “witness.”

Lennon received death threats: in Memphis, someone called The Beatles' room and said that he (Lennon) would be killed during the concert. After these tours, the Beatles decided to abandon concerts. They never performed on stage again.

In 1967, Lennon, influenced by Timothy Leary's book The Psychedelic Experience, became interested in drugs. He began to move away from the rest of the group and abandoned the role of its leader. Lennon's appearance, like the rest of the group, changed greatly. The Beatles stopped dressing in neat suits and grew long hair, mustaches and sideburns. The famous round glasses appeared for the first time in Lennon's image.

Lennon met avant-garde artist Yoko Ono in 1966 when he attended her exhibition at the Indica Art Gallery. Their life together began in 1968, when Lennon divorced his first wife, Cynthia. Soon she and Yoko 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 his name was now John Ono Lennon. Relations within the Beatles finally deteriorated in 1968. In 1969, Lennon and McCartney had already announced that they were leaving the group. Lennon and Yoko Ono formed a group called the Plastic Ono Band.

Since September 1971, Lennon and Yoko Ono lived in New York. After a long battle with US immigration authorities, who refused to grant entry to the couple due to a drug scandal in 1969, the Lennons finally received the right to live in the US. John Lennon never visited Great Britain again.

On October 9, 1975, Lennon's thirty-fifth birthday, his son, Sean, was born. After this, 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 once - when he was finally given official permission to live in the United States. This happened in 1975, also on October 9. He was also invited to a private reception with US President Jimmy Carter along with Yoko.

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 become 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.

On December 8, 1980, John Lennon was killed 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 entered the arch of their house, returning from the Hit Factory recording studio, Chapman , who had earlier that day taken Lennon's autograph for the cover of his new album, Double Fantasy, which had been released three weeks earlier, fired five shots at him in the back, four of which hit the target. In a police car called by the gatekeeper of the Dakota, Lennon was taken to Roosevelt Hospital in just a few minutes. 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 15 minutes. He was cremated in New York 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 already applied for early release six times (the last time in September 2010), but each time these requests were rejected. Yoko Ono sent a letter to the New York State Department of Parole in 2000 urging her not to release Chapman early.

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

Monument in Havana.

Interesting fact:
* All his life, John Lennon was aware of the meaning of the number 9. He was born on October 9, 1940, his son Sean was born on the same day, October 9, 75. The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, first came to see the guys at the Liverpool club CAVERNA on November 9, 1961, and their first contract with EMI was signed on May 9, 62. John met Yoko Ono on November 9, 1966, John and Yoko's apartment is located on West 72nd Street (seven and two make nine), and their first apartment number was also 72. Interestingly, in student years, in Liverpool, John traveled to art school on bus number 72. Among John's songs there are several that include the number 9 in the title: "Revolution Nine", "Dream Number Nine" and "Next to 909". He wrote these songs at his mother's house, number 9 Newcastle Road. His aunt Mimi's address was 126 Panorama Road (one two and six add up to nine). John even joked that one of his most significant songs, Give Peace A Chance, contains nine main words in the chorus. In the names “John Ono Lennon” and “Yoko Ono Lennon” the letter “O” appears nine times, finally, John was killed at 10.50 New York time on December 8, 1980, in the UK at that moment it was five hours earlier, there December 9 has already arrived. John's body was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, located on Ninth Avenue.

The controversial figure of John Lennon still excites the imagination of his fellow Britons. In 2002, the BBC ranked him eighth in the list of the first hundred Englishmen whom his compatriots, as a result of a survey, named as the greatest personalities in national history.

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

A hippie idol who preached equality and brotherhood, peace and freedom, John Lennon was born in the morning hours of a German air raid that hit his hometown of 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 ex-spouse, and at the age of 4 John had a second family. The boy was taken in by the childless Smith couple, in which George's wife, Mimi, was the aunt of the future creator of the Beatles. Her parenting methods were strict, which caused John to interact more with George, and when he passed away, Lennon became closer to his mother.

As a teenager, John Lennon demonstrated the makings of an extraordinary personality and an undoubted leader. The school routine was detrimental 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 journal.

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

At the same time, Liverpool found itself under the rule 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 real flood of groups of this style in Britain.

And when show business gave the world Elvis Presley, John Lennon realized: it was time to prove himself! He joined a school band as a guitarist, where another teenager played the guitar, one tried to play the banjo, two played percussion instruments, and the sixth member of the group specialized in washboards.

Making 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. Over the next few months, events alternated in a kaleidoscopic order.

Having failed his final exams, John Lennon nevertheless 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, which 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 (who, by the way, continued his father’s work in show business) and several of his songs after her.

"The Beatles": beginning, success and decline

1959 was the beginning of the 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 became acquainted with drugs.

Then one of the two people who own the laurels of promoting The Beatles - Brian Epstein - took over their management. It was he who insisted on his idea to dress all the Beatles in the costumes that later became internationally popular (they were also worn by the very first Soviet rock group “Singing Guitars”).

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

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

In 1964, he first tried himself as a writer. Unfortunately, he failed to achieve any tangible success in this genre of art, unlike, for example, the brilliant leader of TheDoors, 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 viewers and critics.

Between 1964 and 1966, the Beatles were at the peak of their success. In 1966, John showed obvious tactlessness when he said in an interview that his group was more popular than Jesus Christ. The American Datebook placed this phrase on its cover.

The result of such self-confidence was the bonfires of the ensemble's records, which were lit by residents of the southern states. Lennon had to publicly apologize, but since then the popularity of The Beatles began to decline. And when, before a concert in Memphis, an unknown person said on the phone that he would kill him, John insisted on stopping his touring activities.

The Beginning of Introversion, Yoko Ono

The true biography of Lennon as public figure began in 1967, when he became addicted to drugs and began to move away from the group, relinquishing his leadership duties 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 ran 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 dual credits remained in the credits.

It was at this time that Lennon began writing those works that brought him world 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 began...

Since that time, John's relationship with Yoko Ono has been strengthening, whom the other three Beatles call the true reason for the collapse of the group of all times. Of course, having lost interest in his creation, Lennon simply had to find a replacement.

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

In general, 1968 can be called the year when John’s biography took a completely different track. He releases his first solo album " Endless Music Number One: Two Virgins" It can hardly be called a musical creation, since the contents of the record were a cacophony of sounds, groans and screams.

On the cover were John and Yoko wearing whatever their mother gave birth to. This absolutely useless work inspired Lennon so much that the next year he released two similar albums, and then created the “Plastic Ono Group”, essentially 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 peace from their Amsterdam hotel beds. After repeating this precedent, the pacifist anthem “Give Peace a Chance” was born in Montreal. And the anti-war concert they organized allowed the television crew to call John the third politician of the decade, after Kennedy and Mao Zedong.

In 1971, the album “Imagine” was released, where John outlined his ideas of global equality. By that time, the couple had left for the USA and never returned to England. True to form, John advocated for Indian freedom and released his last politically charged 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 raised this child. On December 8, 1980, he was shot five times in the back by a fan. Mark Chapman had gotten an autograph from his idol a few hours earlier.

(1940 - 1980)

John Lennon was born in Liverpool on October 9, 1940. The Battle of Britain had just ended, but the war with Germany was far from over. During this difficult time filled with hostility, John Lennon was born. Who would have thought that he would become such a well-rounded musical genius?

The first years in the biography of John Lennon were not easy. John's father worked far away for long periods of time on the ship. The boy was raised by his aunt. Soon Lennon's father emigrated to New Zealand, leaving John alone during a difficult period of his life. Of course, at school because of these events I was not very obedient. The death of his uncle also greatly affected young John. The turning point in John Lennon's biography happened when he became interested in skiffle, a subtype of rock.

When John Lennon was playing in a school rock band, he met Paul McCartney. The two immediately hit it off and began collaborating and writing songs. After numerous performances, the group consisting of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best became known as the Beatles. They played eight hours a day in various nightclubs in Hamburg, and were popular at the Cavern Club in Liverpool. Drummer Pete Best was, by all accounts of the band, a little subpar. The decision was made to replace him with Ringo Starr, and soon after the Beatles and George Martin were signed for EMI recordings.

The newly formed group began to create hit after hit. Lennon and McCartney were the creative force in the group, their ideas were amazing. The Beatles began traveling around the world, drawing crowds of people. They were very popular, especially in the USA. However, when John Lennon said at a press conference that the Beatles had become more popular than Jesus. This caused outrage throughout America. After consulting, the group decided to stop touring and return home in 1966. At this time, Lennon met Yoyo Ono. Despite the fact that Lennon and Yoko Ono liked each other, he suddenly married Cynthia Powell. Soon they had a child. They were not destined to live together for long; Cynthia knew about John’s affection for Yoko. As a result, John Lennon and Yoko Ono got married in 1969. In the first years of their life together, the couple was addicted to psychotropic drugs such as LSD. Stories of their cruelty towards each other often appeared in the press.

In 1970, Paul McCartney left the Beatles, resulting in a feud between him and John. A year later, Lennon released the very popular album Imagine.

Between 1975 and 1979, John Lennon wrote almost no new songs. He spent most of his time with Yoko and his son, Sean.

But the musical genius who lived in Lennon could not sit still. As a result, Lennon releases a new album, “Double Fantasy”. On December 8, 1980, a young man approached John, not far from his apartment, asking him to sign an album. This, one might say, is the end of the biography of John Lennon. When John returned to his apartment, the same young man, Mark Chapman, killed Lennon by firing 5 shots into his back. Mark Chapman is serving a life sentence in a New York prison for his crime.

John Lennon

Who is John Lennon

John Winston Ono Lennon (born 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 commercial group successful group in the history of popular music. Together with another member of the Beatles, Paul McCartney, he created the famous duet, within which he wrote large number famous songs.

John was born and raised in Liverpool, became interested in skiffle as a teenager, and formed his first group, the Quarrymen, which was replaced by the Beatles in 1960. When the group broke up in 1970, Lennon began 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 a new album, Double Fantasy. Three weeks after the album's release, John Lennon was assassinated.

Lennon had a rebellious spirit and a caustic 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 to President Richard Nixon's administration attempting to deport him several times, and some of his songs were considered anthems of the anti-war movement and counterculture.

As of 2012, Lennon's solo albums have sold more than 14 million copies in the United States. 25 of John's songs took first place on the US Hot 100 chart. In 2002, the BBC Corporation (BBC) conducted a survey, according to which Lennon was ranked eighth in the ranking of the 100 Greatest Britons. In 2008, the magazine " Rolling Stone" awarded him 15th position on the list greatest singers of all times. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 as a member of the Beatles and in 1994 as a solo artist.

John Lennon's childhood

John Lennon was born in wartime England on October 9, 1940, in 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 merchant seaman; 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 absent from 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. Six months later he came home and wanted to take care of his family again, but Julia, who was expecting a child with another man at the time, refused his offer. After her sister Mimi Smith twice complained about her to Liverpool social services, Julia gave the child 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 went after them 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 books with short stories, and his uncle, a milkman on his family's farm, bought him a harmonica and did crossword puzzles with him. Julia visited Mendips regularly, 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 to play the banjo, taught him to play Fats Domino's "Ain't That a Shame." In September 1980, Lennon spoke about his family and rebellious nature:

"Part of me wanted to be accepted by the rest of society and not just be a loud, weirdo poet/musician. But I can't be something I'm not... I was what all the boys' parents, including Paul's father, warned about: " Stay away from him! "... My parents instinctively understood that they should expect trouble from me, that I did not obey the rules and would be a bad influence on their children, which is exactly what 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 had one... There were five women in my family, five strong, smart, beautiful women, five sisters. One of them was my mother. (She) couldn't cope with life. She was the youngest 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. Nowadays these women would be considered eccentric... So I received 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 don’t live with mine, and therefore I know.”

John often visited his cousin Stanley Parkes, who lived in Fleetwood. Parks, who was seven years older than Lennon, took him with her on walks and to the cinema. During the school holidays, Parkes often visited John with Leila Harvey, another of his cousins, and they traveled to Blackpool two or three times a week to see shows. They went to circus shows at Blackpool Tower to see performers such as Dickie Valentine, Arthur Askey, Max Bygraves and Joe Loss. Parkes recalls that Lennon adored George Formby. After the Parkes family moved to Scotland, the three children often spent school holidays 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, and we continued to come 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 visited Anglican Church and attended Dovedale Primary School. From September 1952 to 1957, after passing his GCSE eleven plus, he attended Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool. Harvey described the boy this way: “a happy-go-lucky, good-natured, easy-going, lively guy.” He often drew comic cartoons, which he published in his own homemade school magazine, the Daily Howl, but despite his artistic talent, his teachers gave him a damning description: "definitely on track to fail... hopeless... class clown." ..wasting other students' time."

In 2005, the National Postal Museum in the United States acquired the stamp collection that Lennon collected as a boy.

John's mom bought him his first one. acoustic guitar in 1956, it was an expensive Gallotone Champion guitar for five pounds ten shillings. Mother and son agreed that the guitar would be kept at her home 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 guitar and was skeptical of his words that one day he would become famous. She hoped that he would get bored with music 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 years old, his mother, who was walking home after visiting the Smiths, was hit by a car and killed.

Lennon failed his GCE O-level but was accepted into Liverpool Art College through the intervention of his aunt and the school's headmaster. In college, he was known as a fop because of his manner of dressing, and also distinguished himself by disrupting classes and ridiculing teachers. In the end, he was banned from attending painting classes, and then a graphic art course. While drawing from a living model, he sat on the lap of a nude model, for which they threatened to expel him from college. He failed his annual exams despite the help of fellow student and future wife Cynthia Powell and was "dropped out of college before graduating."

John Lennon's career

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

McCartney recalls that Aunt Mimi "was very worried that John's friends were from the lower strata of society" and therefore was often arrogant with him when Paul came to visit Lennon. According to the memoirs of Michael, Paul's brother, McCartney's father also did not approve of his friendship with Lennon. He believed that John would get Paul "into trouble", but he later allowed the young band to rehearse in his living room at 20 Forthlin Road. During this period of time, 18-year-old Lennon wrote his first song, “Hello Little Girl,” which almost five years later became a hit for The Fourmost and entered the UK Top 10.

McCartney suggested including his friend George Harrison in the group as lead guitarist. Lennon believed that Harrison, who was 14 at the time, was too young. McCartney organized an audition on the top floor of a Liverpool bus, George performed the song "Raunchy" and was accepted into the group. Stuart Sutcliffe, Lennon's friend from art college, became the band's bass player. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Sutcliffe formed The Beatles in early 1960. In August of the same year, the Beatles went on tour to Hamburg, Germany, signing a contract for 48 performances. Since the band needed a drummer, they invited Pete Best to join them. Lennon turned 19 and his aunt, frightened by his plans to leave for Hamburg, begged him to continue his studies at art college. After the group's first tour 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 night performances.

Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager since 1962, had no experience in the music business, but he had a strong influence on their dress and stage presence. Lennon resisted his attempts to impose a stage persona on the band, but eventually relented, saying: "I'll carry a bloody balloon if anyone will pay me for it." After Sutcliffe left the group, who decided to stay in Hamburg, McCartney began playing bass, and Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best on drums. This is how the Beatles were formed in the form in which they existed until their breakup in 1970. The band's first single, "Love Me Do", was released in October 1962 and reached 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 recorded that day, "Twist and Shout". Eight of the fourteen songs on the album were co-written by Lennon-McCartney. In all of Lennon's songs on this album, with a few exceptions (such as the song that gives the album its title), you can hear his love of wordplay: "We were just writing songs... pop songs with the sole desire to create a sound. And The meaning of the words did not play a special role." In a 1987 interview, McCartney said the other band members worshiped John: "He was sort of our own personal Elvis... We all looked up to him. He was older than us and he was our leader. John was the smartest and the smartest." of us."

The Beatles' popularity boom in Great Britain began in early 1963. Lennon was on tour when his first son, Julian, was born in April. During the Royal Variety Performance in London at the Prince of Wales Theatre, 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 in the cheap seats, Clap your hands. And the rest, - (gesture towards the royal box) - just jingle your jewelry." A year after gaining popularity in Britain and setting off Beatlemania, the Beatles achieved worldwide fame with their historic performance on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. Over the next two years, the group constantly toured, made films, and 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 group with 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 concerned that the music could not be heard due to the screaming of fans during their performances, and that their musicianship was suffering as a result. Lennon's 1965 song "Help!" reflected his feelings on the matter: "That's exactly what I wanted to say... 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. This happened when John and George and their wives were attending dinner with a dentist who spiked their coffee with the drug. When the guests wanted to leave, the owner of the house told them that they had taken LSD and strongly advised them to stay in the house due to the possible consequences. Later that evening, while 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 away. It will disappear and dry up... We are more popular now than Jesus; I don’t know what will disappear first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity." This phrase Lennon went unnoticed in the UK, but when five months later John’s phrase, taken out of context, was published in an American magazine, a scandal began in the USA. Public burning of the band's records followed, as did Ku Klux Klan threats against John Lennon, which ultimately led to the band's demise. concert activities the Beatles.

The group's last concert took place on August 29, 1966. After giving up live performances, Lennon felt lost and wanted to leave the group. Having taken LSD for the first time unintentionally, over time he used the drug more and more often, and throughout 1967 he was under its influence. According to biographer Ian MacDonald, 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 their "amazing ingenuity." Following the song, the landmark album for the Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, was released, in which the difference between Lennon's song lyrics and simple love lyrics 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 realized then that we were in trouble,” Lennon later described the situation. "I couldn't imagine us being able to do anything other than music, and I was scared." Influenced by Harrison and Lennon's passion for Eastern religion, the Beatles went to India to the Maharishi 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, cinemas began showing How I Won the War, a satirical anti-war black comedy. leading role John Lennon starred in the film. This is the only full-length film that does not feature other musicians from the Beatles. McCartney was the ideological inspirer of the group's new project after Epstein's death - the television film "The 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 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 record label Apple Records and several others. subsidiaries. Lennon called the venture an attempt to gain "creative freedom within a commercial structure," but Apple needed professional leadership, Lennon was busy experimenting with drugs and infatuated with Yoko Ono, and McCartney was planning his wedding. Lennon invited Lord Beeching to become the company's manager, but he declined the offer and advised John to continue recording songs. Lennon turned to Allen Klein, who had managed the Rolling Stones and other bands during the British Invasion. Klein was appointed president of Apple; a management agreement was signed by Lennon, Harrison and Starr, but McCartney did not sign this document.

In late 1968, Lennon starred in the film The Rolling Stones' Rock 'n' Roll Circus as a member of the Dirty Mac, which was released only in 1996. The super group included John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Mitch Mitchell and Keith Richards, with backing vocalist Yoko Ono. Lennon and Yoko married on March 20, 1969, shortly after the wedding, a series of lithographs called "Bag One" containing scenes from their honeymoon were released, eight of the images were considered obscene, and most of the lithographs were banned and confiscated. Lennon's creative focus increasingly shifted from the Beatles to experimental music, and from 1968 to 1969 he and Yoko recorded three albums together: Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins (which became famous for its cover art rather than its 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 anti-Vietnam War anthem in 1969), "Cold Turkey" (in which Lennon described the "withdrawal" of stopping heroin use) and "Instant Karma" !" To protest the British invasion of Nigeria during the Biafran-Nigerian War ( Civil War in Nigeria), as well as British support for America's invasion of Vietnam, and (perhaps jokingly) against the fall of his song "Cold Turkey" in the charts, Lennon returned his MBE to the Queen. This act on the part of the musician had no effect on his status as a knight, since the order cannot be renounced.

Lennon's departure from the Beatles

Lennon left the Beatles in September 1969. The musicians agreed that they would not inform the media until all band members had renegotiated their contracts with the record company. Lennon was furious when he learned that McCartney had announced his departure from the group with the release of his debut solo album in April 1970. Lennon's reaction was: "Damn it!" He "skimmed all the cream" in this situation." Lennon later said: "I created this group. It’s up to me to dissolve it. Just like twice two." In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Lennon expressed his feelings of bitterness towards McCartney: "I was a fool for not doing the same thing as Paul. He used this situation to sell his album." John spoke about the hostility of the other members towards Yoko Ono, and how he, Harrison and Starr were "tired of being Paul's band members... After Brian Epstein died, we broke down. Paul became our leader and managed us. But what’s the point of governing if we’re going around in circles?”

In 1970, Lennon and Ono underwent psychotherapy with Arthur Yanov in Los Angeles, California. The result of therapy was supposed to be liberation from emotional pain that had accumulated since childhood. Sessions took place twice a week and lasted half a day; the course of therapy lasted 4 months. The doctor wanted the couple to complete their treatment, but his patients refused and returned to London. Lennon's first debut solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono (1970), was warmly received by critics. Critic Greil Marcus noted: "John's singing on the last verse of 'God' is the best performance in the history of rock music." The album included the song "Mother", in which Lennon spoke about how he felt rejected as a child, as well as the song "Working Class Hero", which contains a vicious criticism of the bourgeois social order. Radio stations were banned from broadcasting the song because of the line "you're still fucking peasants." That same year, John Lennon was interviewed by Tariq Ali, whose revolutionary political views inspired the song "Power" to the People." John and Ali participated in a protest against the persecution of Oz magazine, which began in connection with accusations 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 received with caution by critics. Rolling Stone magazine said that "the album contains a significant amount of good music" but warned of the possibility that "its rhetoric will soon seem not only boring, but outdated." 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 later confirmed by Paul. However, in the mid-1970s, Lennon's stance towards McCartney became less harsh 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 write a song... rather than have a terrible scary 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 replay this whole situation in my head over and over again."

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 protests and political agitation directed against Nixon, attempted to deport the musician, which lasted for four years. In 1972, Lennon and Yoko attended an event 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 immigration authorities and was denied permanent residence in the United States (the ban was in effect until 1976). Lennon, in a foul mood and intoxicated, had sex with a guest and left Ono in disarray. These events inspired her to write the song "Death of Samantha".

In 1972, the album "Some Time in New York City" was released, recorded together with Yoko Ono and the New York group Elephant's Memory. The album touches on women's rights, race relations, the role of Britain in Northern Ireland, Lennon's problems associated after receiving a visa, the album became a commercial failure and did not receive high critical ratings; “unpleasant to the ear” was the description given to the album by one of the critics. The same year) was shown on May 11 in the Dick Cavett Show show). benefit concert in New York to raise funds for the 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 separation from Ono

During the recording of the album "Mind Games" (1973), John and Ono decided to separate. Their separation lasted 18 months, a period Lennon later called a "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 the song was recorded during the same 1973 Ringo recording session in which John was the lead vocalist and was released on the John Lennon Anthology compilation.

In early 1974, Lennon drank a lot and his adventures with Harry Nilsson, committed under the influence of alcohol, made the front pages of newspapers. Two incidents took place at the Troubadour Club in March. The first incident occurred 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 thrown out of a club after disrupting 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 went to New York with Pang to finish the album. In April, Lennon wrote the song "Too Many Cooks (Spoil the Soup)" for Mick Jagger, but due to the terms of his contract, the song was not released 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 in the US. Elton John sang backing vocals on this song and played 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 piano. On November 28, Lennon made a surprise appearance at Elton John's Thanksgiving Day concert at 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, reached number one. in the hit parade. Lennon performed this 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 fiancée, whose name is Paul".

In September 1975, David Bowie's song "Fame", written by him with John Lennon, was recorded. Lennon also sang backing vocals and played guitar. That same month, a cover version of Elton John's "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" topped the charts. Lennon performed guitar and backing vocals on this 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 'n' hits -roll. The song "Stand by Me" became a hit in the UK and the US and Lennon's last live performance for the next five years took place on the ATV channel in a show dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the career of media mogul Sir Lew Grade (Salute To Lew Grade). ", which was recorded on April 18 and televised in June, Lennon played acoustic guitar with an eight-piece band and performed songs from the album "Rock 'n' Roll": "Stand by Me", which was not televised, " Slippin" and Slidin" and "Imagine". Members of the group under the name Etc. performed in masks, this was a “jib” from Lennon, who considered Grade hypocritical.

A 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 completed his contractual obligations with EMI/Capitol and released another album, Shaved Fish, a collection of previously recorded songs. He devoted himself to his son Sean, waking up at 6 a.m. every day, cooking him food and spending time with him. John wrote the song "Cookin' (In the Kitchen of Love)" for Ringo Starr's album Ringo's Rotogravure (1976), which was Lennon's last recording until 1980. John officially announced his decision to end his musical career in Tokyo in 1977: "We decided, without making any big decisions, to spend as much time as possible with our child until we again felt ready to create something." or outside the family." During this career break, he created several series of drawings and drafted a book, which included autobiographical material and “crazy stuff,” as John put it. All of these materials were published after Lennon's death.

Resuming Lennon's music career

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

‎The Assassination of John Lennon

At 10:50 p.m. on December 8, 1980, as Lennon and Ono were returning to their New York home, the Dakota, Macro David Chapman fired four shots into John's back under the archway of his home. Lennon was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, but attempts to save him were in vain - he died at 11 p.m. That evening, Lennon gave Champion an autograph - he signed the cover of the Double Fantasy album.

The next day, Ono made a statement: “There will be no funeral for John,” and concluded, “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 Central Park New York, on this site the Strawberry Fields Memorial was later erected. Chapman was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years. In 2016, Chapman's ninth appeal for clemency was rejected.

Personal life of John Lennon

John Lennon's first wife

Lennon and Cynthia Powell (1939–2015) met in 1957 while they were both students at Liverpool College of Art. Although she was afraid aggressive behavior Lennon and she didn't like his appearance, she heard that he was obsessed with the French actress Brigitte Bardot, so Cynthia dyed her hair blonde. Lennon asked her out, but when she said she was engaged, he shouted, "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 as his property and often terrified her with his anger and physical violence. Lennon later admitted that before meeting Ono, he had 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 rough with all women. I was a 'bouncer.' I couldn't express myself and I hit. I fought men and I beat women. That's why now I always advocate peace."

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

Cynthia believed that her marriage began to fall apart after John met LSD; her husband gradually lost interest in her. While the group was traveling by train to Bangor, Wales, in 1967 for a Maharishi Yoga 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 that he slept with her that night, and a few weeks later he told her that Lennon wanted to divorce her and gain custody of Julian due to 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 ($240,000) and a small annual payment and maintenance for Julian.

Was John Lennon homosexual?

In November 1961, the Beatles performed at the Cavern Club and after their afternoon concert they were introduced to Epstein. Epstein was a homosexual. According to biographer Philip Norman, one of the reasons why Epstein wanted to be the band's manager was because he was partial to Lennon. Almost immediately after Julian's birth, Lennon went on holiday to Spain with Epstein, a trip that led to rumors about their relationship. When Lennon was asked about it later, he responded: "Well, it was almost a love story, but not quite. It was never completed. We had a very intense relationship. Since it was my first relationship with a gay man, I I was trying to figure out if I was homosexual. We were sitting in a cafe in Torremolinos, looking at all these guys and I asked: “Do you like this one? And this one? "I've been enjoying this new experience and seeing myself as a writer all along - I'm experiencing it all." Shortly after their return from Spain, while celebrating McCartney's 21st birthday in June 1963, Lennon beat up entertainer Bob Wooler. who asked, “So how was your honeymoon, John?” Bob, known for his puns and sarcastic remarks, was only joking, but it had been ten months since Lennon had gotten married, and his honeymoon was still on hold. only two months later, Lennon was drunk at that moment and did not like what was said: “He called me a homosexual, and I punched him in the ribs.”

Lennon enjoyed making fun of Epstein for his homosexuality and for being Jewish. When Epstein asked what he should call his autobiography, Lennon suggested “The Homosexual Jew.” When he learned that the book's final title was A Cellarful of Noise, he parodied, "More like Cellarful of Boys." He asked the guests who came to Epstein: “Have you come to blackmail him? If not, then you are the only idiot in London.” During the recording of the song "Baby, You"re a Rich Man", he replaced the lines of the song with "Baby, you"re a rich fag Jew".

John Lennon's son

Lennon's son Julian was born at a time when Beatlemania was gaining momentum and the Beatles took all of Lennon's energy 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, was kept secret because Epstein was confident that disclosing this information would hinder the group's commercial success. Julian remembers four years ago, when he was still a small boy living in Weybridge: “I was walking home from school with one of my watercolors. On the canvas were painted stars and a girl with blond hair who was at school with me. And Dad asked: “What is this?” I replied: “It’s Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Lennon wrote a song by the Beatles based on this story, and although a rumor later appeared that the lyrics were inspired by the use of LSD, Lennon insisted. that "this song is not about drugs." McCartney confirmed Lennon's version that Julian came up with the name Lucy. 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 the song “Hey Jules” for them. It later became the song “Hey Jude.” Lennon said: “This is his best song.” It was created as a song for my son Julian... and became the song "Hey Jude". I always thought it was written about me and Yoko, but Paul said no."

Lennon's relationship with Julian was strained, and after moving to New York with Ono in 1971, father and son did not see each other until 1973. With the support of Pang, a trip was organized for Cynthia and Julian to Los Angeles and a meeting with Lennon, they went to Disneyland together. Julian and John began to meet regularly, and Lennon allowed him to play drums during the recording of one of the songs from the Walls and Bridges album. Lennon bought his son a Gibson Les Paul guitar, 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 "got a lot better" during his time in New York: "We had a lot of fun, we laughed a lot and had a really 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 though he was born." because I had a bottle of whiskey or because there were no birth control pills back then. He is here, he is a part of me, and he will always be my son." He said he had been trying to reconnect with the 17-year-old and was confident that he and Julian would communicate more in the future. After the musician’s death, it turned out that Julian received almost nothing in his will.

Lennon's affair with Yoko Ono

There are two versions of how Lennon and Ono met. 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 started, Lennon wanted to drive a nail into the board, but Ono stopped him. Dunbar asked her: "Don't you know who it is? He's a millionaire! He could buy your work". She had never heard of the Beatles, but softened when Lennon paid her 5 shillings. Lennon told about this story: “I gave her an imaginary 5 shillings and, with an imaginary hammer, hammered an imaginary nail into a board." According to the second version, which Paul adheres, at the end of 1965, Ono was in London collecting 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 turned to Lennon with a request. , he gave her a handwritten version of the lyrics to the song "The Word".

It started coming to his house and calling 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 bullshit." In May 1968, while Cynthia was in Greece, Lennon invited Ono to his home. They spent the night recording tunes that would become Two Virgins, and then, according to John, "made love at dawn." When Cynthia returned home, she found Ono in her robe, drinking tea with Lennon, who said, "Oh, hi." Ono became pregnant in 1968, but suffered a miscarriage on November 21, 1968, and the male child was named John Ono Lennon II. A few weeks later, Lennon divorced Cynthia.

During 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 honeymooned at the Amsterdam Hilton, where they had a bedside interview. The couple planned to do another "bedside interview" in the United States, but they were denied visas, so instead of the United States, 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 performance art, as in John's teaching of "Bagism", which Lennon first spoke about during a press conference in Vienna. The Beatles' song "The Ballad of John and Yoko" was written during this period. 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 in which 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, she has been listed as John Winston Ono Lennon on official documents since he was not allowed to renounce his birth name. The couple settled in Tittenhurst Park in Sunninghill, Berkshire. After Ono was injured in a car accident, Lennon installed a king-size bed in the recording studio in which he and the other 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 at the St. Hotel. Regis Hotel on 5th Avenue, East 55th Street, and on October 16, 1971, they moved to an apartment at 105 Bank Street, Greenwich Village. After the robbery, they moved to the fashionable Dakota apartment building in 1973 at 1 West 72nd Street.

John Lennon's mistress

ABKCO Industries, founded in 1968 by Allen Klein as an umbrella company for ABKCO Records, hired secretary May Pang in 1969. Because Lennon and Yoko were working with ABKCO, they met Pang the following year. She became their personal assistant. After Pang had worked for them for 3 years, Ono confided to her that she and Lennon had begun to grow 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 surprised to hear Yoko's words, but ultimately agreed to become Lennon's companion. After that, the couple went to 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 her relationship with Julian, whom he had not seen for 2 years. John also renewed his friendships with Starr, McCartney, Beatles manager Mal Evans and Harry Nilsson. During one of his drinking sessions with Nilsson, Lennon quarreled with Pang and began to choke her, he only loosened his grip after Nilsson pulled him away from Pang.

Returning to New York, they prepared a room for Julian in their rented apartment. Lennon, who had until now been forbidden by Ono to maintain unnecessary connections, began to restore relationships with relatives and friends. By December, he and Pang were considering buying a house, John stopped answering Ono's phone calls. 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 to Pang's home or call her. Pang called John the next day, Ono answered the phone and replied that John would not be able to come over, as he was sleeping after the hypnosis session. Two days later, Pang and John met in a dentist's office, Lennon so drugged and confused that Pang believed he had been brainwashed. He explained to her that he and Ono were back together and Peng was allowed to remain his mistress.

John Lennon as a father

After Lennon and Ono moved back in together, Yoko became pregnant, but since her three previous pregnancies had ended in miscarriages, she said she wanted an abortion. She agreed not to terminate the pregnancy on the condition that Lennon would lead 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 from my belly, but I swear to God I made his bones because I cooked him food every time, watched him sleep, and I know he swims like a fish.” .

Relationship between Lennon and the Beatles

Lennon's relationship with Starr always remained friendly, even after the breakup of the Beatles, but his relationships with McCartney and Harrison were difficult. John was very close to Harrison early in their musical careers, but they went their separate ways when John moved to America. During his Dark Horse tour in 1974, Harrison visited New York City. Lennon was scheduled to appear on 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 terminated the legal partnership of the band members. (Lenno eventually signed the documents while on vacation with Pang and Julian in Florida). Harrison tried to hurt Lennon in 1980, when George's autobiography was published, in which John was barely mentioned. Lennon told Playboy magazine: "I was very hurt. A glaring omission... I had absolutely no influence on his life... he remembers every worthless saxophonist or guitarist he met in subsequent years. And I'm in the book I’m not even mentioned.”

The rivalry between John Lennon and Paul McCartney

The most strong emotions Lennon felt towards McCartney. He attacked him in the song "How Do You Sleep?" and also argued with him through the media for three years after the band broke up. The two musicians began to rekindle the close relationship they had had in the past, and in 1974 they even played music together before drifting apart again. In April 1976, while the two of them were watching an episode of Saturday Night Live at Lennon's home in the Dakota, Lorne Michael made a $3,000 bet that the Beatles would team up. The musicians wanted to go to the studio, appear in front of the audience as a joke 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 three days before his death: "My whole 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 work. During a five-year hiatus from work, Lennon enjoyed idleness while McCartney created music that John considered very mediocre musical material. When McCartney released "Coming Up" in 1980, Lennon, who returned to the studio last year my life, I noticed this song. "This song is driving me crazy!" - he complained jokingly, because he could not get the melody out of his head. When asked that same year whether the band members were sworn enemies or best friends, he replied that they were neither, adding that he had not seen either of them in a long time. John also said: "I still love those guys. The Beatles broke up, but John, Paul, George and Ringo exist."

John Lennon's political views

Lennon and Yoko spent their honeymoon at the Amsterdam Hilton and staged a "bedside interview" in March 1969, an event that attracted attention and ridicule from the world's media. During the second "bedside interview" event 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 War demonstrators during the Second War Moratorium Demonstration, which took place on November 15 in Washington, D.C. In December, John and Yoko paid for advertising posters in 10 cities around the world that read, in official languages, "The war is over! If you want it."

Later that year, Lennon and Ono supported family members of James Hanretty, who was hanged for murder in 1962, who sought to prove his innocence. According to Lennon, the people who condemned Hanratty: "these are the same people who carry guns in South Africa and kill blacks in the streets. ... These are the same scoundrels who are now in power, the ones who run everything, this bloody bourgeois society". Lennon and Ono put up banners in London reading "Britain Killed Hanretty" and "Silent Protest for James Hanretty" and also produced a 40-minute documentary about the case. An appeal in this case was heard many years later and Hanretty's conviction was confirmed, DNA tests were carried out which confirmed his guilt. The Hanratty family continued to appeal until 2010.

Lennon and Ono showed solidarity with the Clydeside workers who went on strike in 1971, sending them a bouquet of red roses and a check for £5,000. Moving to New York in August of that year, they became friends with two members of the Chicago Seven, peace activists Jerry Rubin and Abbie 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 convicted of drug possession. In December 1971, a benefit concert (protest) called "Rally to Free John Sinclair" was held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, attended by approximately 15,000 people, including Lennon, Steve Wonder, Bob Seger, Bobby Seale The White Panther Party, etc. Lennon and Ono, accompanied by David Peel and Rubin, performed four 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 State Senate passed a bill that would significantly reduce the penalties for marijuana possession, and four days later Sinclair was released subject to an obligation to pay the costs of his appeal. The artists' performance was recorded, and later two of Lennon's songs were included in the John Lennon Anthology (1998).

After the event of "Bloody Sunday" in Northern Ireland in 1972, on the day when 14 unarmed citizens defended civil rights were shot dead 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 latter's side. 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 Shayler , a former member of the British security service MI5, suggested that Lennon gave 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 creators of the film The Irish. Tapes), a Republican political documentary.

According to an FBI report (confirmed by Tariq Ali in 2006) regarding surveillance of Lennon, the musician was a sympathizer of the International Marxist Group, a Trotskyist group formed in Britain in 1968. However, the FBI believed that Lennon had limited potential as a revolutionary because 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 final act of political activism was a statement of support for the San Francisco sanitation and cleaning workers' strike on December 5, 1980. John and Yoko planned to join the labor protest on December 14th. By this point, however, Lennon had all but abandoned the countercultural views he had espoused throughout the 1960s and 1970s and embraced more conservative views, although whether Lennon actually became a conservative is debatable.

Following the release of Lennon's songs such as "Give Peace a Chance" and "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)", which were associated with the movement against the Vietnam War, President Nixon's administration, learning of the musician's intention to participate in a concert in San Diego, was held concurrently with the Republican National Convention, Nixon believed that Lennon's anti-war activities could cost him his place in the White House, Republican Senator Strom Thurmond indicated in a memo in February 1972 that "deportation could be a strategic countermeasure." against Lennon. The following month, the US Immigration and Naturalization Office began deportation proceedings, arguing that the musician's 1968 marijuana possession charge in London made him ineligible to remain in the US. Over the next three and a half years, Lennon's deportation case was heard, until October 8, 1975, when the appeal court refused to deport the musician, ruling that "the courts do not justify selective deportation on the basis of secret political motives." While the legal battle continued, 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 such guests as Jerry Rubin and Bobby Seale. In 1972, Bob Dylan wrote a letter defending Lennon to the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, stating the following:

John and Yoko's voice means a lot in this world and represents the views of arts organizations. They inspire, transcend, encourage and thus only help others to see the pure light, and in doing so will be able to put an end to this bad taste of petty commercialism that is passed off as true art by the dominant media. Long live John and Yoko. Let them stay, live and breathe here. 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 an official permit to reside in the country. In response, Lennon and Ono held a press conference on April 1, 1973, at the New York City Bar Association, where they announced the creation of the state of "Nutopia"; a place in which “there are no lands, no borders, no passports, there are only people.” Hanging out the white flag of Nutopia (two scarves), they asked political asylum in the USA. This press conference was filmed and later included in the 2006 documentary "The United States vs. John Lennon." Lennon's 1973 album Mind Games includes the song "Nutopian International Anthem", which is 3 seconds of silence. Shortly after the press conference, Nixon's involvement in a 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 the fight against Lennon, and the deportation order was lifted 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 attended the inaugural ball for President Jimmy Carter in January 1977.

The truth about John Lennon's death

After Lennon's death, historian John Wiener submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the FBI asking it to declassify FBI documents related to the bureau's role in the attempted deportation of the musician. The FBI provided 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 ACLU of Southern California. It took 14 years of litigation to force the FBI to declassify the remaining pages. The ACLU, which represented Wiener, won a favorable decision in their case against the FBI in the Ninth Circuit in 1991. The Justice Department appealed the decision to the Supreme Court in April 1992, but the court refused to reconsider the case. In 1997, President Bill Clinton approved a new rule that documents should be classified only if their release would cause "foreseeable harm." The Ministry of Justice settled the most pressing issues out of court and provided access to all but ten of the disputed documents.

Wiener published the results of his 14 years of work in January 2000. "Gimme Some Truth": The FBI files on John Lennon contain facsimiles of documents, including "lengthy reports from informants detailing the daily lives of anti-war activists, reports to the White House, transcripts of television programs in which Lennon appeared, and a proposal about organizing the arrest of Lennon by local police on charges of illegal drug possession." This story is told in the documentary "The United States vs. John Lennon." The last 10 documents that were part of the FBI's file concerning Lennon reported his connections with London anti-war activists in 1971 and were classified as documents containing "national security information provided by a foreign government that was expressly promised confidentiality." declassified in December 2006. The documents made no reference to the British government considering Lennon a serious threat. One example of declassified information is a report about how two prominent British center-left activists hoped that Lennon would give money to open a bookshop and reading room for the Liberal Party.

John Lennon's talents

A Beatles biographer notes that Lennon began drawing and writing in early childhood; his uncle encouraged the boy's creativity. He collected his stories, poems, comics and cartoons that the boy drew in workbook Quarry Bank Schools. The magazine was called "Daily Howl". The boy often depicted mutilated people, and his stories were satirical and full of wordplay. According to Lennon's classmate Bill Turner, John created The Daily Howl to amuse his best friend and future Quarrymen member Pete Shotton. Lennon showed him the magazine first. Turner said that Lennon "was crazy about Vigan Pierre. And his passion was evident in everything." In Lennon's story "A Carrot in a Potato Mine" "the rich man ends up being Vigan Pierre." Turner talked about one of Lennon's comics, which depicts 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 wearing glasses.”

By the time Lennon was 24, his love of word games and absurd stories with twists and turns had attracted a wide audience. Harry notes that In His Own Write (1964) was published after “a few journalists who were hanging around the band came to me and I showed them what John had written. They said, “Write a book,” and that’s how the first of the books came to be.” Like “The Daily Howl,” the book included works of various nature, such as short stories, poems, plays and drawings. One of the stories, "Good Dog Nigel", tells the story of a happy dog ​​peeing on a lamppost, barking, chasing its tail until it suddenly learns that it will be killed at three o'clock. . The British magazine "Times Literary Supplement" called the poems and stories "wonderful... very funny... the absurdity works beautifully, words and images are connected into a single chain of fantasies." Book Week noted: “These are stories of the absurd, but literary material It's worth studying to see if Lennon succeeded in this genre. He plays freely with homonyms, words that 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 myself. I wrote it just for fun."

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

John Lennon as a musician

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

As his career progressed, he played a variety of instruments, primarily Rickenbacker 325, Epiphone Casino and Gibson J-160E guitars, and early on solo career on a Gibson Les Paul Junior guitar. The producer of the "Double Fantasy" album said that since his time in the Beatles, Lennon habitually tuned the sixth string of his guitar a little lower so that his Aunt Mimi could distinguish his instrument on the band's recordings. 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", and "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 reached number one on the US hit parade. In 1964, Lennon was the first British musician to purchase a Mellotron, but the instrument was not heard on the band's recordings until 1967, when the song "Strawberry Fields Forever" was recorded.

John Lennon's vocal style

During the recording of "Twist and Shout," the final track from the band's 1963 debut album Please Please Me, which was recorded in one day, Lennon's voice, which had been suffering from a cold during recording, was on the verge of breaking. Lennon says: "I couldn't sing the damn song, I was just screaming." According to biographer Barry Miles, "Lennon simply tore his vocal cords in the name of rock and roll." Beatles producer George Martin says that "John had an innate dislike of 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 transitioned 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 'social therapy' that eventually culminates in the primal screams of 'Cold Turkey' and the catharsis of 'John' Lennon/Plastic Ono Band" Music critic Robert Christgau calls Lennon's vocals "the greatest vocal performance...from screams to screeches, 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 "raw " style. Wiener, describing the singer's vocal contrasts, notes that the singer's voice is "at first muted and soft, soon almost cracking with despair." Music historian Ben Urish recalls hearing the song "This Boy" on the radio, which the group performed at the show Ed Sullivan, a few days after Lennon's murder: "When Lennon's vocals reached their peak...it was very painful to hear him scream with such anguish and emotion. But I heard my emotions in his voice. This has always happened."

John Lennon's legacy

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

John Viner, writing in the Guardian in 2006, wrote: "Young people in 1972 were greatly moved by Lennon's courage and stand-off with US President Nixon. His willingness to risk his career and life is one of the reasons why people still they have been bowing before him." Music historians Urich and Bielen call Lennon's most significant achievement "the self-portraits ... which in his songs address human nature, speak out in defense of human nature, and tell stories about human nature."

In 2013, Downtown Music Publishing entered into a US publishing and management deal with Lenono Music and Ono Music, which own the song catalogs of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, respectively. Under the terms of the contract, Downtown will release Lennon's songs such as "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 throughout the world, with tributes paid to him and numerous memorials erected. In 2002, the airport in hometown Lennon was named Liverpool John Lennon Airport. In 2010, in honor of the 70th anniversary of Lennon's birth, the John Lennon Peace Monument was unveiled in Chavasse Park by Cynthia and Julian Lennon. The monument is called "Peace and Harmony" and features symbols of peace and the inscription "World Peace to Preserve 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 Lennon-McCartney musical duo is considered the most influential and successful of the 20th century. 25 of Lennon's songs, which he performed, composed himself or co-wrote with other musicians, took first place on the US Hot 100 chart. His albums have sold 14 million copies in the United States. His album "Double Fantasy" became the best-selling solo album, selling 3 million copies in the United States. The album was released shortly after John's death and won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1981. The following year, the BRIT Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music went to Lennon.

A 2002 BBC poll ranked him 8th on their list of the 100 Greatest Britons. Between 2003 and 2008, Rolling Stone magazine included Lennon among the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time" - number 15; "100 Greatest Artists of All Time" - 38th place. The musician's albums "John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band" and "Imagine" took 22nd and 76th place, respectively, in Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" ranking. Lennon was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) as part of the Beatles in 1965; the musician returned this award in 1969. Lennon was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

John Lennon discography

• 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)

Many books have been written about the life of this outstanding man; some authors even received scientific degrees for them. His songs, his thoughts and actions were repeatedly subjected to careful study and comprehension. We will not talk about who John Lennon really is and what he wanted to say with his work - we will simply tell his story.

Childhood years

John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 at Oxford Street Hospital. Almost every biography of John Lennon says that this happened during the bombing - the Second World War was going on. However, in reality, nothing of the kind happened, and the man who first wrote about it in his book about the Beatles denied his words many years later. John's mother, Julia, did not spend much time with the child. A year and a half later, she separated from the boy’s father, and a little later she found herself another man, and Aunt Mimi took John into her house.

Mimi was a strict woman and kept the boy in. Of course, she loved the boy and wished him a better life, but in her own way: the limit of her hopes was that John would finish his studies at the institute and find a job. She wanted to raise him to be a decent person, so she strictly monitored his morals and tried to prevent him from “mingling with street punks,” while John had already put together his own hooligan gang and fought with all the boys in the area.

When John went to school, he discovered that the local dull life was not at all for him: he began to study disgustingly, openly engaged in nonsense in class and was in a state of permanent war with teachers. Nevertheless, then his penchant for drawing appeared, or more precisely, for drawing mocking caricatures and obscene drawings.

Around this time, John becomes close to his mother, Julia. Julia was the “black sheep” of her family - devoid of prejudice, she did as she pleased, living for her own pleasure, and this earned the admiration of John, who was always a rebel. They became good friends, and the mother always supported any inventions and hobbies of her son.

The Quarrymen

And at that time it was the 50s: Bill Haley’s song “Rock around the clock” was released, in 1956 Elvis Presley appeared on the stage, and the wave of rock and roll swept over Britain. However, here it resulted in a slightly different form: skiffle appeared - this style had little resemblance to rock and roll, but it did not require either complex instruments or the ability to play well, and therefore became extremely popular among young people.

John did not stand aside either: he and his friends from school pranks created their own skiffle group. His instrument was the guitar, although he did not know how to play. The only thing is that John's mother showed him a couple of chords on the banjo (the first song he learned was That"ll Be The Day

The guys played from time to time just for fun and did not consider it something serious. People in the group were constantly changing, someone came and left, new faces constantly flashed by. And on July 6, 1957, Paul McCartney appeared. After some time he brought George Harrison. George's mother, unlike Mimi, supported the children in their passion for music: the company always found a warm welcome in the Harrison house.

Art College

Having successfully failed all the exams at school, John, under the patronage of Principal Podgeboy (who sincerely tried to establish contact with the uncontrollable student), somehow entered art college. There, too, he practically did not study, he constantly staged various pranks and sometimes disrupted classes. He still didn’t know what he wanted to do, but he had already firmly understood that he hated any routine - be it work, study or something else that required work and diligence.

At that period of his life, he experiences a severe shock - the death of his mother, Julia. In the short period of time that they were friends, John became very attached to her. Julia was one of the few who truly understood him. After the death of his mother, John seemed to have broken free: he became embittered, his antics became even angrier, his jokes even more sarcastic.

At the same time, John met Cynthia Powell. Perhaps he needed her: John was trying to fill the void left by his mother's death. In fact, he simply took out all his anger on the girl. John also met a promising artist at the institute; Stu became interested in John's band and took the place of the bass player, even though he couldn't play. He was much smarter and more intellectually developed than everyone else in the group, and John admired Stu; many elements of the Beatles' style were invented by him.

The group slowly but slowly developed: they played in youth clubs, at parties, and once managed to go on a tour of Scotland. All this time they did not have a specific name - the Quarrymen were long forgotten, the rest changed, and only after a while The Silver Beatles appeared, composed by John in the manner of Buddy Holly's "The Crickets".

Hamburg

In 1960, the Beatles were very lucky: Alan Williams invited them to go to Hamburg. At that time, he had already put Liverpool groups on tour there, and the guys were not the first. The place where they played was on Hamburg's red light district, and the Beatles performed all night for 6-8 hours straight, and slept in the cinema.

The Hamburg audience initially reacted lukewarmly to the guys standing on stage like idols; their manager, Koschmeider, was yelling at them, “Mack show,” a twisted version of “do a show.” And the Beatles began to “put on a show.” They kicked their feet loudly, jumped around the stage, rolled in the dust - in a word, they went crazy. Three-minute compositions were stretched over a third of an hour. The audience rejoiced.

It all ended very unexpectedly - George Harrison, a minor, was deported from the country. Following him, the rest of the group had to leave Germany. The first trip to Hamburg ended unsuccessfully, but it was here that the Beatles grew significantly in their skills and acquired many skills that would be useful to them later.

Under Epstein's wing

Returning to the hardened German club scene in Liverpool, the Beatles made a splash. They firmly established themselves in the most famous club of local hooligan youth, and there they acquired a crowd of fans. Their relaxed behavior on stage, free communication with the audience, and rocking music produced an unprecedented effect: all performances ended in a grandiose brawl. It was there that they were picked up by the well-groomed white-handed Brian Epstein, who later became their manager. Under his strict leadership, the group completely changed its image: from leather-clad, unwashed, foul-mouthed “Teddy Boys,” the Beatles turned into neat, sleek young men in suits. Subsequently, Lennon regretted that the group “succumbed” to show business: with the new image, they lost part of themselves - their unique spontaneity, simplicity and liveliness. John was annoyed that they were now climbing like vines “for the sake of publicity,” which they had previously despised. With his new image, he will long forget who John Lennon really is - a rebel and an implacable enemy of decency and the public.

During this time they traveled to Hamburg several more times. On the second tour of his arrival, John learned that Sutcliffe, who was staying there with his girlfriend Astrid, had died of a cerebral hemorrhage. The death of a close friend crippled Lennon: according to the recollections of friends, he burst into tears after Astrid’s words; it was a rare occasion when John showed emotion in public.

Beatlemania

Meanwhile, the Beatles were noticed by George Martin, and under his strict leadership they recorded a record, then another, a third and, finally, a fourth, She Loves You, which definitely marked the beginning of that three-year madness called Beatlemania. The band toured the world, wreaking havoc on ticket lines and unhinged fans. John and his friends enjoyed their success to the fullest: we will not cite the facts, scrupulously collected by fans, about what poured into the glasses, what they filled their pipes with, and how many girls spent the night in each of the hotels where the Beatles stayed. However, in show business, the group remained a group of sleek, rosy-cheeked boys singing sappy love songs. Subsequently, John would call this the worst time in his life: he was forced to be something other than what he was, for the sake of commerce, they turned a rebel rocker into a good boy, literally took away his real identity. Despite their outward brilliance and triumph, within the Beatles there was absolute moral degradation.

Acid and the end of concert activity

Having finished the tour and returned to England, John at first did not know what to do with himself. After the frantic pace of life on the edge of human capabilities, he felt empty and restless. It was then that John became interested in psychedelic experiences, marijuana and LSD. Perhaps this was his way of trying to destroy everything that had made up his life before and discover his purpose - to re-understand who John Lennon really was. By the way, around the same time, an attribute appeared, which later became an indispensable detail of the musician’s image. These were John Lennon's famous round glasses.

After some time, the band's concert career ended. They grew significantly musically and moved on to more cerebral studio albums. Then John developed a craving for the avant-garde and psychedelic or acid rock. The results of his experiments were, for example, the fantastic I Am The Walrus and the hippie anthem All You Need Is Love.

Yoko Ono and the breakup of the Beatles

Yoko Ono took advantage of John’s interest in the avant-garde. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were perfect for each other - a purposeful Japanese woman whose main passion was attracting attention, and a restless superstar who needed a muse or genius to replace the simpleton Cynthia. They literally found each other. At this time, the Beatles were experiencing discord both in financial matters and in relationships within the group. The result was disintegration with litigation. However, by that time John was already glad to leave the Beatles: his interests were taking him in a completely different direction.

Solo career and political activity

The first joint album of John and Yoko consisted of sound experiments, noise and interference, and simpler people remembered it mainly for the cover, where the married couple appeared completely naked. This was only the beginning of the protest, the challenge they posed to the whole world. Subsequently, they will hold an extraordinary number of different events and performances designed to draw attention to the problems of violence in the world. The most famous of them is the “bed interview”, which took place in several cities; during it, John and Yoko sat in their hotel room (where anyone could enter) on a white bed in pajamas, decorated with flowers, and talked to countless journalists. Also in 1969, Lennon returned the Order of the Knight of the British Empire, which he had received four years earlier, to the Queen as a sign of protest against participation in the Nigeria-Biafra armed conflict and US support in Vietnam. After moving to New York, he actively participated in local anti-war events, which brought him under government surveillance.

John continued to create - after vague experimental albums, he released Walls And Bridges while in the USA, which had significant success. After a long time - a break made in connection with the birth of his son Sean - his second album (with Yoko's participation) Double Fantasy was released, which became one of the pearls of the couple's joint work. Tempting creative prospects opened up before them. Perhaps John Lennon's best creative period was beginning. However, everything ended unexpectedly.

Death of John Lennon

Lennon was killed on December 8, 1980. Returning late at night from the recording studio, he heard a mysterious man call out to him. Without waiting for an answer, he fired five bullets from a revolver at the musician. Lennon was taken to hospital, where he bled to death. This is a rare posthumous photo of John Lennon taken in the morgue.

Crowds of thousands gathered in the streets. His songs were broadcast all over the world. A little later, in New York's Central Park, 400,000 people honored the musician's memory with a ten-minute silence. The murder of John Lennon shocked the whole world.

Lennon's integrity, honesty and straightforwardness truly deserve respect. His personal creativity has always been inextricably linked with his immediate state of mind and way of thinking. The extraordinary inner strength that made him who he became, who John Lennon is, carried away millions of people who preserved not only his memory, but also a part of his soul.