nONCONFORMIST of the month June 2024 – John Lennon

I love to read rockstar biographies.  I recently read one about John Lennon, even though I am not a die-hard Beatles fan (although I am trying and I do like some of his solo songs).  I was intrigued to learn about his life for that reason and also due to his untimely death.  I now have a new perspective.

Born in 1940 in Liverpool, England during World War II, he faced hardships early on, not only due to the war but also because he was abandoned by his parents.  His father left when he was a baby to work on a ship at sea and his mother remarried, leaving him in the care of her sister Mimi (his mother was later killed after being hit by a car).  Luckily Mimi provided him with stability, as parental abandonment can be very hard on children.

John Lennon was very bright but not a good student.  He was always a nonconformist and found it hard to fit into the structure at school.  He had an artistic temperament and was often daydreaming, drawing, and writing.  As a teen he attended art school as an alternative to being kicked out of school altogether.  He still struggled to excel and his aunt worried that he would never do anything successful. 

At some point he got a guitar and started listening to American music on the radio.  He especially loved Elvis.  He styled his hair in a similar fashion and wore straight-leg pants and leather jackets.  He started a band called The Quarrymen in his teens and soon after a friend of his joined the band – Paul McCartney.  They later added guitarist George Harrison and drummer Pete Best. The band played small shows, doing mostly cover songs and even played an extended residency in a basement pub in Hamberg, Germany which allowed them to hone their skills.   During this time, John and Paul started writing their own songs.

After returning to England, they continued to play and gained the interest of Brian Epstein who agreed to be their manager.  After Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best on drums and they changed their name to The Beatles, history was set in motion.   Once they recorded their first album and made a few appearances on television and radio, Beatlemania went into high gear.  They became the best-selling and most influential band in rock history.  The extent of their success is such that pretty much every band that came after them was influenced by them either directly or indirectly.  Even though I am still warming up to The Beatles music, I respect and appreciate their influence.

With most of their songs written by John and Paul and John singing lead on a majority of the songs, John Lennon became the best-known of the Beatles and he was also the most outspoken.  He often gave sarcastic and comical answers to interview questions and made comments that questioned the state of the world and made people think beyond the status quo.  Of course, this made them controversial and if it hadn’t I would not be writing about him now.  Another thing that made him controversial was the fact that he was married and had a young child at home, the fact of which was hidden from the public for a period of time due to concerns it would make the band less appealing.  John himself finally spilled the beans about this secret during an interview.

The Beatles were together about seven years and recorded thirteen studio albums.  In 1967 their manager died suddenly leaving the band to try to manage themselves.  They stopped touring and focused on recording, although they lacked direction and were having a lot of trouble getting along by this point.  They broke up in 1970 with each one starting their own solo career.

John Lennon was a young man whose life changed dramatically right at the time that he got married and became a father.  He was suddenly rich and famous and traveling the world.  His marriage suffered and his son rarely saw him, which repeated the pattern from his own parents’ abandonment of him.  The marriage lasted several years in spite of this and eventually dissolved when John met Yoko Ono whom he married in 1969. 

John and Yoko eventually moved to New York where they felt they could escape from Beatlemania.  They eventually settled into an apartment at the Dakota building and had their son Sean.  During this time, they publicly advocated for world peace and an end to the Vietnam War.  John was very outspoken about this and wrote many songs around this theme, including Imagine, which I have always loved.

From 1975 to 1980 John Lennon was fairly reclusive while he raised his son in New York.  In 1980 he recorded an album called Double Fantasy which was released in November 1980.  He started doing interviews to promote the album and came out of seclusion.  He stated that he felt like he was starting over.  In fact that was the title of one of the songs on the album. 

Sadly, on December 8, 1980 he was shot and killed just outside his home by a deranged fan.  The world was shocked and went into mourning.  Unfortunately, I was only 12 and had not been raised on The Beatles so I didn’t know who he was until I heard the news on the radio.  I realized I liked a few of the songs they played of his in tribute, but it took me a while to connect him to The Beatles.

What makes John Lennon a nonconformist besides his hugely successful music career, is that he spoke his mind no matter who might disagree with him and he was always unapologetically himself, especially during the 1970s when he advocated for peace in contrast to the war that was raging on the other side of the world.

Rest in Peace  John Lennon – thank you for changing the face of music and making us all think globally and more peacefully.