I enjoy the Beatles even more as time goes on but I didn’t have any of Lennon's solo albums. This one rounds out my collection nicely as a tribute to John Lennon. With songs like Imagine, Cold Turkey, Beautiful Boy, and others this is a very enjoyable listen. The FBI is preparing to release documents that show the late Beatle John Lennon helped found the Irish Republican Army. Lennon was an outspoken political activist for much of his life and was a.
Singer, writer, poet, and composer, the Beatles' most committed rockartist. With his social conscience, cynical wit, and willingness toexperiment, John Lennon was in constant conflict with conservativevalues. The poet and novelist Philip Arthur Larkin described theBeatles' work as 'an enchanting and intoxicating hybrid of Negrorock-and-roll with their own adolescent romanticism', and 'the firstadvance in popular music since the War.' Many of the group's lyrics(e.g. 'Penny Lane', 'Eleanor Rigby', 'She's Leaving Home') had aconsiderable influence on the success of the Liverpool Poets (AdrianHenri, Roger McGough, Brian Patten) and the Underground poetrymovement.
'I'm a moldy moldy man...' (from In His Own Write, 1964)
John Lennon was born in Liverpool, Merseyside, into a working classfamily. His parents, Julia and Alfred (Freddie), separated before hewas two, and Lennon went to live with his mother's sister, Mimi Smith.Freddie spent much time at sea. After serving some time in prison, hisfuture in the merchant navy was finished, and he worked then in oddjobs, often as a pot scrubber or pan scourer in hotel kitchens. Lennonattended Liverpool's Dovedale Primary School and later the Quarry BankHigh School. Only late in life, Lennon discovered that his lifelonginability to spell and tendency to transform one word into another ofsimilar sound was a sign of dyslexia. In 1955 he started a skifflegroup, called the Quarrymen, which took the name from his school.During these years Lennon wrote a book which he called the Daily Howl– a kind of newspaper with little jokes and cartoons. When Lennon was17, his mother was killed in an accident. She was knocked down by acar, driven by a police officer, who was driving without a license.'I've no responsibility to anyone now,' Lennon recalled his bitterthoughts after Julia's death.
In the summer of 1956 Lennon met Paul McCartney and they began towrite songs together. In Hamburg, where the Beatles played in the early1960s, they learned to play as a band, eventually becoming 'morepopular than Jesus,' in Lennon's words. But the time meant also asexual awakening for them. 'We were baptised in Hamburg because therewere the girls,' McCartney said in Barry Miles biography. When BillHarry launched the Mersey Beat in Liverpool in the summer of 1961, Lennon wrote for the paper. He admired the column 'Beachcomber' in the Daily News and created his own 'Beatcomber.'
In His Own Write (1964), Lennon's first book, was partlybased on material he had made while still at school. Its alternativetitles were among others The Transistor Negro, Left Hand Left Hand (after Osbert Sitwell's Left Hand Right Hand) and Stop One and Buy Me.Lennon signed the contract in January 1964 and the book - with 31pieces of writing and enough drawings – was published three monthslater on March 23, 1964. Introduction was written by Paul McCartney andthe work was designed by Robert Freeman. By January 1965 it had soldnearly 200 000 copies. (Source: John Savage, introduction in Pimlico double edition, 1997) Lennon once said, that he had always wanted to write Alice in Wonderland. Another favorite was James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, 'so way out and so different.'A Spaniard in the Works, Lennon's second book, was published onJune 24, 1965. It went through four impressions and sold 100 000 copieswithin three month, not so well as the first. 'There are some storiesand bits in it that even I don't understand,' Lennon later revealed.Young readers hailed the books as a new and inspiring way of writing,but actually Lennon followed in the footsteps of the French surrealists of the 1920s.
'I hardly ever alter anything because I'mselfish about what I write, or big-headed about it. Once I've writtenit, I like it. And the publisher sometimes says, 'Should we leave thisout, or change that?' and I fight like mad, because once I've done it Iliker to keep it. But I always write it straight off. I might addthings when I go over it before it's published, but I seldom takeanything out. So it is spontaneous.' (from The Beatles Anthology, 2000)
Meeting the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, writer of The Science of Being and the Art of Living,helped Lennon to abandon booze and some drugs for a short time. In 1968the Beatles flew from England to India, where they joined the maharashiat his meditation center, which was built for rich foreigners. Indianculture had already inspired the Beatniks of the 1950s. This traditionwas continued by a number of the hippies of the next decade whoconsidered India their spiritual home. The Beatles' pilgrimage waswidely commented by the media, especially when Lennon admitted, 'Wemade a mistake,' when he returned back to England. However, during thisperiod the group wrote most of the White Album. After 1969,which was the final year of Lennon's activities with theBeatles, he grew closer to his second wife Yoko Ono, whom he married in1969. They arranged much publicity for peace movement by staying in bedwhile being filmed and interviewed, and their single with Plastic OnoBand 'Give Peace a Chance' (1969) became the 'national anthem' forpacifist. John himself was no angel, he could be violent, provocative,mean – and he was far from a model father. 'They want me to belovable,' Lennon had said in an interview. 'But I was never that.' In1974 at L.A.'s Troubadour Club, after allegedly assaulting the managerof the Smothers Brothers and a waitress, he was thrown out onto thestreet.
'What we're really doing,' said John, 'issending out a message to the world, mainly to the youth, to anybody whois interested in protesting for peace or protesting any form ofviolence.' John summoned up the message in one colloquial phase: 'Givepeace a chance.'
As the phasing of John's famous chantsuggests, the model for all the Lennon's peace propaganda was MadisonAvenue advertising. John believed deeply in the power of images andslogans to affect the mass mind. He was sure that during his years as aBeatle he had mastered the techniques of manipulating the media, and ofcourse, he had a very able partner in this work in Yoko Ono... (from The Lives of John Lennon by Albert Goldman, 1988)
From 1968 to 1969 Lennon recorded Two Virgins, Life With the Lions, The Wedding Album and Plastic Ono Band, but generally agreed his best solo album was Imagine,which appeared in 1970. In the 1970s Lennon emerged as a significantpolitical threat to the Nixon administration. He planned in the summerof 1972 a concert tour to rouse the youth against the Vietnam war.Parts of the FBI's Lennon file, dealing with his ties with anti-warmovement, was kept secret for reasons of 'national security' until2006.
When Mind Games appeared in 1973, John was not living withYoko. He had moved to Los Angeles with May Pang, his wife's formersecretary. In 'Bless You' from Walls and Bridges (1974) hewrote: 'Some people say it's over,' and in 'Scared' he confessed:'Hatred and jealousy / gonna be the death of me'. By January 1975 Johnand Yoko were living together once more. On the birth of his son Sean(1975-), Lennon retired from music, and plunged in a self-destructivelife-style like Elvis Presley, whose 'Heartbreak Hotel' had made him arocker at the age of fifteen. Lennon used Thai sticks, or heroin, leftrarely his bed, and complained about television, his chronicindigestion, or the soap in the kitchen. After a long period ofhibernation, Lennon released with Yoko Ono in 1980 Double Fantasy which won a Grammy forthe Album of the Year.
Jonh Lennon was murdered on December 8, 1980, in New York. His deathaffected millions of people. John Lennon continues to be admired by newgenerations of fans – as a troubled Jesus-like figure, icon of thepeace-movement, drug-using rebel, hard rocker, and a song writer whohad more to say than the simple 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.'
'After his death, Linda and I went roundto Yoko's and we all cried so hard, you know, we had to laugh. Shewanted to get us something to eat and she mentioned caviar. We allsaid, 'Let's do it.' Her houseman brought it in, mumbling, and hebacked out and there was the caviar tin with just a little bit in thebottom. Her servants had eaten it all!' (from Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now by Barry Miles, 1997)
For further reading: The Beatles by Hunter Davies (1968);Lennon Remembers: The Rolling Stone Interviews by Jann Wenner (1971); A Twist of Lennon by Cynthia Lennon (1978); ThePlayboy Interviews with John Lennon & Yoko Ono, ed. by G. Barry Golson (1982); The Ballad of John and Yoko by Jonathan Cott and Christine Doudna (1982); Loving Johnby May Pang (1983); John Lennon: In My Life by Peter Shotton and Nicholas Schaffer (1983); John Oko Lennon 1967-1980 by Ray Coleman (1984); John Winston Lennon 1940-66 by Ray Coleman (1984); Lennon: Definitive Biography by Ray Coleman (1985); John Lennon: For the Record by Peter McCabe and Robert D. Schonfeld (1984); The Lives of John Lennon by Albert Goldman (1988); Come Together: John Lennon in His Time by Jon Wiener (1995); Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files by Jon Wiener (1999); The Songs of John Lennon: The Beatle Years by John Stevens and John Lennon (2002); Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon by Robert Rosen (2002); John by Cynthia Lennon (2005); John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth by Elizabeth Partridge (2005); John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman (2008)
John Lennon Collection Cd
Yoko Ono: raised in Tokyo by her wealthy Japanesebanking family. She became the first woman admitted to study philosophyat Japan's Gakushuin University. In 1953 she moved to the US to studyat Sarah Lawrence College. After dropping out she joined New Yorkavant-garde movement. During the early sixties, Ono's works wereexhibited and/or performed at the Village Gate, Carnegie Recital Halland numerous New York galleries. In mid-sixties, she lectured atWesleyan College and had exhibitions in Japan and London, where she metJohn Lennon at the Indica Gallery. Lennon separated from his wifeCynthia, with whom he had one child, Julian. Ono's best known soloalbum Season of the Glass appeared in 1981and received much attention also outside avant-garde and critical circles. Other pop or rock stars with literary merits (novels, collections of poems, short story collections): Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Nick Cave, Ulf Lundell. Collections by the Liverpool Poets: The Mersey Sound (1967), The Liverpool Scene (1967), New Volume (1983)
Books:
- In His Own Write, 1964 (first published by Jonathan Cape) - John Lennon panee omiaan (suom. Anselm Hollo, 1964)
- A Spaniard in the Works, 1965 (first published by Jonathan Cape) - Hispanialainen jakovainaa (suom. Anselm Hollo, 1966)
- Lennon Remembers, 1971 (with Jann Wenner; originally published in Rolling Stone) - Lennon muistelee (suom. Markku Into, 1973)
- Skywriting by Word of Mouth: And Other Writings, Including 'The Ballad of John and Yoko', 1986
- Ai: Japan Through John Lennon's Eyes: A Personal Sketchbook, 1991
- Real Love: The Drawings for Sean, 1999 (introduction by Yoko Ono)
- The John Lennon Letters, 2012 (edited by Hunter Davies)
Films and videos:
- A Hard Day's Night, 1964, dir. by Richard Lester
- Help, 1965, dir. by Dick Lester, written by Charles Wood, Marc Behm
- How I Won the War, 1967, dir. by Richard Lester, written by CharlesWood from Patrick Ryan's novel, starring Michael Crawford, John Lennon,Roy Kinnear, Lee Montague. Story was set during the WW II, where anearnest young man becomes an officer and survives many tribulationsincluding the death of his comrades
- Magical Mystery Tour, 1968
- Let It Be, 1971
- The Bed-In (video), 1991
- The John Lennon Video Collection, 1992
- One To One, 1993
Selected albums / The Beatles:
- Please Please Me, 1963
- With the Beatles, 1963
- A Hard Day's Night, 1964
- Beatles For Sale, 1964
- Help, 1965
- Rubber Soul, 1965
- Revolver, 1966
- Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967
- The Beatles/White Album, 1968
- Yellow Submarine, 1969
- Abbey Road, 1969
- Let It Be, 1970
Selected albums from 1968:
- Two Virgins, 1968
- Life With the Lions, 1969
- The Wedding Album, 1969
- Plastic Ono Band, 1969
- John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band, 1970
- Imagine, 1970
- Some Time in New York City, 1972
- Mind Games, 1973
- Walls and Bridges, 1974
- Rock'n Roll, 1975
- Shaved Fish, 1975
- Double Fantasy, 1980
- The John Lennon Collection, 1982
- Heartplay - Unfinished Dialogue, 1983
- Milk And Honey, 1984
- Live In New York City, 1986
- Menlove Ave, 1986
- The Last Word, 1988
- Imagine - Music From The Motion Picture, 1988
- John & Yoko: The Interview, 1990
- The Ultimate John Lennon Collection, 1990
John Lennon Collection Album
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