John Winston Ono Lennon, English musician, singer and songwriter who rose to fame as founding member of The Beatles was born on this day October 9, 1940, in war-time Liverpool. Lennon's parents, Julia and Alfred Lennon, soon seperated. His father, a merchant seaman, returned with the intention of taking the young John with him to New Zealand, and he was forced to choose between his two parents, eventually going with his mother.
Julia prove too have a profound influence on his life. introducing him to the seminal music of Fats Domino, and teaching him to play the banjo.
However it was a strained relationship, and Lennon grew up largely with his aunt, Mimi Smith. He largely lost contact with his father, and his mother tragically died after being hit by a car in 1958.
Lennon started his first band, The Quarrymen, in 1956, at the age of 15.This was the genesis of The Beatles, where Lennon formed a celebrated songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney that became one of the most successful and critically acclaimed acts in the
history of popular music.They remain the best selling bands in history, having sold up to one billion albums worldwide.
Lennon's life went far beyond Strawberry
Fields and wanting to hold hands. He was an incredibly complex person
that led a life of highs and lows just like any other person. His rebellious nature also gave his
writings, interviews and work a notably acerbic and sardonic wit. A dreamer, a believer, a songwriter, a poet, an avant garde artist, a
rebel, a thinker; John Lennon was all of these things, but above all he
was a man full of love, though some of his action reveal that he was not without faults, and far from perfect. Through his revolutionary songwriting and
ability to express his visionary ideals of peace, tolerance,
multiculturalism, and independent thought, John Lennon made an
impression on popular music and activism that resounds just as clearly
today as it did during the era marked by the creative heights of
Beatlemania.
A man who began his career as as ordinary pop star who made
extraordinary music. During the last few years of the Beatles, Lennon was very much influenced by the ideas of the hippy movement. His song "Revolution " was a cynical response to the events of 1968, Lennon sung "You say you want a revolution" but ended the verse with " count me out"
The Beatles - Revolution
But as time went on he slowly began to evolve as his
fame grew, becoming radicalized through meetings and associations with
sixties activists. during this time , John started referring himself as
a "Revolutionary artist." Lennon especially used his social status to raise awareness for war and
discrimination rather than hiding his thoughts. John Lennon was a
humble working class Liverpool boy and despite being at the center of attention with
the achievements of the Beatles, he never turned his back to social problems and the problems of the individuals he was raised among.
Back in 1965, the Beatles were awarded the MBE (Members of the British Empire)
by the Queen. Four years later, as John’s political awareness
developed, he returned his medal in protest against British policy in
the Nigerian civil war and against the Vietnam war – and also, he said
in jest, to protest against his record, ‘Cold Turkey’, slipping in the
charts.
Lennon was able to present a vision of beauty and a world united from
one of the most chaotic periods in recent memory, marred by governmental
corruption and the Vietnam war. Songs like “Give Peace a Chance” served
as a rallying cry to the anti-war movement, while songs like “Imagine”
made a world at peace seem more attainable than it had ever been before.
In addition to the songs he wrote, Lennon used his incredible fame as a
vehicle through which to voice his opinions on both the political and
basic human issues he believed in. The infamous “Bed-in For Peace” alongside his partner, Japanese artist Yoko Ono was
more than a publicity stunt – behind the outlandish media spectacle was a
rationality and optimism that filled the void of war and intolerance
with a universal love and hope.
After John and Yoko returned to the UK from Japan in January 1971, they
gave an interview to political activists Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn
of the Trotskyist newspaper Red Mole. Almost immediately John
began writing a song inspired by the interview and the day afterwards
began work on the song at Ascot Sound Studios. Released on 12 March 1971, ‘Power To The People’ came
from a phrase that was used as a form of rebellion against what US
citizens perceived as the oppression by The Establishment. The Black
Panthers used the slogan ‘All Power to the People’ to protest the rich,
ruling class domination of society, while pro-democracy students used it
to protest America’s military campaign in Vietnam.
‘Power to the people’, laid bare what democracy is really about. Or should be. .. According to John, “I
wrote ‘Power to the People’ the same way I wrote ‘Give Peace a Chance,’
as something for the people to sing. I make singles like broadsheets. It
was another quickie, done at Ascot.”
John Lennon - Power to the People
It was also during the early '70s that Lennon began to express a
deeper commitment to the concerns of oppressed people of color. Lennon
backed both Native-American and African-American rights. He expressed
sympathy for the African-American struggle and an understanding of the
need for Black consciousness. In a 1972 appearance on The Dick Cavett Show, Lennon stated support for the Black Panther's Ten-Point Program
and their faith in self-defense. The Ten-Point Program encompassed
calls for Black self-determination, a decent education, for Black
children free of racist and historical bias, as well as "land, bread,
housing… justice and peace." (Huey P. Newton, War Against the Panthers, 1966)
The
Black Panthers were criminalized and pathologized by the White
Establishment. Former President Herbert Hoover even called the group the
greatest threat to America's national security and subjected it to FBI
surveillance. The party's radical reputation was partly due to its
commitment to armed self-defense. Its community programs also sought to
provide free health care and clothing for the poor as well as hot
breakfasts for children.
Lennon's music in this period sought to
reawaken the moral conscience and political consciousness of the people.
He wrote songs for Black Panther campaigner Angela Davis and the co-founder of the supportive White Panther Party,
John Sinclair. The latter had been sentenced to ten years in prison for
a drug possession charge in 1969. Lennon performed at a concert for
Sullivan in Ann Arbor in December 1971. He also wrote about Ireland's
"Troubles" ("Sunday, Bloody Sunday") explicitly condemns the murders of 13 unarmed Catholic civil rights protesters in Northern Ireland by British forces and calls for the British to get out, .and in early 1972 attended a
demonstration in New York City against the killings.
John Lennon - Sunday Bloody Sunday
He penned “Attica State”, a song about the insurrection and repression
of prisoners in Attica prison https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2018/09/attica-prison-uprising1971-and-its.html and attended a concert benefit for the
relatives of the slain inmates on December 17th, 1971 with Ono.
John Lennon - Attica State
He also participated that year in a demonstration with the
Native-American tribe the Onondaga Indians against the government's planned construction of a freeway through their land. His song Woman is the Nigger of the World was inspired by the writings
of James Connolly and paraphrases his famous quote ‘The worker is the
slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that
slave.’
John Lennon - Woman is the Nigger of the World
All this made the American system very afraid of him. Richard Nixon even involved the FBI to deport Lennon. A past drug’s offence would be used to threaten the singer with
deportation. And he would struggle to gain permanent resident
status in the U.S. period to come.
Under the plan to deport Lennon who criticized the war of Vietnam that covered between 1971 – 1972, FBI created a 300-page long file. The
case was published by the end of 2006. A sentence from the report said:
“The doubt that Lennon has revolutionary views is supported with
official meetings with the Marxist, his songs and other published
content.”
The conservative US was afraid of John Lennon’s radicalism and to use his position to spread anti-war and anti-capitalist views.
Whether Lennon was seen as a pacifist or a revolutionary, he
used his music and visual existence to spread certain ideas around the
world. Without being afraid of the consequences of his views that he
supported without taking a step back, he used his fame to change certain
things without forgetting his social class.
While some of his songs might come across as simple sloganeering,
“Working Class Hero” from 1970 is an insightful social commentary on class splits
and how society tries to exploit folks to become cogs in the machine. It
also touches how religious indoctrination and media causes people to
lose sight of the big picture. Despite being a millionaire, Lennon was still able to see the world through the eyes of ordinary people. Sadly the song is more poignant than ever.
John Lennon- Working Class Hero
Although his creative genius was lost tragically short of its time, John
Lennon attained more in his forty years than most could accomplish in a
hundred full lifetimes. And although Lennon’s creative output in the last eight years of his life was uneven and decidedly less political, in 1975 he withdrew from the music business
to raise his son, Sean, but returned in 1980 to release the album
Double Fantasy, with Yoko Ono. Three weeks after its release he was shot
and killed in his adopted home of New York City on 8 December 1980 by psychotic fan, Mark David Chapman. His
death triggered an outpouring of grief on an unprecedented scale
throughout the world.
81 years after his birth John Lennon lives on through his music and whenever people imagine a better future. His example as a leader in social activism paved the way for the prominent
activists of today. I
believe that together, as individuals or in groups we can still be
forces for change like John Lennon, whether it be for human rights,
economic and social
justice , working for a culture of peace , equality and freedom, in the
words of John Lennon ' some people call me a dreamer, but I'm not the
only one.' Lines from his ultimate song, ‘Imagine’, released in 1971. It has
been described as ‘a humanist plea and socialist anthem’. Its sweet slow
gentle delivery hides a message that is uncompromisingly radical, even
revolutionary, in its call for a world without borders, without
religion, and based on sharing rather than possession. Revolutionary, but sad that we've still not moved further forward.
John Lennon - Imagine
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today... Aha-ah...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace... You...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world... You...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today... Aha-ah...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace... You...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world... You...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
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