Lennon

[ptirman]

I'm walking around in a funk because of the 30th anniversary of Lennon's assassination. I'm older than most on this board (if not all) and I was so influenced for a lot of reasons by The Beatles, especially the early stuff when I was very impressionable at age 5 or so (mostly because my sisters loved them and they are 10 years older than me). My band Geezer do a number of covers.
I was a first year college student after having taken off a year to try to be a rock star (obviously unsuccessfully) and I was living with my brother who had just spent an all nighter at architecture school the night Lennon was mudered. I fell asleep before hearing the news and woke up to the clock radio playing uninterrupted Beatles. When my brother came in from his all nighter, I told him that it was going to be a great day, "They're playing nothing but Beatles!". He said, "Phillip, sit down."  
I know a lot didn't like him but those early songs still affect me and had a huge influence on me as a guitar player. Anybody else?

 

[ocguy106]

I was seven years old. At the time we lived in a house next to a small market. My da and I woud go there pretty much every day to pick up small things or play astroids together. As you would leave the store they had a row of newspaper machines. My dad would always stop and read the headlines through the plexiglass but never buy one. I rember that day he looked...and looked again and then bought the newspaper. I recall the shock on his face and he was almost brought to tears. My dad had always been in bands and music was a big part of my life so I knew who Lennon was but I didn't understand how big this news was at the time. funny thing is I rember that moment as clear as it happened yesterday.

 

[AprioriMark]

I love Lennon and moreso the Beatles.  They are a large part of my soul.  That being said, I don't diefy or even much admire Lennon.  I think he was a very selfish person who was quite often awful to those who showed him love.  I appreciate the creativity in him that he was overly quick to judge.  So yes, I love and miss John Lennon, but the whole man and not the bloated icon he is to some people.

On a side note, my uncle is so into his music that he named his (miracle baby)daughter Nonnel.

-Mark

 

[Paul-less]

I love Lennon, by far my favorite writer/singer/Beatle.

I am glad they haven't released He-Who-Should-Not-Be-Named (Chapman, all he wanted was publicity, so I try to deny him of it) yet. I hope he rots in the bowels of prison.

 

[ptirman]

Yea I've been watching the biographies and documentaries that are playing now. Imagine: John Lennon is a good one on BBC America. He definitely had jerk moments. Psychologists (I think) would say that the effect of being fatherless and then motherless at an early age made him an angry and suspicious character - It's funny to contrast his writing, often in the same song with eternally optimistic Paul. A bit of a stretch but an example:

Paul: Try to see it my way....... we can work it out
John: Life is very short and there's no time...

No matter what one may think of him, he sure didn't deserve to die that way (nobody does). And to think that some of my tax dollars may go to help feed that nameless guy who is so deranged.
Wow what a great story about your uncle. I probably wouldn't go that far but I bet you can guess who my wife and I dress up as at any costume party (she's Korean American)?

 

[line6man]

Didn't he die on December 8th? :icon_scratch:

 

[Cagey]

Didn't he die on December 8th? :icon_scratch:

Yes. 12/8/80. I was 21 at the time. Quite a shocker.

 

[Superlizard]

Lennon:  

- Excellent songwriter, great musician, decent guitar player

- Major hypocrite (do as I say not as I do) who drank deep the Kool-Aid of socialism

"Imagine there's no possessions... I wonder if you can"  

John never actually wondered that while he was alive.

David Sheff raised the subject of John Lennon's great personal wealth and egalitarian ideals in a 1980 interview with Lennon and Yoko Ono for Playboy. Excerpts follow.


PLAYBOY: On the subject of your own wealth, the New York Post recently said you admitted to being worth over $150,000,000 and----
LENNON: We never admitted anything.
PLAYBOY: The Post said you had.
LENNON: What the Post says -- OK, so we are rich; so what?
PLAYBOY: The question is, How does that jibe with your political philosophies? You're supposed to be socialists, aren't you?
LENNON: In England, there are only two things to be, basically: You are either for the labor movement or for the capitalist movement. Either you become a right-wing Archie Bunker if you are in the class I am in, or you become an instinctive socialist, which I was. That meant I think people should get their false teeth and their health looked after, all the rest of it. But apart from that, I worked for money and I wanted to be rich. So what the hell -- if that's a paradox, then I'm a socialist. But I am not anything. What I used to be is guilty about money. That's why I lost it, either by giving it away or by allowing myself to be screwed by so-called managers.
PLAYBOY: Whatever your politics, you've played the capitalist game very well, parlaying your Beatles royalties into real estate, livestock----
ONO: There is no denying that we are still living in the capitalist world. I think that in order to survive and to change the world, you have to take care of yourself first. You have to survive yourself. I used to say to myself, I am the only socialist living here. [Laughs] I don't have a penny. It is all John's, so I'm clean. But I was using his money and I had to face that hypocrisy. I used to think that money was obscene, that the artists didn't have to think about money. But to change society, there are two ways to go: through violence or the power of money within the system. A lot of people in the Sixties went underground and were involved in bombings and other violence. But that is not the way, definitely not for me. So to change the system -- even if you are going to become a mayor or something -- you need money.
...


PLAYBOY: Why does anyone need $150,000,000? Couldn't you be perfectly content with $100,000,000? Or $1,000,000?
LENNON: What would you suggest I do? Give everything away and walk the streets? The Buddhist says, "Get rid of the possessions of the mind." Walking away from all the money would not accomplish that. It's like the Beatles. I couldn't walk away from the Beatles. That's one possession that's still tagging along, right? If I walk away from one house or 400 houses, I'm not gonna escape it.

Son Julian stated:

Dad was a hypocrite. He could talk about peace and love to the world but he could never show it to his wife and son

 

[line6man]

Didn't he die on December 8th? :icon_scratch:

Yes. 12/8/80. I was 21 at the time. Quite a shocker.

So why are we posting a day early?

 

[Cagey]

Dunno. I didn't start the thread. I was just confirming your understanding. Tomorrow's actually the day. But, I think it's also already tomorrow in some areas in the world.

 

[ptirman]

I hope I didn't go against posting etiquette by posting a day early. I saw a biography last night and was frankly feeling bad about it this morning which is why I posted.

You know Superlizard I went through a divorce years ago and if you would have asked my son what he thought of me when he was a teenager it wouldn't have been pretty, even though I could go on and on about all the circumstances, etc. He didn't know those. A feeling of abandonment is tough any way you slice it. My son's very different now. I saw an interview with Julian now in his 40s, and he also sings a much different tune, age and maturity has helped him with perspective. I think in my 20's and 30's I was never hypocritical-well actually, yes I was. We judge celebrities differently than ourselves and I said at the beginning of the post that I know people didn't like a lot about him and I see a lot of what I would call flaws but what a great song writer. Changed my life for sure.

 

[Cagey]

He was a great songwriter, and deserved the attention and rewards he received for sharing that gift. But, like most socialists, they have very little problem with advocating lifestyles that they have no intention of ever pursuing. It's easy to recommend that everybody else give away what they've earned when your own stomach isn't rumbling.

 

[ptirman]

He was a great songwriter, and deserved the attention and rewards he received for sharing that gift. But, like most socialists, they have very little problem with advocating lifestyles that they have no intention of ever pursuing. It's easy to recommend that everybody else give away what they've earned when your own stomach isn't rumbling.

I hear you, I lived in Marin county CA for nearly 20 years and have had a lot of experience with just that. I think I was the only person in the county that wanted Schwartzenegger and didn't want to pay more taxes (Actually I knew one other guy).
My intent with the post was really just to remember what it was that made anyone feel good about the man if you did and for me it was the music, especially the early stuff.
Cheers
Going to see the Black Crowes tonight. Should make me feel better :toothy10:

 

[jackthehack]

There's actually a few of us older than you...

My first thoughts when hearing the news about 30 minutes after it happened (was still in Europe at the time) echoed Denis Leary's:

"We live in a country where John Lennon takes eight bullets, Yoko Ono is walking right beside him and not one hits her. Explain that to me!"

Had I not already come to the opinion that God in the Judeo-Christian sense could not possibly exist, this would have convinced me...

 

[Cagey]

A day doesn't go by lately without my wondering what in the world the people of California are thinking. But, we'll rapidly cross the lines of polite discourse, or at least the rules of the forum, if we discuss it here.

 

[Alfang]

The quick answer Cagey, and not to start a political highjacking, a big govt. generates a huge retirement number that needs retirement checks, and they are retiring too early.

 

[GoDrex]

I love John and his music. I like his ideas. Was he a hypocrite? Maybe. Find me someone that isn't a hypocrite and we'll compare their lives. John was a flawed person like everyone else, and he was in an extraordinary position in his life during and after the Beatles. Who could know exactly how to handle that kind of life? He had to figure it out as he went a long and he made mistakes.. He wasn't perfect, but I believe his heart was in the right place and he did what he hoped would make the world a better place. He didn't always succeed, but he tried and tried to be a better person as he lived.  That's one of the reasons (besides the music) that people love him so much. I hate it when people criticize him because of lines in Imagine. He's not saying that people should all adopt his philosophy, he was just offering a different point of view from the current one  - just asking people to imagine something different. Only the truly cynical can really find fault with it, IMO.

BTW - Darrell Abbott was murdered on stage on the same day in 2004. His playing was inspirational to me. I miss him too.

 

[ptirman]

I love John and his music. I like his ideas. Was he a hypocrite? Maybe. Find me someone that isn't a hypocrite and we'll compare their lives. John was a flawed person like everyone else, and he was in an extraordinary position in his life during and after the Beatles. Who could know exactly how to handle that kind of life? He had to figure it out as he went a long and he made mistakes.. He wasn't perfect, but I believe his heart was in the right place and he did what he hoped would make the world a better place. He didn't always succeed, but he tried and tried to be a better person as he lived.  That's one of the reasons (besides the music) that people love him so much. I hate it when people criticize him because of lines in Imagine. He's not saying that people should all adopt his philosophy, he was just offering a different point of view from the current one  - just asking people to imagine something different. Only the truly cynical can really find fault with it, IMO.

BTW - Darrell Abbott was murdered on stage on the same day in 2004. His playing was inspirational to me. I miss him too.

Well said, thanks GoDrex.

 

[Paul-less]

Wait, Playboy has interviews?  :doh:

I musta been looking at something else....

 

[AutoBat]

i was born 2 weeks after lennon was killed... which means, my birthday is in two weeks!  (i played some lennon today.  my parents were big beatles fans)