—
He had a boyish smile, a rebellious hairstyle, and a lilting Liverpudlian accent. His genius extended beyond music, to wordplay and visual arts. While he excited and inspired teens, he frightened parents and pastors, and was a target of the Nixon-era FBI. Who was this British phenom? Well, that would be the inimitable John Lennon.
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Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:00
He had a boyish smile, a rebellious hairstyle, and a lilting Liverpudlian accent.
00:05
His genius extended beyond music, to wordplay and visual arts.
00:09
While he excited and inspired teens, he frightened parents and pastors, and was a target of the
00:14
Nixon-era FBI.
00:16
Who was this British phenom?
00:19
Well, that would be the inimitable John Lennon.
00:26
Early Life
00:36
With bombs falling around the hospital, John Lennon was born on October 9th, 1940, in the
00:41
midst of World War II.
00:43
His mother Julia gave him the middle name ‘Winston’ in honor of Britain’s leader
00:47
at the time.
00:48
His father, Alfred, was a merchant marine and was absent at John’s birth, as he would
00:52
be for much of John’s childhood.
00:54
Lennon’s childhood was unsettled, with an absent father and a mother who simply couldn’t
00:58
handle motherhood…
01:00
After the age of four, Lennon didn’t even live with his mother, instead living with
01:03
his childless Uncle George and Aunt Mimi.
01:05
The two were a stern, but loving influence on Lennon throughout his childhood, though
01:10
Mimi did what she could to discourage Lennon’s love of music.
01:14
It was she who famously told him “The guitar’s all very well, John, but you’ll never make
01:18
a living out of it.”
01:20
Lennon’s mother was more supportive of his musical interest, in fact, it was Julia who
01:24
bought the guitar for him.
01:26
Though Lennon didn’t live with his mother, he remained close to her, regularly visiting
01:29
her house where the two would listen to Elvis records and pluck chords on the banjo, ukelele,
01:35
and guitar.
01:36
Julia was also a frequent visitor at her sister’s house, where she spent mornings drinking tea
01:40
with Mimi and chatting with her son.
01:43
After one of these tranquil visits, tragedy struck.
01:46
As Julia crossed the street to head home one day, she was struck and killed by a passing
01:50
car.
01:51
John was sixteen years old when his mother died, and he carried the weight of the tragedy
01:55
with him for the rest of his life…
01:56
At the time Julia died, Lennon was already having trouble in school.
02:00
He was smart, no doubt about that, but his wit and attitude got him into trouble with
02:04
teachers.
02:05
He created comics of teachers and fellow students in a work he titled “The Daily Howl,”
02:10
and detention sheets from Quarry Bank High School show that Lennon once received three
02:14
detentions in one day, with offenses over the years ranging from fighting in class,
02:19
to sabotage, to “just no interest whatsoever.”
02:21
While he was goofing off in school, Lennon was paying close attention to his music.
02:26
He was playing in a band called the Quarry Men – it was one of this band’s gigs that
02:30
would ultimately lead to the formation of The Beatles..
02:33
On July 6th, 1957, the Quarry Men played the Woolton village fete and one of Lennon’s
02:38
bandmates decided Lennon should be introduced to a friend of his.
02:41
And who was that friend?
02:43
Well, you might have heard of him – that would be Paul McCartney.
02:47
That day, McCartney, who was two years John’s junior, taught Lennon how to tune a guitar
02:50
and impressed him with a rendition of the song Twenty Flight Rock.
02:54
The atmosphere of the day stuck with Paul, even if the exact year didn’t:
02:57
“At Woolton village fete I met him.
02:59
I was a fat schoolboy and, as he leaned an arm on my shoulder, I realised he was drunk.
03:03
We were twelve then, but, in spite of his sideboards [sideburns], we went on to become
03:08
teenage pals.”
03:10
It was only two weeks before Paul was asked to join the Quarrymen, and he agreed.
03:14
Shortly thereafter, Paul introduced John and the other band members to his friend George
03:18
Harrison.
03:19
It was 1958, and three of the four Beatles had found each other.
03:23
But music couldn’t be John’s only focus.
03:26
Though he had failed his exams upon leaving high school, Lennon’s aunt and former headmaster
03:31
pulled strings and persuaded the Liverpool College of Art to accept the rambunctious
03:36
teen who did show incredible promise in the arts.
03:39
Lennon started attending the Liverpool College of Art in the fall of 1957.
03:43
He didn’t fare much better at the art school than he had in a traditional school, though
03:47
he did meet his first wife Cynthia Powell.
03:49
Lennon never had the right equipment for his classes, and was always borrowing Powell’s
03:54
tools.
03:55
It was also up to Powell to help Lennon on his exams, though he ultimately failed them
03:59
anyway…
04:00
For all the help she gave him, Lennon was not a kind and loving boyfriend to Powell.
04:03
In fact, he could be downright abusive, even acknowledging as much by later, saying: “I
04:07
was in sort of a blind rage for two years.
04:10
I was either drunk or fighting.
04:11
It had been the same with other girlfriends I’d had.
04:14
There was something the matter with me.”
04:16
The relationship lasted, though, and in 1962 Powell discovered she was pregnant with Lennon’s
04:21
child.
04:22
In keeping with the expectations of the time, the two were married in a simple civil ceremony
04:26
in Liverpool.
04:27
Lennon’s music career had already taken priority over all else, and they skipped a
04:31
honeymoon so he could play a gig the night of their wedding.
04:34
Cynthia gave birth to Julian Lennon in 1963, and with the Beatles’ star on the rise in
04:40
Liverpool, John didn’t pay much attention to his son.
04:42
In fact, his relationship with his son was no better than it was with his wife, something
04:47
Julian publicly and angrily spoke about as an adult.
04:50
“Dad could talk about peace and love out loud to the world but he could never show it to
04:55
the people who supposedly meant the most to him: his wife and son.
04:59
How can you talk about peace and love and have a family in bits and pieces—no communication,
05:04
adultery, divorce?”
05:05
John was the only married Beatle, and the only one with a child, and the group’s manager
05:09
tried to keep this information about Lennon under wraps as he marketed the group.
05:13
Girls wanted their pop stars to be single and cute – not married.
05:19
Beatles Years
05:25
The Beatles’ rise to fame began at the Cavern Club, but it was interspersed with performances
05:29
in Germany.
05:30
Along with Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison, bandmates Stu Sutcliffe and Pete Best made
05:34
up the band’s lineup for their infamous stays in Hamburg, Germany at the Kaiserkellar
05:39
club.
05:40
The boys, no more than 22, and George only 17, lived in horrid conditions and survived
05:44
on pills and alcohol during their stay.
05:47
But the audiences loved them, especially Lennon’s onstage antics.
05:51
One night he was supposed to be onstage, but instead was fooling around with a woman and
05:55
the two only broke up when the club’s bouncer dumped cold water on them.
05:59
Instead of getting dressed to go onstage, Lennon grabbed his guitar and joined his bandmates
06:03
only wearing underwear and a toilet seat around his neck.
06:07
When the Beatles returned to Liverpool and resumed playing at the Cavern Club, they caught
06:10
the attention of a young record store owner in the area.
06:14
Familiar with the group from their visits to his store, Brian Epstein went to one of
06:17
their performances, saw their potential, and signed on as their manager.
06:22
He got them a record contract and was by their side until his death in 1967.
06:27
Epstein was gay, and homosexuality was still illegal in England during the 1960s.
06:31
Over the years, rumors have persisted that Lennon and Epstein had an affair, largely
06:35
stemming from a vacation the two took together to Spain in 1963 – mere weeks after his son
06:40
was born.
06:41
Lennon denied the rumors, saying:
06:43
“I was on holiday with Brian Epstein in Spain, where the rumours went around that
06:47
he and I were having a love affair.
06:48
Well, it was almost a love affair, but not quite.
06:50
It was never consummated.
06:52
But it was a pretty intense relationship.”
06:54
By early 1964, the Beatles were hitting the airwaves in America.
06:57
Then, on February 7, 1964, their plane touched down at the newly renamed Kennedy Airport
07:03
in New York City.
07:04
Crowds of teenagers greeted them, hanging over railings, screaming, and waving signs.
07:09
When they made their way through the crowds to speak to the press, Lennon treated the
07:13
American media to a dose of his classic wit.
07:16
When a reporter asked why people loved the Beatles so much, Lennon replied, “If we
07:20
knew we’d form another group and be managers.”
07:22
Two days later, the lads from Liverpool made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan
07:26
Show.
07:27
As the studio audience screamed and 73 million Americans watched from home, the Beatles performed
07:32
five songs.
07:33
During the show, each Beatles name appeared on the screen.
07:36
Lennon’s name had an addendum, though – it read “Sorry girls, he’s married.”
07:40
Keeping Cynthia and Julia’s existence quiet was not possible for a man about to become
07:45
one of the most recognizable in the world.
07:52
1964 saw the release of both the movie and album, A Hard Day’s Night, marking all four
08:01
Beatles’ foray into the film industry.
08:04
Lennon would later appear in a satirical film called “How I Won The War.”
08:07
Not to be constrained by only two artistic mediums, Lennon also published a book in 1964
08:12
entitled “In His Own Write,” which he later followed up with a volume entitled “A
08:17
Spaniard In The Works.”
08:18
As the sixties continued on, the Beatles stayed at the top of the pop culture world, and that
08:23
high profile meant Lennon’s mouth could get him and the band into trouble very easily.
08:28
In 1966, he famously told a reporter that the “Beatles were more popular than Jesus.”
08:34
When the remark was published, it caused an uproar.
08:45
So-called ‘Beatle Burnings’ were held around the United States, during which teens
08:49
and their parents burned albums, photos, and other Beatles memorabilia.
08:53
In 1967, the Beatles took rock n’ roll to new heights with the release of Sgt.
08:58
Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a psychedelic concept album that featured a collage of historic
09:03
figures and celebrities on its cover.
09:05
Initially, Jesus was supposed to be among those pictured in the artwork, but after Lennon’s
09:10
1966 remarks he was removed from the array.
09:14
One of the songs on Sgt.
09:15
Pepper, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, has long been thought to be drug-related as the
09:20
major words in the title create the acronym ‘LSD.’
09:23
However, Lennon said that his inspiration for the song’s imagery came from one of
09:26
his favorite works of literature, Alice in Wonderland, with the overall idea stemming
09:30
from one of Julian’s childhood drawings of a school friend named Lucy.
09:34
During this time period, Lennon had begun moving in avant garde artistic circles, primarily
09:38
due to his new relationship with artist Yoko Ono.
09:41
He had met Ono at one of her gallery shows, and at the time their meeting consisted solely
09:46
of her handing him a card that said nothing but ‘breathe’ on it.
09:49
Though Lennon was still married to Cynthia, he and Ono began spending time together, even
09:54
recording an album called “Two Virgins” that featured both of them standing fully
09:58
nude on the cover.
09:59
Lennon and Cynthia did not officially divorce until 1968, though the relationship between
10:04
Ono and Lennon was well known, with Ono spending time in the recording studio as the Beatles
10:09
worked, and even lent her voice on the White Album song “Bungalow Bill.”
10:13
In 1969, Lennon and Ono married in a ceremony at the Rock of Gibraltar, an event that was
10:18
famously chronicled in the song “The Ballad of John and Yoko”: “Finally made the plane
10:26
into Paris, honeymooning down by the Seine.
10:29
Peter Brown called to say, you can make it okay; you can get married in Gibraltar near
10:33
Spain.”
10:34
While their wedding was a relatively isolated affair, they welcomed the world to their honeymoon.
10:40
Lennon and Ono set up camp in a bed at the Amsterdam Hilton to promote world peace, lying
10:45
in bed fully clothed for a week.
10:47
They repeated the stunt two weeks later in Montreal, and it was at the Montreal bed-in
10:51
that they recorded “Give Peace A Chance,” surrounded by members of the press and other
10:56
friends and followers.
10:57
By this time, Lennon was fully dedicated to his life with Ono, and each of the Beatles
11:01
had started to move in their own directions.
11:04
Ono’s presence in the recording studio and her input on their music irked the other Beatles,
11:09
and they had all also begun exploring different artistic worlds.
11:12
The disintegration of the world’s most famous band had begun.
11:17
Lennon was the first to tell the others he was leaving the group, and did so in September
11:22
1969.
11:23
But it was Paul McCartney who broke the news to the world publicly that he was leaving,
11:26
and the Beatles officially split on April 10th, 1970.
11:34
Post-Beatle years
11:39
Though he had left the Beatles behind, Lennon did not abandon music.
11:43
His first post-Beatles album was released in 1970, with many of the songs inspired by
11:48
primal scream therapy he had begun practicing as a method of dealing with the trauma he
11:52
experienced in his childhood.
11:53
The song that perhaps most demonstrates the influence of primal scream is “Mother,”
11:58
which includes the lyrics, “Mother, you had me but I never had you, I wanted you,
12:03
you didn’t want me, So I, I just gotta tell you, Goodbye, goodbye.”
12:06
By the time Lennon released his next solo album, he and Ono were living in the United
12:11
States, settling into the luxurious Dakota apartment building in New York City.
12:15
It was here that he wrote the most iconic of his solo work – Imagine.
12:19
The song and the album were huge hits, and nearly 40 years after Lennon’s death the
12:25
song remains an international anthem of peace and love.
12:28
Lennon and Ono enjoyed living in New York City, but the U.S. government did not enjoy
12:33
having the counterculture icons in the midst of the largest American metropolis.
12:38
In 1972, eighteen year olds would have the right to vote for the first time – and 18
12:42
year olds listened to John Lennon when he sang and spoke about the evils of war and
12:46
the actions of the government.
12:48
That made him a threat to Richard Nixon’s re-election, and in 1972, the government revoked
12:53
Lennon’s visa based on these fears.
12:56
They threatened deportation, and not wanting to be separated from Ono, Lennon essentially
13:00
stopped his involvement with countercultural activities, but as threats of deportation
13:05
continued, Lennon was forced to hire attorneys and continuously appeal to stay in the country.
13:10
In 1976, only after the Nixon presidency fell apart under the pressure of Watergate, Lennon
13:15
received his green card and was safe to stay in the United States.
13:19
During the struggle to obtain his green card, Lennon was also struggling with his relationship
13:23
with Ono.
13:24
The two essentially separated for over a year, and Lennon even moved out to California to
13:28
live with a former secretary, May Pang, with whom Ono had encouraged him to begin a relationship.
13:34
Lennon later referred to this period of his life as the “Lost Weekend,” as it was
13:38
fueled by alcohol and drugs and marked by aggressive behavior from Lennon.
13:43
He once tried to strangle Pang, and got thrown out of a club for drunkenly heckling the Smothers
13:48
Brothers.
13:49
By Lennon’s absence, Ono realized that she needed him in her life.
13:52
She ultimately came to blame society’s pressures, and not him, telling Playboy: “John was
13:56
a fine person.
13:58
It was society that had become too much…I’m thankful to John’s intelligence, that he
14:01
was intelligent enough to know this was the only way that we could save our marriage,
14:05
not because we didn’t love each other but because it was getting too much for me.”
14:10
When the two reunited, Ono quickly became pregnant.
14:12
She gave birth to Sean Lennon on John’s 35th birthday, October 9th, 1975.
14:18
With the birth of Sean came a sea change in Lennon’s life.
14:21
Where he had been an absent father to Julian, he was a doting father to Sean, giving up
14:25
music and instead spending his time as a house husband.
14:28
Lennon also began spending time with Julian again during the 1970s; Julian visited New
14:33
York and Lennon taught his first son guitar techniques.
14:36
For five years, Lennon focused on domestic life, but by 1980 he felt the tug of the artistic
14:41
muse again.
14:42
He began writing songs, recorded an album, and officially re-entered the music scene
14:47
with the release of Double Fantasy in the fall of 1980.
14:51
John Lennon was back.
14:56
Death
14:59
But his return was not to last.
15:05
Two months after Double Fantasy was released, Lennon and Ono headed to the recording studio
15:09
to work on new songs he had written.
15:12
On their way to the studio, Lennon stopped to sign a copy of Double Fantasy for Mark
15:15
David Chapman, a fan who was waiting outside the Dakota.
15:19
On their return shortly before 11:00 PM, Chapman was still waiting outside the Dakota.
15:24
As Lennon and Ono walked by, Chapman pulled a gun and fired five shots at Lennon.
15:28
An hysterical Ono called for help, and the NYPD arrived, officers loaded the wounded
15:32
Lennon into the back of a cruiser, and drove him to Roosevelt Hospital.
15:36
But their efforts were fruitless, John Lennon was declared dead on arrival at 11:00 PM,
15:40
December 8th, 1980.
15:42
The United States heard the news via a Monday Night Football broadcast, and the news quickly
15:46
made it to the rest of the world.
15:48
Crowds began to show up at the Dakota, singing Lennon’s songs and carrying signs in his
15:52
memory.
15:53
No funeral was held; instead Ono had his body cremated and scattered his ashes in Central
15:57
Park.
15:58
The location is now “Strawberry Fields,” a memorial dedicated to Lennon that is visited
16:03
by legions of fans each year.
16:04
John Lennon’s public life was dedicated to art and to the promotion of peace.
16:08
While his private life was quite a bit more complicated and dramatic, there is no doubt
16:14
that he holds a special place in the lives of those who grew up with him and his music,
16:18
as well as the children and grandchildren of those baby boomers who have come to love
16:22
his music and his legacy.
16:23
A groundbreaking musician, an experimental artist, Lennon turned his private pain into
16:28
beauty for the world.
16:30
His legacy has lived on for decades after his death, and surely will continue to live
16:34
on long after we’re all gone.
—
—
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