John Lennon

Mom liked Frank Sinatra. Dad liked Hank Williams. That left Rock and Roll up for grabs. My brother and I split it down the middle: he got the heavy metal, and I got the pop. Oh yeah, we were all allowed to appreciate each others choices, but lets face it, at some point, around say, age 13 or so, there comes a time when a kid needs their ‘own’ music. My parents were not unaware of the Beatles; they were, after all, alive from 1964 to 1970 when the Beatles were shaking up the cultural landscape like a 7 Richter point earthquake... they just weren’t a ‘part’ of it. Which is good, because, as I mentioned before, that left it open for me. I think it started, officially, with a posthumous Lennon original ‘Nobody Told Me There’d be Days Like These’ and its accompanying video on MTV, a Paul McCartney song ‘Take it Away’, and a Thompson Twins cover of the Beatles classic ‘Revolution’. Martha Quinn, one of the original veejays, summed it up in a 30 second song intro, ‘...song was written by the Beatles...band comprised of John Lennon and Paul McCartney...’ After having Martha’s help in putting 2 and 2 together, remembering those late night snippets on the oldies station of ‘Blackbird’, ‘Yellow Submarine’ and ‘Let it Be’, I slowly, cautiously, began to fall head over heels in love with this band. As luck or fate would have it, my next trip to Half Price Records and Books yielded a treasure I have not encountered in the 20 plus years since. I bought, that day, a copy of no less than 6 different Beatles albums (on vinyl, of course), all at regular (‘half the cover’) price. I have not walked past the B’s in a record shop since and have yet to replicate, or even observe the opportunity to replicate such a score. The plumpest and juiciest fruit in the bunch was an immaculate copy of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, an album that in less than an hour, armed with little more than a decent set of headphones and a stick of Jasmine incense, completely changed my musical taste, in fact the way I listen to music, to this day.

Before that spin, I never knew that music could be so completely immersive an experience. It seemed like more than just music, it seemed like I was getting to know these songwriters and performers on an intimate level. In retrospect, such coherent (arguable, I know) emotion from such young men was almost like permission to experience strong feelings myself. This was a timely message for a boy entering adolescence, and I did not take it lightly. In the ensuing months, the Beatles edged out other interests to become not just ‘my music’ but ‘my thing’. From my stringy curly attempts at the moptop haircut, Lennon specs (clear glass, non prescription...it was the 80’s), to a wardrobe pulled in whole and in part from each respective Beatles era, a favoritism for madcap British humour, a burgeoning and encyclopedic knowledge of Beatles trivia, lyrics and song orders, my love for all things Beatle became an obsession. A Beatlemania. It seems a bit odd now, heck, it seemed odd at the time that an 80’s kid would become such a complete fan of a group which had reached its creative peak 3 years before his birth, but having walked these many miles in these Beatle boots, I now know that I am far from alone and am, in fact, not even among the inner circle of the most obsessive of the ‘young’ fans.

Other young dudes were easily as obsessed as I was, but with other forms of arcana. I was a Beatles geek, but my cousin had a box of baseball cards from which he could spout off endless bits of statistical information; another cousin was a car nut and spoke fluently, years before his chance at a driver’s license, about the importance of horsepower and torque ratios. We all found our ‘thing’ and we all, I think, gained something from it. The baseball cousin is still rattling off his numbers in a successful government job and the car nut has moved from hot wheels to hot rods, finding his pleasure and escape in the fast lanes of life.

For me, the Beatles had a strong message. Humour, hope, love, general positivity, optimism...all these excuses to smile...they were more than just a warm and cozy blanket. With well rehearsed musicianship and lyrics which at their best were poetic and at their worst were at least a fun foray into some dynamic of wordplay; with fearless emotion, and fearless intelligence, and all accompanied by unequalled success, they showed a kind of cultural leadership that few others have even aspired to. They had a grace in their success; I still see Ringo get choked up in interviews, emotional and grateful for the life he has led.

John was ‘my Beatle’. His acerbic wit (my favorite collective Beatle trait) was the model for the others and in most biographies he is understood to have been, for at least the early years, the ‘leader’ of the collective. But at some point in the late 60s he did something few other public figures have done. He transformed. We, as a species, do not often allow our heroes this luxury. Very few television shows would survive a switch from comedy to drama, pop stars a shift from rock to country, sports stars a shift from football to hockey, politicians a shift from left to right; but right at the height of their fame, that’s exactly what John Lennon did, and essentially we, by proxy, as a culture did as well. Lennon’s shift was not as clearly delineated as the above examples, but it was just as extreme.

Early John Lennon was funny, yes, ambitious, yes, but also cruel, jealous, more than a little sexist (‘Run for life, if you can little girl...’), and publicly, at least for the most part, he was non-political. But in ‘68 or so, all that changed. The public Lennon became not only political but hyper-political: outspoken on issues ranging from the peace movement to women’s rights. He began to feel, I believe, that he had a responsibility to use the public voice he had been awarded for the causes he came to see as important. Celebrity is an amorphous cloud and is often only gently tested for the fear of losing it. John Lennon may have had the biggest ego alive for his blatant disregard for his chance at the loss of his fame, or he may have just not cared. I think it was the latter, I think he changed. Whatever may have led him to his particular road to Damascus is certainly a topic for discussion (Yoko? Drugs?), but the fact that he transformed is difficult to dispute.

I think that this was important to me and to us as a culture for a couple of reasons. The lesson I took was that if I identified a flaw within myself (sexism, racism, homophobia, etc.), that I did not have to cling to it like some Shakespearean tragedian. The fact that our culture still accepted and rewarded Lennon with attention after his changes also taught me that life would go on if I were to change.

We could use a little of that leadership in the world right now. Day after day I read articles where politicians parse words in sleazy attempts to escape the label of ‘flip-flopper’ or worse. I say it’s time for politicians and public figures to quit being so married to mistaken ideals and to stand up and say “I was wrong”; to step away and admit a mistake and move on.

While some may disagree, I am glad that celebrities now feel free to use their public personas in causes which move them (so much so now that it has become a cliché) because every one of those voices is a shout compared to our whispers, and though it is sometimes hard to understand all the shouting at least some important things are being heard. Bono’s work for poverty elimination and third world debt forgiveness may seem shrill in the present, but every step he helps the NGOs he speaks for and with to take will be treated kindly by history. It’s easy to laugh off political comments by Matt Damon, the Dixie Chicks or even Jessica Simpson as silly or misplaced, but they inevitably are speaking for a group that almost certainly would otherwise go unheard. When it comes to political discussion, the silence of dissent can be deafening, and our world can only improve by allowing every point of view to at least be heard.

I would say that John and Yoko’s sometimes silly, but always heard campaign for peace gave heart and courage to a generation of protestors and helped to end the Vietnam War. Though some may have wanted another course for that storyline, the bleeding stopped and the boys came home. Now here we are again facing another generation of angry hawks who think that we can kill our way to peace, and for all the bluster and talk on the 24 hour news networks, the comedy shows, the Rock and Roll arenas and even on the campaign trail, the clearest and most eloquent voice for peace, is still heard loud and strong even while it is nearly 28 years silent.

Imagine.

The branch will celebrate the life of this cool dude and incredible songwriter with a (first annual) birthday party on Thursday, October 9th, beginning at 7:00pm. We will have a few local musicians and me taking turns singing songs from the great man. Feel free to come join in, if you’d like to perform, call ahead and tell us the song(s) you’d like to play so we can plan ahead and not do too many versions of the same ones. And of course, we’ll save Imagine for a sing-along at the end.