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r Singlewomenadultservice i Szh ebt%B9%A4%B3%A7+%C1%D0%B1%ED+%D1%C7%D6%DE%C6%EF%B1%F8If John Lennon had only been one of the four members of the Beatles,his artistic immortality would already have been assured. The so-called"smart Beatle," he brought a penetrating intelligence and a stingingwit both to the band's music and its self-presentation. But in suchsongs as "Strawberry Fields Forever," "Norwegian Wood (This Bird HasFlown)," "Rain" and "In My Life," he also marshaled gorgeous melodiesto evoke a sophisticated, dreamlike world-weariness well beyond hisyears. Such work suggested not merely a profound musical and literarysensibility - a genius, in short -- but a vision of life that wassimultaneously reflective, utopian and poignantly realistic.
Whilein the Beatles, Lennon displayed an outspokenness that immersed theband in controversy and helped redefine the rules of acceptablebehavior for rock stars. He famously remarked in 1965 that the Beatleswere "more popular than Jesus" - a statement that was more anobservation than a boast, but that resulted in the band's records beingburned and removed from radio station playlists in the U.S. Hecriticized America's involvement in Vietnam, and, as the Sixtiesprogressed, he became an increasingly important symbol of theburgeoning counterculture.
But it was onlyafter the breakup of the Beatles in 1970 that the figure the world nowrecognizes as "John Lennon" truly came into being. Whether he wasengaging in social activism; giving long, passionate interviews that,once again, broadened the nature of public discourse for artists;defining a new life as a self-described "househusband;" or writing andrecording songs, Lennon came to view his life as a work of art in whichevery act shimmered with potential meaning for the world at large. Itwas a Messianic attitude, to be sure, but one that was tempered by aninnate inclusiveness and generosity. If he saw himself as larger thanlife, he also yearned for a world in which his ego managed at once toabsorb everyone else and dissolve all differences among people, leavinga Zen-like tranquility and calm. "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'mnot the only one," he sang in "Imagine," which has become hisbest-known song and an international anthem of peace. "I hope somedayyou'll join us, and the world will live as one."
Suchimagery, coupled with the tragedy of his murder in 1980, has often ledto Lennon's being sentimentalized as a gentle prince of peace gazingoff into the distance at an Eden only he could see. In fact, he was afar more complex and difficult person, which, in part, accounts for theworld's endless fascination with him. Plastic Ono Band (1970),the first solo album he made after leaving the Beatles, alternatessongs that are so emotionally raw that to this day they are difficultto listen to with songs of extraordinary beauty and simplicity. Grippedby his immersion in primal-scream therapy, which encouraged itspractitioners to re-experience their most profound psychic injuries,Lennon sought in such songs as "Mother" and "God" to confront and stripaway the traumas that had afflicted his life since childhood.
Andthose traumas were considerable. Lennon's mother, Julia, drifted in andout of his life during his childhood in Liverpool - he was raised byJulia's sister Mimi and Mimi's husband, George - and then died in a caraccident when Lennon was seventeen. His father was similarly absent,essentially walking out on the family when John was an infant. Hedisappeared for good when Lennon was five, only to return after his sonhad become famous as a member of the Beatles. Consequently, Lennonstruggled with fears of abandonment his entire life. When he repeatedlycries, "Mama, don't go/Daddy come home," in "Mother," it's less aperformance than a scarifying brand of therapeutic performance art. Andin that regard, as well as many others, it revealed the influence ofYoko Ono, whom Lennon had married in 1969, leaving his first wife,Cynthia, and their son Julian in order to do so.
The minimalist sound of Plastic Ono Bandwas significant too. Lennon had come to associate the elaborate musicalarrangements of much of the Beatles' later work with Paul McCartney andGeorge Martin, and he consciously set out to purge those elements fromhis own work. Co-producing with Ono and the legendary Phil Spector, hebuilt a sonic environment that could not have been more basic - guitar,bass, drums, the occasional piano -- whatever was essential andabsolutely nothing more. Lyrically, he turned away from the psychedelicflights and Joycean wordplay of such songs as "I Am the Walrus" and"Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" - as well as his books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works -- and toward a style in which unadorned, elemental speech gathered poetic force through its very directness.
On his next album, Imagine(1971), Lennon felt confident enough to reintroduce some melodicelements reminiscent of the Beatles into his songs. Working again withOno and Spector, he retains the eloquent plainspokenness of Plastic Ono Band,but allows textural elements such as strings, to create more of a senseof beauty. The album's title track alone ensured its historicalimportance; it is a call to idealism that has provided solace andinspiration at every moment of social and humanitarian crisis since itwas written.
From there Lennon turned to a style that was a sort of journalistic agit-prop. Sometime In New York City (1972) is as outward-looking and blunt as Imaginewas, for the most part, soft-focused and otherworldly. As its titlesuggests, the album reflects Lennon's immersion in the drama and noiseof the city to which he had moved with Yoko Ono. And as its cover artsuggests, the album is something like a newspaper - a report from theradical frontlines on the political upheavals of the day. His activismwould create enormous problems for Lennon, however. The Nixonadministration, paranoid about the possibility that a former Beatlemight become a potent leader and recruiting tool of the anti-warmovement, attempted to have Lennon deported. Years of legal battlesensued before Lennon finally was awarded his green card in 1976.
Lennon'spolitical struggles unfortunately found their match in his personallife. He and Ono split up in the fall of 1973, shortly before therelease of his album, Mind Games. He moved to Los Angeles andlater described the eighteen months he spent separated from Ono as his"lost weekend," a period of wild indulgence and artistic drift. Like Mind Games, the albums he made during this period, Walls and Bridges (1974) and Rock N Roll(1975), are the expressions of a major artist seeking, with mixedresults, to recover his voice. None of them lack charm, and their highpoints include the lovely title track of Mind Games; Walls and Bridges'"Whatever Gets You Through the Night," a rollicking duet with EltonJohn that gave Lennon his first number-one single as a solo artist; andthe sweet nostalgia of Rock N Roll, a covers album that wasLennon's tribute to the musical pioneers of his youth. But none ofthose albums rank among his greatest work.
In1975, Lennon reunited with Ono, and their son Sean was born later thatyear. For the next five years, Lennon withdrew from public life, andhis family became his focus. Then, in 1980, he and Ono returned to thestudio to work on Double Fantasy, a hymn to their life togetherwith Sean. The couple was plotting a full-fledged comeback - doingmajor interviews to support the album's release, recording new songsfor a follow-up, planning a tour. Then, shockingly, Lennon was shot todeath outside the apartment building where he and Ono lived on thenight of December 8, 1980.
Lennon's deathbroke hearts around the world. In the U.S., it recalled nothing so muchas the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, an event for which,ironically, the arrival of the Beatles a few months later had provideda welcome tonic. In the twenty-five years since, Lennon's influence andsymbolic importance have only grown. His music, of course, will liveforever. But he has survived primarily as a restless voice of changeand independent thought. He is an enemy of the status quo, a bundle ofcontradictions who insisted on a world in which all the variouselements of his personality could find free, untrammeled expression.Innumerable times since his death Lennon has been sorely missed. Andjust as many times and more he has been present - evoked by all of uswho find ourselves and each other in the music he made and the visionthat he articulated and tried to make real.
-- Anthony DeCurtis
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