John Lennon

John Lennon

Biograpy


John Winston Lennon was born on the evening of 9 October 1940 during the height of Germany's Blitz on Britain. He inherited his mother's reddish-blonde hair and his father's slightly squinted eyes and prominent nose. Both of his parents had musical background and experience, though neither pursued it seriously. John Lennon's childhood years were tinged with tragedy. He lived with his parents in Liverpool until his father Fred Lennon, a merchant seaman, walked out on the family. His mother, Julia, then decided that she was unable to care for John as well as she should and so gave him to her sister, Mimi, who resided nearby at 251 Menlove Avenue. Roles were reversed as the socially class-concious, strict but loving Aunt Mimi became mother to John, while his true mother Julia acted more like a free-willed aunt who visited regularly and spoiled the lad.


Role in the Beatles
John Lennon


As a member of The Beatles, Lennon had a profound influence on rock and roll and in expanding the genre's boundaries during the 1960s. He is widely considered, along with fellow-writing partner Paul McCartney, as one of the most influential singer-songwriter-musicians of the 20th century. Of the two, Lennon is generally viewed as the better lyricist, while McCartney is seen as the more accomplished composer. Though overly simplistic, this view does have some truth as much of the songs credited to Lennon-McCartney, but actually inspired by Lennon himself are more developed, introspective pieces often in the first-person and dealing with more personal issues. Lennon's lyrics are also often the more lyrical, due to his love of word-play, double-meaning and strange words. His most surreal pieces of songwriting, Strawberry Fields Forever and I Am the Walrus are fine example of his unique style. Lennon's partnership in songwriting with McCartney many times involved him in complementing and counterbalancing McCartney's upbeat, positive outlook with the other side of the coin, as one of their songs, Getting Better demonstrates:McCartney: I have to admit it's gettin' better, it's gettin' better all the time.Lennon: It couldn't get much worse!John Lennon often spoke his mind freely. On March 4, 1966, in an interview for the London Evening Standard with Maureen Cleave, he made the following statement:"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now. I don't know which will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."While the statement is certianly an odd one to make about one of the world's major religions, many view it as taken out of context. It should be noted that, like the other major religions, Christianity has been around for milennia and has shown no hint of decline. Regardless, when read in the proper context of the article, Lennon sounds actually saddened that a rock group such as The Beatles became more important to many people than spirituality. Though the article was unnoticed in the UK, there was a severe backlash by conservative religious groups in the U.S. Radio stations banned the group's recordings, and their albums and other products were burned and destroyed. Spain and the Vatican denounced Lennon's words, and South Africa banned Beatles music from the radio. Lennon seems to have been quite distressed by this row and later admitted that he didn't like having introduced more hate into the world. On August 11, 1966, he held a press conference in Chicago in order to address the growing furor. He told reporters "I suppose if I had said television was more popular than Jesus, I would have gotten away with it. I'm sorry I opened my mouth. I'm not anti-God, anti-Christ, or anti-religion. I wasn't knocking it or putting it down. I was just saying it as a fact and it's true more for England than here. I'm not saying that we're better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God as a thing or whatever it is. I just said what I said and it was wrong. Or it was taken wrong. And now it's all this."The Vatican accepted his apology. He was often misquoted as saying "bigger than Jesus", which led many to believe that he meant that the Beatles were better than Jesus. Whether he thought that (at the time anyway) is not clear, but he certainly did not say that.On November 9, 1966, after their final tour ended and right after he had wrapped up filming a minor role in the film How I Won the War, Lennon visited an art exhibit of Yoko Ono's at the Indica art gallery in London. The Beatle was impressed by Ono's art, most notably a piece consisting of a small word which could only be read with a magnifying glass from a ladder. The word was "yes". "It was positive!" he enthusiastically told Rolling Stone magazine in 1970. Ono and Lennon, both married, immediately made an impression on each other. They occasionally made contact with each other during the period of Sergeant Pepper and the "Summer of Love."Finally in the spring of 1968, after returning disenchanted from a transcendental meditation retreat in India, Lennon began his love affair with Ono, and revealed the fact to his increasingly estranged wife Cynthia. Cynthia Lennon filed for divorce later that year, while Lennon and Ono from then on were inseperable in public and private, as well as during Beatles recording sessions. This new development led to obvious friction with the other members of the group, and heightened the tension during the 1968 White Album sessions.Undue blame has been heavily placed on Ono as the sole cause of the group's fracture, as they were already diverging shortly after the death of their manager, Brian Epstein, in 1967. Lennon's immediate reaction to Epstein's death had been, "The Beatles are finished." What he saw as misguided leadership from McCartney after this seems to have had a lot to do with the fracture between them.At the end of 1968, Lennon and Ono performed as Dirty Mac on the The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus.During his last two years as member of The Beatles, Lennon remained as vocal as ever, spending much of his time with Yoko on public displays speaking out against the Vietnam War, and for peace. He sent back the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) he got from the Queen of England, reportedly "with love", to protest British support of the Vietnam War and their involvement in African affairs. On March 20, 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono were married in Gibraltar, and spent their honeymoon in Amsterdam in a "bed-in" for peace. John and Yoko followed up their honeymoon with another "bed-in" for peace this time held in Montreal. During the second "bed-in" the couple recorded "Give Peace a Chance". They were mainly patronized as a couple of eccentrics by the media, but still were important figures in the anti-war movement. Shortly after, John changed his middle name from Winston to Ono to show his "oneness" with Yoko. Lennon wrote "The Ballad of John and Yoko" about his marriage and the press's take on it all.
They were mainly patronized as a couple of eccentrics by the media, yet they did a great deal for the peace movement, as well as for other pet causes, such as women's liberation and racial harmony. As with the "Bed-In" campaign, Lennon and Ono usually advocated their causes with whimsical demonstrations, such as Bagism, first introduced during a Vienna press conference. Shortly after, Lennon changed his middle name from Winston to Ono to show his "oneness" with his new wife. Lennon wrote "The Ballad of John and Yoko" about his marriage and the subsequent press it generated.After both being injured in the summer of 1969 in a car accident in Scotland, Lennon arranged for Yoko to be constantly with him in the studio as he recorded his last album with The Beatles, Abbey Road. A full-sized bed was rolled into the studio so that Lennon would not be separated from Ono. Abbey Road was the last polished, united effort by the group, and after its release in the autumn of 1969, it seemed the four members had made a peaceful parting of ways. But the release of the rough, and over-orchestrated "Let It Be" album in May, 1970 had acrimonious results. While the group managed to hang together to produce it, soon thereafter business issues related to Apple Corps came between them.The failed Get Back/Let It Be recording/filming sessions did nothing to improve relations within the band. Lennon decided to quit the Beatles but was talked out of saying anything publically. Phil Spector's involvement in trying to revive the Let It Be material then drove a further wedge between Lennon (who supported Spector) and McCartney (who opposed him.). Though the split would only become legally final some time later, Lennon and McCartney's partnership had come to a bitter and definite end.McCartney soon made a press announcement, declaring he had quit the Beatles, and promoting his new solo record.

Solo career

Of the four former Beatles, Lennon had perhaps the most varied recording career, often reflecting the vicissitudes of his personality. While he was still a Beatle, Lennon and Ono recorded three albums of experimental and difficult electronic music, Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, Unfinished Music No. 2: Life With The Lions, and Wedding Album. His first 'solo' album of popular music was Live Peace In Toronto, recorded in 1969 (prior to the breakup of the Beatles) at the Rock 'n' Roll Festival in Toronto with a Plastic Ono Band including Eric Clapton and Klaus Voormann. He also recorded three singles in his initial solo phase, the anti-war anthem Give Peace a Chance, "Cold Turkey" (about his struggles with heroin) and "Instant Karma!".Following the Beatles' split in 1970, he released the Plastic Ono Band album, a raw, honest record, heavily influenced by Arthur Janov's Primal therapy, which Lennon had undergone previously. This was followed by Imagine, his most successful solo album, which dealt with some of the same themes. The title track is a lovely song which has become an anthem for world harmony, but Lennon himself was later dismissive of it, claiming he had "sugar coated" his message. Certainly there is irony in Lennon, a prodigious shopper, urging his fans to imagine life with "no possessions." "Imagine" was Lennon's most memorable song, a song that still inspires generations of peace builders today.Perhaps in reaction, his next album, Sometime In New York City, was loud, raucous, and explicitly political, with songs about prison riots, racial and sexual relations, the British role in the sectarian troubles in Northern Ireland, and his own problems in obtaining a United States Green Card.Throughout his solo career, he appeared on his own albums (as well as those of other artists like Elton John) under such pseudonyms as Dr. Winston O'Boogie, Mel Torrment, and The Reverend Fred Gherkin.Two more albums of personal songs, Mind Games and Walls And Bridges, and one of cover versions of rock and roll songs of his youth, came before 1975 when, following a fourteen-month split from Ono during which he had an extramarital affair with Ono's former secretary May Pang, he retired to concentrate on his family life.The retirement lasted until 1980, when he and Ono produced Double Fantasy, a concept album dealing with their relationship. He also started work on Milk and Honey which he left unfinished. It was some time before Ono could bring herself to complete it.Lennon's son with Cynthia, Julian Lennon, enjoys a notable recording career of his own, as does his son with Yoko, Sean Lennon.

Memorials and tributes
Main article: List of John Lennon tributes


On 14 December 1980, millions of people across the world responded to Ono's request to pause for ten minutes of silence to remember Lennon. Thirty thousand gathered in Liverpool, and the largest group - over 100,000 - converged on New York's Central Park, close to the scene of the shooting.[153]
On January 22, 1981, an Annie Leibovitz photo of Lennon, taken on the day he died, appeared on the cover of the Rolling Stone magazine (Issue #335). In October 2005 it was voted their best ever magazine cover. [154]
Lennon continues to be mourned throughout the world and has been the subject of numerous memorials and tributes, principally New York City's Strawberry Fields[155] — a memorial garden area in Central Park, across the street from the Dakota building. Shortly after his death, Yoko Ono donated $1 million for its maintenance. It has become a gathering place for tributes on Lennon's birthday and on the anniversary of his death, as well as at other times of mourning, such as after the September 11, 2001 attacks and following George Harrison's death in November 2001.
On October 9, 2007, Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, dedicated a new memorial called the Imagine Peace Tower, located on the island of Videy, off the coast of Iceland. Each year, between October 9 and December 8, it will project a vertical beam of light high into the sky.

Most important songs of John Lennon
1. Imagine
2. womam
3. Happy

4. Working
5. Class Hero
6. Give Peace a Chance
7. Power to the people
8. Oh Yoko!

Bibliography: www.wikipedia.com.br
www.johnlennon.it



Group: Adriana de Santana - n° 01 3°C
Cinthia Alves - n° 05
Kamila L. T. Filareto- n° 21
Lucas Barbosa - n° 24
Marcos A. Franco Jr. - n° 27