Lennon was born in war-time England, on 9 October 1940 at Liverpool Maternity Hospital, to Julia and Alfred Lennon, a merchant seaman who was away at the time of his son's birth.[1] John Lennon was named after his paternal grandfather, John "Jack" Lennon, and then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill.[2] His father was often away from home but sent regular pay cheques to 9 Newcastle Road, Liverpool, where Lennon lived with his mother,[3] but the cheques stopped when he went absent without leave in February 1944.[4][5] When he eventually came home six months later, he offered to look after the family, but Julia—by then pregnant with another man's child—rejected the idea.[6] After her sister, Mimi Smith, twice complained to Liverpool's Social Services, Julia handed the care of Lennon over to her. In July 1946, Lennon's father visited Smith and took his son to Blackpool, secretly intending to emigrate to New Zealand with him.[7] Julia followed them—with her partner at the time, 'Bobby' Dykins—and after a heated argument his father forced the five-year-old to choose between them. Lennon twice chose his father, but as his mother walked away, he began to cry and followed her.[8] It would be 20 years before he had contact with his father again.[9]
Throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence, he lived with his aunt and uncle, Mimi and George Smith, at Mendips, 251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton, who had no children of their own.[10] His aunt bought him volumes of short stories, and his uncle, a dairyman at his family's farm, bought him a mouth organ and engaged him in solving crossword puzzles.[11] Julia visited Mendips on a regular basis, and when he was 11-years-old he often visited her at 1 Blomfield Road, Liverpool, where she played him Elvis Presley records, and taught him the banjo, playing "Ain't That a Shame" by Fats Domino.[12]
In September 1980 he talked about his family and his rebellious nature:
He regularly visited his cousin Stanley Parkes in Fleetwood. Seven years Lennon's senior, Parkes took him on trips, and to local cinemas.[11] During the school holidays, Parkes often visited Lennon with Leila Harvey, another cousin, often travelling to Blackpool two or three times a week to watch shows. They would visit the Blackpool Tower Circus and see artists such as Dickie Valentine, Arthur Askey, Max Bygraves and Joe Loss, with Parkes recalling that Lennon particularly liked George Formby.[14] After Parkes's family moved to Scotland, the three cousins often spent their school holidays together there. Parkes recalled, "John, cousin Leila and I were very close. From Edinburgh we would drive up to the family croft at Durness, which was from about the time John was nine years old until he was about 16."[15] He was 14-years-old when his uncle George died of a liver haemorrhage on 5 June 1955 (aged 52).[16]Part of me would like to be accepted by all facets of society and not be this loudmouthed lunatic musician. But I cannot be what I am not. Because of my attitude, all the other boys' parents ... instinctively recognised what I was, which was a troublemaker, meaning I did not conform and I would influence their kids, which I did. ... I did my best to disrupt every friend's home ... Partly, maybe, it was out of envy that I didn't have this so-called home, but I really did ... There were five women who were my family. Five strong, intelligent women. Five sisters. Those women were fantastic ... that was my first feminist education ... One happened to be my mother ... she just couldn't deal with life. She had a husband who ran away to sea and the war was on and she couldn't cope with me, and when I was four-and-a-half, I ended up living with her elder sister ... the fact that I wasn't with my parents made me see that parents are not gods.[13]
Lennon was raised as an Anglican and attended Dovedale Primary School.[17] From September 1952 to 1957, after passing his Eleven-Plus exam, he attended Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool, and was described by Harvey at the time as, "A happy-go-lucky, good-humoured, easy going, lively lad."[18] He often drew comical cartoons which appeared in his own self-made school magazine called The Daily Howl,[19] but despite his artistic talent, his school reports were damning: "Certainly on the road to failure ... hopeless ... rather a clown in class ... wasting other pupils' time."[20]
His mother bought him his first guitar in 1957, an inexpensive Gallotone Champion acoustic for which she "lent" her son five pounds and ten shillings on the condition that the guitar be delivered to her own house, and not Mimi's, knowing well that her sister was not supportive of her son's musical aspirations.[21] As Mimi was sceptical of his claim that he would be famous one day, she hoped he would grow bored with music, often telling him, "The guitar's all very well, John, but you'll never make a living out of it".[22] On 15 July 1958, when Lennon was 17-years-old, his mother, walking home after visiting the Smiths' house, was struck by a car and killed.[23]
Lennon failed all his GCE O-level examinations, and was only accepted into the Liverpool College of Art after his aunt and headmaster intervened.[24] Once at the college, he started wearing Teddy Boy clothes and acquired a reputation for disrupting classes and ridiculing teachers. As a result, he was excluded from the painting class, then the graphic arts course, and was threatened with expulsion for his behaviour, which included sitting on a nude model's lap during a life drawing class.[25] He failed an annual exam, despite help from fellow student and future wife Cynthia Powell, and was "thrown out of the college before his final year."[26]
1957–70: From the Quarrymen to the Beatles
Further information: The Quarrymen, Lennon/McCartney, Brian Epstein, The Beatles, Beatlemania, British Invasion, and More popular than Jesus
1957–65: Formation, commercial breakout, and touring years
Stuart Sutcliffe, Lennon's friend from art school, joined as bassist,[34] and George Harrison joined the band as lead guitarist.[35] Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Sutcliffe became "The Beatles" in early 1960. In August of that year The Beatles, engaged for a 48-night residency in Hamburg, Germany, asked drummer Pete Best to join them one day before leaving.[36] Lennon was now 19, and his aunt, horrified when he told her about the trip, pleaded with him to continue his art studies instead.[37] After the first Hamburg residency, the band accepted another in April 1961, and a third in April 1962. Like the other band members, Lennon was introduced to Preludin while in Hamburg,[38] and regularly took the drug, as well as amphetamines, as a stimulant during their long, overnight performances.[39]
Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager from 1962, had no prior experience of artist management, but nevertheless had a strong influence on their early dress code and attitude on stage.[40] Lennon initially resisted Epstein's attempts to encourage the band to present a professional appearance, but eventually complied, saying, "I'll wear a bloody balloon if somebody's going to pay me".[41] McCartney took over on bass after Sutcliffe decided to stay in Hamburg, and drummer Ringo Starr replaced Best, completing the four-piece line-up that would endure until the group's break-up in 1970. After discovering she was pregnant, Lennon married Powell on 23 August 1962, at the Mount Pleasant Register office in Liverpool.[42]
The band's first single, "Love Me Do", was released in October 1962 and reached #17 on the British charts. They recorded their debut album, Please Please Me, in under 10 hours on 11 February 1963—a day when Lennon was suffering the effects of a cold.[43] The Lennon/McCartney songwriting partnership yielded eight of its fourteen tracks. With few exceptions—one being the album title itself—Lennon had yet to bring his love of wordplay to bear on his song lyrics, saying: "We were just writing songs ... pop songs with no more thought of them than that–to create a sound. And the words were almost irrelevant".[44] In a 1987 interview, McCartney said that the other Beatles idolised John: "He was like our own little Elvis ... We all looked up to John. He was older and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the smartest".[45]
The Beatles achieved mainstream success in the UK around the start of 1963. Lennon was on tour when his first son, Julian, was born in April. During their Royal Variety Show performance, attended by the Queen Mother and other British royalty, Lennon poked fun at his audience: "For our next song, I'd like to ask for your help. For the people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands ... and the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewellery."[46] After a year of Beatlemania in the UK, the group's historic February 1964 US debut appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show marked their breakthrough to international stardom. A two-year period of constant touring, moviemaking, and songwriting followed, during which Lennon wrote two books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works.[47] The Beatles received recognition from the British Establishment when they were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours of 1965.[48]
1966–70: Studio years, break-up and solo beginnings
Lennon grew concerned that fans attending Beatles concerts were unable to hear the music above the screaming of fans, and that the band's musicianship was beginning to suffer as a result.[49] Lennon's "Help!" expressed his own feelings in 1965: "I meant it ... It was me singing 'help'".[50] He had put on weight (he would later refer to this as his "Fat Elvis" period),[51] and felt he was subconsciously seeking change.[52] The following January he was unknowingly introduced to LSD when a dentist, hosting a dinner party attended by Lennon, Harrison and their wives, spiked the guests' coffee with the drug.[53] When they wanted to leave, their host revealed what they had taken, and strongly advised them not to leave the house because of the likely effects. Later, in an elevator at a nightclub, they all believed it was on fire: "We were all screaming ... hot and hysterical."[53] A few months later in March, during an interview with Evening Standard reporter Maureen Cleave, Lennon remarked, "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink ... We're more popular than Jesus now—I don't know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity."[54] The comment went virtually unnoticed in England but caused great offence in the US when quoted by a magazine there five months later. The furore that followed—burning of Beatles records, Ku Klux Klan activity, and threats against Lennon—contributed to the band's decision to stop touring.[55]Deprived of the routine of live performances after their final commercial concert in 1966, Lennon felt lost and considered leaving the band.[56] Since his involuntary introduction to LSD in January, he had made increasing use of the drug, and was almost constantly under its influence for much of the year."[57] According to biographer Ian MacDonald, Lennon's continuous experience with LSD during the year brought him "close to erasing his identity".[58] 1967 saw the release of "Strawberry Fields Forever", hailed by Time magazine for its "astonishing inventiveness",[59] and the group's landmark album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which revealed Lennon's lyrics contrasting strongly with the simple love songs of the Lennon/McCartney's early years.
In August, after having been introduced to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the group attended a weekend of personal instruction at his Transcendental Meditation seminar in Bangor, Wales.[60] The group were informed of the sudden death of Epstein during the seminar. "I knew we were in trouble then", Lennon said later. "I didn't have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music, and I was scared".[61] They later travelled to Maharishi's ashram in India for further guidance, and while there composed most of the songs for The Beatles and Abbey Road.[62]
The anti-war, black comedy How I Won the War, featuring Lennon's only appearance in a non–Beatles full-length film, was shown in cinemas in October 1967.[63] McCartney organised the group's first post-Epstein project,[64] the self written, produced and directed television film Magical Mystery Tour, released in December that year. Whilst the film itself proved to be their first critical flop, its soundtrack release, featuring Lennon's acclaimed, Carroll-inspired "I am the Walrus", was a success.[65][66] With Epstein gone, the band members became increasingly involved in business activities, and in February 1968 they formed Apple Corps, a multimedia corporation comprising Apple Records and several other subsidiary companies. Lennon described the venture as an attempt to achieve, "artistic freedom within a business structure",[67] but his increased drug experimentation and growing preoccupation with Yoko Ono, and McCartney's own marriage plans, left Apple in need of professional management. Lennon asked Lord Beeching to take on the role, but he declined, advising Lennon to go back to making records. Lennon approached Allen Klein, who had managed The Rolling Stones and other bands during the British Invasion. Klein was appointed as Apple’s chief executive by Lennon, Harrison and Starr, but McCartney refused to sign the management contract.[68]
 | Sample of "Give Peace a Chance", recorded in 1969 during Lennon and Ono's second Bed-In for Peace. As described by biographer Bill Harry, Lennon wanted to "write a peace anthem that would take over from the song 'We Shall Overcome'—and he succeeded ... it became the main anti-Vietnam protest song."[69] |
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At the end of 1968, Lennon featured in the film The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (not released until 1996) in the role of a Dirty Mac band member. The supergroup, comprising Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell, also backed a vocal performance by Ono in the film.[70] Lennon and Ono were married on 20 March 1969, and soon released a series of 14 lithographs called "Bag One" depicting scenes from their honeymoon,[71] eight of which were deemed indecent and most of which were banned and confiscated.[72] Lennon's creative focus continued to move beyond the Beatles and between 1968 and 1969 he and Ono recorded three albums of experimental music together: Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins[73] (known more for its cover than for its music), Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions and Wedding Album. In 1969 they formed The Plastic Ono Band, releasing Live Peace in Toronto 1969. In protest at Britain's involvement in the Nigerian Civil War,[74] Lennon returned his MBE medal to the Queen, though this had no effect on his MBE status, which could not be renounced.[75] Between 1969 and 1970 Lennon released the singles "Give Peace a Chance" (widely adopted as an anti-Vietnam-War anthem in 1969),[76] "Cold Turkey" (documenting his withdrawal symptoms after he became addicted to heroin[77]) and "Instant Karma!".
Lennon left the Beatles in September 1969.[78] He agreed not to inform the media while the band renegotiated their recording contract, and was outraged that McCartney publicised his own departure on releasing his debut solo album in April 1970. Lennon's reaction was, "Jesus Christ! He gets all the credit for it!"[79] He later wrote, "I started the band. I disbanded it. It's as simple as that."[80] In later interviews with Rolling Stone, he revealed his bitterness towards McCartney, saying, "I was a fool not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record."[81] He spoke too of the hostility he perceived the other members had towards Ono, and of how he, Harrison, and Starr "got fed up with being sidemen for Paul ... After Brian Epstein died we collapsed. Paul took over and supposedly led us. But what is leading us when we went round in circles?"[82]
1970–80: Solo career
1970–72: Initial post-Beatles years
Following the Beatles' break-up in 1970, Lennon and Ono went through primal therapy with Dr. Arthur Janov in Los Angeles, California. Designed to release emotional pain from early childhood, the therapy entailed two half-days a week with Janov for four months; he had wanted to treat the couple for longer, but they felt no need to continue and returned to London.[83] Lennon's emotional debut solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970), was received with high praise. Critic Greil Marcus remarked, "John's singing in the last verse of 'God' may be the finest in all of rock."[84] The album spawned the singles "Mother", in which Lennon confronted his feelings of childhood rejection,[85] and the Dylanesque "Working Class Hero", a bitter attack against the bourgeois social system which, due to the lyric "you're still fucking peasants", fell foul of broadcasters.[86][87] The same year, Tariq Ali's revolutionary political views, expressed when he interviewed Lennon, inspired the singer to write "Power to the People". Lennon also became involved with Ali during a protest against Oz magazine's prosecution for alleged obscenity. Lennon denounced the proceedings as "disgusting fascism", and he and Ono (as Elastic Oz Band) released the single "God Save Us/Do the Oz" and joined marches in support of the magazine.[88] | Sample of "Imagine", Lennon's "most famous post-Beatles track."[89] Like "Give Peace a Chance", the song became an anti-war anthem, but its lyrics offended religious groups. Lennon's explanation was, "If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion—not without religion, but without this 'my God is bigger than your God' thing—then it can be true."[90] |
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With Lennon's next album, Imagine (1971), critical response was more guarded. Rolling Stone reported that "it contains a substantial portion of good music" but warned of the possibility that "his posturings will soon seem not merely dull but irrelevant".[91] The album's title track would become an anthem for anti-war movements,[92] while another, "How Do You Sleep?", was a musical attack on McCartney in response to lyrics from Ram that Lennon felt, and McCartney later confirmed,[93] were directed at him and Ono. However, Lennon softened his stance in the mid-70s and said he had written "How Do You Sleep?" about himself.[94] He said in 1980: "I used my resentment against Paul ... to create a song ... not a terrible vicious horrible vendetta ... I used my resentment and withdrawing from Paul and the Beatles, and the relationship with Paul, to write 'How Do You Sleep'. I don't really go 'round with those thoughts in my head all the time".[95]
Lennon and Ono moved to New York in August 1971, and in December released "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)".[96] To advertise the single, they paid for billboards in 12 cities around the world which declared, in the national language, "WAR IS OVER—IF YOU WANT IT".[97] The new year saw the Nixon Administration take what it called a "strategic counter-measure" against Lennon's anti-war propaganda, embarking on what would be a four-year attempt to deport him: embroiled in a continuing legal battle, he was denied permanent residency in the US until 1976.[98]
Recorded as a collaboration with Ono and with backing from the New York band Elephant's Memory, Some Time in New York City was released in 1972. Containing songs about women's rights, race relations, Britain's role in Northern Ireland, and Lennon's problems obtaining a green card,[99] the album was poorly received—unlistenable, according to one critic.[100] "Woman Is the Nigger of the World", released as a US single from the album the same year, was televised on 11 May, on The Dick Cavett Show. Many radio stations refused to broadcast the song because of the word "nigger".[101] Lennon and Ono gave two benefit concerts with Elephant's Memory and guests in New York in aid of patients at the Willowbrook State School mental facility.[102] Staged at Madison Square Garden on 30 August 1972, they were his last full-length concert appearances.[103]
1973–80: Lost and found
While Lennon was recording Mind Games (1973), he and Ono decided to separate. The ensuing eighteen-month period apart, which he later called his "lost weekend",[104] was spent in Los Angeles and New York in the company of May Pang. Mind Games, credited to "the Plastic U.F.Ono Band", was released in November 1973. More positively received than its predecessor, the album was critically assessed as "listenable" but "his worst writing yet" and found Lennon to be "helplessly trying to impose his own gargantuan ego upon an audience ... waiting hopefully for him to chart a new course"[100]. Its title track, "Mind Games", was a top 20 hit in the US and reached number 26 in the UK. Lennon contributed a revamped version of "I'm the Greatest", a song he wrote two years earlier, to Starr's album Ringo (1973), released the same month. (Lennon's 1971 demo appears on John Lennon Anthology.) During 1974 he produced Harry Nilsson's Pussy Cats and the Mick Jagger song "Too Many Cooks (Spoil the Soup)". The latter was destined, for contractual reasons, to remain unreleased for more than thirty years. Pang supplied the recording for its eventual inclusion on The Very Best of Mick Jagger (2007).[105]Walls and Bridges (1974) yielded Lennon's only number one single in his lifetime, "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night", featuring Elton John on backing vocals and piano.[106] A second single from the album, "#9 Dream", followed before the end of the year. Starr's Goodnight Vienna (1974) again saw assistance from Lennon, who wrote the title track and played piano.[107] On 28 November, Lennon made a surprise guest appearance at Elton John's Thanksgiving concert at Madison Square Garden, in fulfilment of his promise to join the singer in a live show if "Whatever Gets You Thru the Night", a song whose commercial potential Lennon had doubted, reached number one. Lennon performed the song along with "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "I Saw Her Standing There".[108]
Lennon co-wrote "Fame", David Bowie's first US number one, and provided guitar and backing vocals for the January 1975 recording.[109] He and Ono were reunited shortly afterwards.[110] The same month, Elton John topped the charts with his own cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", featuring Lennon on guitar and back-up vocals. Lennon released Rock 'n' Roll (1975), an album of cover songs, in February. Soon afterwards, "Stand By Me", taken from the album and a US and UK hit, became his last single for five years. He made what would be his final stage appearance in the ATV special A Salute to Lew Grade, recorded on 18 April and televised in June.[111] Playing acoustic guitar, and backed by his eight-piece band BOMF (introduced as "Etcetera"), Lennon performed two songs from Rock 'n' Roll ("Slippin' and Slidin'" and "Stand By Me", the latter of which was excluded from the television broadcast) followed by "Imagine".[111] The band wore masks on the backs of their heads, making them appear two-faced, a dig at Grade,[112] with whom Lennon and McCartney had been in conflict because of his control of the Beatles' publishing company. (Dick James had sold his majority share to Grade in 1969.) During "Imagine", Lennon interjected the line "and no immigration too", a reference to his battle to remain in the United States.[99]
When Lennon's second son, Sean, was born on 9 October 1975, he took on the role of househusband, beginning what would be a five-year hiatus from the music industry during which he gave all his attention to his family.[13] Within the month, he fulfilled his contractual obligation to EMI/Capitol for one more album by releasing Shaved Fish, a compilation album of previously recorded tracks. He devoted himself to Sean, rising at 6 am daily to plan and prepare his meals and to spend time with him.[113] He wrote "Cookin' (In the Kitchen of Love)" for Starr's Ringo's Rotogravure (1976), performing on the track in June in what would be his last recording session until 1980.[114] He formally announced his break from music in Tokyo in 1977, saying, "we have basically decided, without any great decision, to be with our baby as much as we can until we feel we can take time off to indulge ourselves in creating things outside of the family."[115] During his career break he created several series of drawings, and drafted a book containing a mix of autobiographical material and what he termed "mad stuff",[116] all of which would be published posthumously.
He emerged from retirement in October 1980 with the single "(Just Like) Starting Over", followed the next month by the album that spawned it. Double Fantasy contained songs, written during a journey to Bermuda on a 43-foot sailing boat the previous June,[117] that reflected Lennon's fulfillment in his new-found stable family life.[118] The album took its title from a species of freesia, seen in the Bermuda Botanical Gardens, whose name Lennon regarded as a perfect description of his marriage to Ono.[119] Sufficient additional material was recorded for a planned follow-up album Milk and Honey (released posthumously in 1984).[120] Released jointly with Ono, Double Fantasy was not well received, drawing comments such as Melody Maker's "indulgent sterility ... a godawful yawn".[121]
December 1980: Murder
Main article: Death of John Lennon
Ono issued a statement the next day, saying "There is no funeral for John," ending it with the words, "John loved and prayed for the human race. Please pray the same for him."[124] His body was cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Ono scattered his ashes in New York's Central Park, where the Strawberry Fields memorial was later created.[125] Chapman pleaded guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to 20 years to life; as of 2010, he remains in prison, having been repeatedly denied parole.[
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