Happy seventy-fifth birthday, John Lennon
October 9, 2015 7:35 AM Subscribe
He would have turned 75 today, but he only ever made it to 40. Ironically.
posted by three blind mice at 8:10 AM on October 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by three blind mice at 8:10 AM on October 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
Mentioned in a couple of those articles: The Imagine Peace Tower on Viðey Island in Reykjavík, Iceland. It's an outdoor work of art conceived by Yoko Ono in memory of John Lennon.
It will be turned on in a little less than 5 hours:
It will be turned on in a little less than 5 hours:
On Friday October 9th, 2015, watch Yoko Ono light IMAGINE PEACE TOWER, LIVE on the @yokoono Periscope channel. Watch events including music from Ólöf Arnalds and the Male Choir of Reykjavík; speeches by Yoko Ono and Dagur B Eggertsson (Mayor of Reykjavík) before Yoko lights IMAGINE PEACE TOWER at 8pm, and John Lennon’s IMAGINE and GIVE PEACE A CHANCE are played as the TOWER switches on, sending its bright lights and the wishes of the world high into the night sky.posted by Kabanos at 8:13 AM on October 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'll say it again: I don't believe in Lennon
posted by growabrain at 8:19 AM on October 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by growabrain at 8:19 AM on October 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
I ran over the "Imagine" memorial this morning without even knowing it was his birthday. Nobody was there yet.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:33 AM on October 9, 2015
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:33 AM on October 9, 2015
Awesome rare footage of Lennon on stage with Frank Zappa in 1971. His voice is great, Zappa wah-wah solo, Yoko doing the screaming stuff. It's nice to hear him backed by superb musicians compared to the usual slapdash 70s sound he usually had.
posted by colie at 8:36 AM on October 9, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by colie at 8:36 AM on October 9, 2015 [5 favorites]
Also, don't know the veracity of this, but he may have been more conservative in his latter years than people realize.
posted by I-baLL at 8:44 AM on October 9, 2015
posted by I-baLL at 8:44 AM on October 9, 2015
Eh, but I should point out that, yes, he was a great musician and obviously didn't deserve to be shot and killed. There's no argument from me about that.
posted by I-baLL at 8:44 AM on October 9, 2015
posted by I-baLL at 8:44 AM on October 9, 2015
Also, don't know the veracity of this, but he may have been more conservative in his latter years than people realize.
If one is to believe thinly-sourced link-bait quoting an opportunistic ex-employee who was once convicted of stealing from Lennon, anyhow.
posted by aught at 8:56 AM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
If one is to believe thinly-sourced link-bait quoting an opportunistic ex-employee who was once convicted of stealing from Lennon, anyhow.
posted by aught at 8:56 AM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
Eh, but I should point out that, yes, he was a great musician and obviously didn't deserve to be shot and killed. There's no argument from me about that.
Such magnanimous trolling.
posted by aught at 8:58 AM on October 9, 2015 [5 favorites]
Such magnanimous trolling.
posted by aught at 8:58 AM on October 9, 2015 [5 favorites]
Yoko lights IMAGINE PEACE TOWER at 8pm, and John Lennon’s IMAGINE and GIVE PEACE A CHANCE are played as the TOWER switches on, sending its bright lights and the wishes of the world high into the night sky.
Ugh. Those songs were written in 1971 and 1969 respectively, when Lennon was just on the cusp of 30 years old.
This was John Lennon in 1980. He was a thoroughly modern man in the prime of life, not some sad old relic of the 1960s. And yet that's how we remember him, I suppose because the iconography is still profitable.
If we could somehow query his ghost about what the worst part of being dead is, I have a feeling he might say it's forever being associated with that one brief period in his career when flashing peace signs, staging bed-ins, and writing naïve songs about war being over if you want it to be was still de rigueur.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:02 AM on October 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
Ugh. Those songs were written in 1971 and 1969 respectively, when Lennon was just on the cusp of 30 years old.
This was John Lennon in 1980. He was a thoroughly modern man in the prime of life, not some sad old relic of the 1960s. And yet that's how we remember him, I suppose because the iconography is still profitable.
If we could somehow query his ghost about what the worst part of being dead is, I have a feeling he might say it's forever being associated with that one brief period in his career when flashing peace signs, staging bed-ins, and writing naïve songs about war being over if you want it to be was still de rigueur.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:02 AM on October 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
It's not trolling. John Lennon was a complicated person with a lot of faults. He wasn't the "peace and love" stereotype that people have of him. The only trollish comment that I made was on the origin of the Beatles' name.
posted by I-baLL at 9:02 AM on October 9, 2015
posted by I-baLL at 9:02 AM on October 9, 2015
Thanks, I-baLL, for not putting forward the argument that he deserved to be shot and killed.
posted by colie at 9:05 AM on October 9, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by colie at 9:05 AM on October 9, 2015 [6 favorites]
Lennon was also good at trolling. The first part of Across the Universe was about getting nagged at by his wife. It only sounds mystical.
posted by I-baLL at 9:05 AM on October 9, 2015
Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cupAnyways, I'll move out of the thread for now. I feel like I'm commenting too much.
They slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe
posted by I-baLL at 9:05 AM on October 9, 2015
Lennon admitted to being a complicated person with a lot of faults. He once said that he was a violent man who had learned to regret his violence and overcome it. Personally I miss him and his take on the world. Happy Birthday, John, the world is a sadder place without you.
posted by OolooKitty at 9:07 AM on October 9, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by OolooKitty at 9:07 AM on October 9, 2015 [9 favorites]
Mod note: Comment removed, Ha Ha Get It comments about domestic violence are pretty safely on the "never a good idea" list.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:09 AM on October 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:09 AM on October 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
Because of this I've been thinking a lot today about my cousin/best friend who died unexpectedly last year and was a huge Beatles fan, it was one of the many things we had in common. It's a gloomy day here in Seattle and the busker in front of my building is playing an eerie, mournful electric guitar version of "Across the Universe" (which he typically follows with Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah", a song no one should be forced to listen to in public) and I guess that what I'm saying is that I have a lot of feels about this.
posted by skycrashesdown at 9:21 AM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by skycrashesdown at 9:21 AM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm not entirely comfortable with the cult-of-personality that surrounded Lennon, and for the longest time his voice and his music was more part of my nostalgia for growing up in the 80's. I remember where I was when Lennon died (driving back from Cub Scout camp on the Malahat section of the Trans-Canada Highway).
Apparently Double Fantasy had been panned by critics but become overwhelmingly popular after he was murdered, and my parents bought it and played it. It was a cassette tape, you kind of had to listen to the weird Yoko Ono bits. And then throughout the 80's the local radio station, CFAX, would play his Christmas song while I was at home from school over Christmas break. So there's that nostalgia.
But now, just past the age of 40 I have relistened to Double Fantasy and some of the other 70's stuff he did, and I like it.
If you're married and in your forties, Just Like Starting Over can be a very romantic song.
I think it helps that my wife is Japanese as well. Yoko Ono doesn't seem that foreign to me at all. In Japan she's also regarded somewhat seriously (although by the name "Ono Yoko") and never with the tinge of racism and misogyny so common in the West.
posted by Nevin at 9:26 AM on October 9, 2015 [7 favorites]
Apparently Double Fantasy had been panned by critics but become overwhelmingly popular after he was murdered, and my parents bought it and played it. It was a cassette tape, you kind of had to listen to the weird Yoko Ono bits. And then throughout the 80's the local radio station, CFAX, would play his Christmas song while I was at home from school over Christmas break. So there's that nostalgia.
But now, just past the age of 40 I have relistened to Double Fantasy and some of the other 70's stuff he did, and I like it.
If you're married and in your forties, Just Like Starting Over can be a very romantic song.
I think it helps that my wife is Japanese as well. Yoko Ono doesn't seem that foreign to me at all. In Japan she's also regarded somewhat seriously (although by the name "Ono Yoko") and never with the tinge of racism and misogyny so common in the West.
posted by Nevin at 9:26 AM on October 9, 2015 [7 favorites]
As an amateur songwriter I put Lennon&McCartney on (perhaps) too high of a pedestal.
This can be said about a lot of artists who died young, but as 1980 was the end of his creative output, I genuinely wonder what he would have composed as he matured as a songwriter. More Dylan/Springsteen and retain his "coolness" or dabble with synthesizers and end up like Phil Collins. I suspect it would be something like David Byrne art-pop, and it makes me miss him more.
posted by remlapm at 9:29 AM on October 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
This can be said about a lot of artists who died young, but as 1980 was the end of his creative output, I genuinely wonder what he would have composed as he matured as a songwriter. More Dylan/Springsteen and retain his "coolness" or dabble with synthesizers and end up like Phil Collins. I suspect it would be something like David Byrne art-pop, and it makes me miss him more.
posted by remlapm at 9:29 AM on October 9, 2015 [3 favorites]
No one yet has pointed out the irony that today is also (John's son) Sean Lennon's 40th birthday. He is now the same age his father was when when he was killed in 1980.
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 9:41 AM on October 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 9:41 AM on October 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
That means that Sean is forty years old now.
posted by octothorpe at 9:41 AM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 9:41 AM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
Those who want to understand more about Lennon's reprehensible violence in his early life may want to check out The Mourning of John Lennon, which covers his repressed homosexual feelings, the violent death of his mother in his teens, and his very powerful bonds with Paul and then Yoko.
posted by colie at 9:56 AM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by colie at 9:56 AM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
Miss you John.
posted by shibori at 10:16 AM on October 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by shibori at 10:16 AM on October 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
My folks bought Double Fantasy as soon as it came out, and loved it right away, but it was on solid repeat for months after that. It's actually one of my favorite albums and I think doesn't get its fair due. listening to it brings back late fall and Christmas 1980 like nothing else.
posted by Miko at 10:26 AM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Miko at 10:26 AM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think most of his solo output doesn't get its full due. He's always suffered in the comparisons with Paul and George and has recently been sort of almost relegated to Ringo status as far as solo Beatles. But many of the songs on Plastic Ono Band are still incredibly raw and open, and they aren't in the "hasn't aged well hippie shit" category that a lot of folks seem to relegate them to.
"#9 Dream" is a masterpiece. "Mind Games" is pretty damn good. Even some throwaway song that he never would have released had he been alive, like "Nobody Told Me," holds up. I had never really listened to "Nobody Loves You (When You're Down and Out)" and I heard it recently and thought, "Damn, is that a good song." I don't know about Double Fantasy so much -- but "Watching the Wheels" is a terrific maudlin song. Nobody makes maudlin songs anymore. John was a master of maudlin.
posted by blucevalo at 11:26 AM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
"#9 Dream" is a masterpiece. "Mind Games" is pretty damn good. Even some throwaway song that he never would have released had he been alive, like "Nobody Told Me," holds up. I had never really listened to "Nobody Loves You (When You're Down and Out)" and I heard it recently and thought, "Damn, is that a good song." I don't know about Double Fantasy so much -- but "Watching the Wheels" is a terrific maudlin song. Nobody makes maudlin songs anymore. John was a master of maudlin.
posted by blucevalo at 11:26 AM on October 9, 2015 [2 favorites]
Maudlin has long been a speciality of the Scouse, in a triple-distilled cask strength version of the Irish variety.
The lives and work of the Beatles, collectively and individually, must be some of the most intensively analysed and raked over of anyone's. They were the vanguard of global media-driven pop cultural phenomena: interesting, intelligent, independent and in control. The world wanted far more from them than they could give, so an industry grew up around them to fill that need as best it could. Instant mythology. And out of that came Mark Chapman. What to say that hasn't been said.
It all feels set in amber to me now, all the stuff that went around the music. But the music itself is still alive, still capable of moving me in new ways as I get older, and I like to think that will be true for a lot of people for a long time to come.
posted by Devonian at 1:29 PM on October 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
The lives and work of the Beatles, collectively and individually, must be some of the most intensively analysed and raked over of anyone's. They were the vanguard of global media-driven pop cultural phenomena: interesting, intelligent, independent and in control. The world wanted far more from them than they could give, so an industry grew up around them to fill that need as best it could. Instant mythology. And out of that came Mark Chapman. What to say that hasn't been said.
It all feels set in amber to me now, all the stuff that went around the music. But the music itself is still alive, still capable of moving me in new ways as I get older, and I like to think that will be true for a lot of people for a long time to come.
posted by Devonian at 1:29 PM on October 9, 2015 [1 favorite]
The Beatles are definitely dying in the wrong order.
posted by essexjan at 4:28 AM on October 10, 2015
posted by essexjan at 4:28 AM on October 10, 2015
I think most of his solo output doesn't get its full due.
I disagree. For the most part it's corny, complacent middle-of-the-road rock that has little in common with the eccentric, original music Lennon made in the 60s. And I'm not just talking about "I Am the Walrus," either. Even a song like "Help!" was a soul-baring moment the likes of which are extremely rare in his post-Plastic Ono Band output.
To correct an earlier poster: Double Fantasy went gold the month before Lennon was killed, and "Starting Over" was already in the Top Ten by early December, too. I thought the most extraordinary thing about the album was that a guy who chain-smoked Gauloises still had such a flawless voice.
posted by Fritz Langwedge at 9:26 AM on October 10, 2015
I disagree. For the most part it's corny, complacent middle-of-the-road rock that has little in common with the eccentric, original music Lennon made in the 60s. And I'm not just talking about "I Am the Walrus," either. Even a song like "Help!" was a soul-baring moment the likes of which are extremely rare in his post-Plastic Ono Band output.
To correct an earlier poster: Double Fantasy went gold the month before Lennon was killed, and "Starting Over" was already in the Top Ten by early December, too. I thought the most extraordinary thing about the album was that a guy who chain-smoked Gauloises still had such a flawless voice.
posted by Fritz Langwedge at 9:26 AM on October 10, 2015
To correct my correction: Double Fantasy went gold a month after Lennon was killed. Sorry about that.
posted by Fritz Langwedge at 9:45 AM on October 10, 2015
posted by Fritz Langwedge at 9:45 AM on October 10, 2015
Comparing his Beatles work with his solo work is a depressing business. 'Mind Games' sounds exactly like Oasis. And if you read the biographies, you get a very sad sense that he actually didn't even really like the Beatles' music much, that it reminded him only of the work and sacrifice that fame demanded, and thought it somehow 'inauthentic' next to the original R and B and rock and roll that had so inspired him in the first place. By the mid-70s he even made a miserable album of old 50s cover versions. There is a story that on an acid trip in 1967 he ended up with his childhood friend Pete Shotton actually playing him Beatles albums and taking him which songs he'd written and why they were good. No coincidence that there was no further musical evolution in his style from around that date.
In mitigation, though, nothing sounds all that good compared to the visitation that The Beatles were. And far more importantly, Lennon was basically an activist in the early 70s, obsessed with the notion of truth and communication and essentially no longer interested in music other than if it was the only way to reach people's brains. His voltage was only fully back 'on' for his collaborations with Yoko or doing a Bed-In for Peace (a very astute understanding and critique of the media that was way ahead of its time), or, say, a benefit concert for John Sinclair and the Black Panthers, all while being spied on by the FBI. And all that was a hell of an achievement, considering that Paul was making Wings albums at the time...
posted by colie at 10:06 AM on October 10, 2015
In mitigation, though, nothing sounds all that good compared to the visitation that The Beatles were. And far more importantly, Lennon was basically an activist in the early 70s, obsessed with the notion of truth and communication and essentially no longer interested in music other than if it was the only way to reach people's brains. His voltage was only fully back 'on' for his collaborations with Yoko or doing a Bed-In for Peace (a very astute understanding and critique of the media that was way ahead of its time), or, say, a benefit concert for John Sinclair and the Black Panthers, all while being spied on by the FBI. And all that was a hell of an achievement, considering that Paul was making Wings albums at the time...
posted by colie at 10:06 AM on October 10, 2015
I read somewhere that it's better to think about the Beatles not as a band but as a musical collective, and that makes a dramatic amount of sense to me. The mix of work they created through their collaboration (even when it was at a huge distance) is more unified, complex and interesting than anyone's solo work afterward. I take nothing away from Paul's commercial successes, George's beautiful, amazing and atmospheric music, Ringo having fun and being Ringo, and John careening around banging into things trying to get a handle on life and say something meaningful and reasonable in his music. All make interesting work and really good work, much of it, but the Beatles was a project that synthesized the best of all of their work and resembles their individual work only a little.
posted by Miko at 10:20 AM on October 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Miko at 10:20 AM on October 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
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posted by chavenet at 7:49 AM on October 9, 2015 [5 favorites]