John Winston Lennon was born into a world at war with itself — a perfect symbol of the internal contradictions that defined his life and music. German aircraft were dropping bombs on his city at the very moment of his arrival.
41 ____________. Lennon also had a powerful attachment to his mother Julia that lingered long after she died in 1958; the classic 1968 album The Beatles, (known as the "White Album" for its white album liner) included his song "Julia" —an exquisite expression of raw sorrow. When he and McCartney first met on July 6th, 1957—at a church picnic where Lennon's band was a star attraction—Lennon was budding into a fusion of bold attitude, keen wit and honest charm. The Beatles gave him the room to bloom.
42 ____________.
In a few ways, the current boy-band phenomenon is simply the Beatles with a modern twist: huge record sales, adoring young women queued up on the sidewalks outside their concerts, and the circus-like atmosphere surrounding their every move. With his sharp, handsome features and an attractive warmth contrasted by his acid turn of phrase, Lennon evoked as much hysterical female desire as any member of the Back Street Boys, if not all of them put together. 43 ____________.
Lennon and Ono skillfully used the disbelief and scorn that often greeted their provocative exploits to promote their peace campaigns: demonstrating in their bed clothes for an end to the Vietnam War in the spring of 1969 and paying for huge "WAR IS OVER!" signs in twelve cities around the world the following Christmas. 44 ____________.
A peculiar irony of Lennon's story is the way we tend to worship the Man and the Beatle at the expense of the solo artist. To be frank, Lennon was not always terrific on his own. 45 ____________.
A. Today, the popularity of the Beatles seems like a distant miracle, an ancient explosion of energetic teenage joy. Surviving films and historical accounts only hint at the magic of the two years, 1963 and 1964, in which the Beatles brought Britain, and then America happily to their knees.
B. The Beatles wore suits and chatted cheerfully with reporters in that first couple of years. They also moved quickly to seize control—of their music, their careers and their individual destinies.
C. His image as the intellectual Beatle—the shy, brilliant seeker of truth with a stubborn streak and a smart mouth—was rooted in his days as a would-be art student and teenage rebel with a remarkable intellect. He found substitute father figures in American rock musicians.
D. On the final day of his life, Lennon gave an interview to promote what would be his final album. When asked about his 1971 single recording "Power to the People," Lennon said he now believed that people do have the power. "I don't mean the power of the gun," he explained. "They have the power to make and create the society they want."
E. The couple planted trees for peace at Coventry Cathedral in England and, in early 1970, cut their hair for peace. In openly courting public scorn, Lennon and Ono engineered a vital public debate about peace and love as realistic goals, not just naive nonsense.
F. The key line in those "WAR IS OVER!" signs was in the small type near the bottom: IF YOU WANT IT. When John Lennon died, he left us with a unique body of work and the most valuable lesson rock & roll has to offer: anything is possible—if you want it.
G. He never did better than the intensity and howl of his John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album, but there is much in Lennon's post-Beatle music to be appreciated. Recorded during his so-called lost weekend—a period of separation from Ono—the 1974 album Walls and Bridges is a striking testimony to the wretched desperation he felt.