On December the 8th, 1980, the world found itself without the likes of John Lennon in it. The knowledge coming in the form of a grizzly scene in the front courtyard of The Dakota on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The world mourned, the tributes came, and life began to carry on without John Lennon...
Ever since I first got roped into the rabbit hole that is the music of The Beatles, I was always a "John guy". He was a middle-of-the-road guitar player but could sing the holy Hell out of rock and roll songs, both of his own penmanship and covers of some of the best Rock and R&B to come out of the fifties and early sixties. John's history of thumbing his nose at establishment-types is something that millions, if not billions of us humans can relate to.
Some people are a "George", some are a "Paul", and weirdos like my mom are "Ringos", But me, I proudly wave my JWOL flag high-always have, always will. But it was most definitely my parents and aunts and uncles that turned all of The Beatles, their arc, the demise, and continuing mythos, into modern day legends of music.
An article circulated around the interwebs a few months ago, obviously written by people who never sat through 'The Beatles Anthology', touting, "shocking footage of John Lennon mocking persons with disabilities, outraging his fans." The volcano-like eye roll that occurred in my skull nearly caused a brain bleed and my early demise. It was then that it finally hit me, that the saga of The Beatles and John Lennon continue to evolve with each generation.
Over the better part of 20+ years of my John Lennon fandom, I have dipped in and out of trying to align my sense of self into a crunchy, hippy-dippy, make love not war, guy. I have tried and failed several times to maintain a mindset that believes "All you need is love." John always seemed to be the guy that lived at the absolute pinnacle of a peaceful, zen existence. Then one starts reading the autobiographies of his friends and lovers from the sixties and seventies, and some truths are given...
By the collective accounts of Cynthia Lennon, his first wife, May Pang, a former mistress, and other fellow musicians, Lennon could be a not-so-peaceful dude. He basically traded a healthy relationship with his eldest son, Julian, for sex, drugs, and rock & roll. He could be a nasty, violent drunk who choked women- a real monster.
It down right stinks to learn of these things being a Lennon-lifer, as I am. I try and justify a lot of John's darker side to an artistic temperment or perhaps his having coming of age in a different time. I realized a few years ago that my maternal grandparents are only three years older than Lennon had been. A generation born at the beginning of World War II, inventing rock & roll, and many turning into full fledged hippies. Not my grandparents, though....nope. They are as conservative as they come, without a hint of patchouli oil anywhere near them.
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| John and Yoko |
I thing to keep in mind: his was a generation that grew up with "retard" being a medical term, okay? Women stayed home and knew their place, and martinis better be mixed when the man walked in the door, dammit. It was an archaic way of life for awhile, there...John was born into it. Hippy, zen, house husband or not, he still carried the weight of being raised at a time of outdated social norms.
That isn't in any way an attempt to gloss over shitty behavior- because if you hit a woman, or abandon your kid, or turn into a raging alcoholic, you are most definitely an asshole. Which, as it turns out, John Winston Ono Lennon most definitely could be one. But so could I, and YOU most definitely can be an asshole sometimes, too.
So where is it that I stand in my reverence for John Lennon? Honestly, I'm not entirely sure anymore. He still wrote the lion's share of my favorite Beatles tunes, he still fought the swine Richard Nixon, and rallied for peace. Lennon is still a poet and artist of the highest caliber to me, but the idolization has waned a bit.
A man that can be well-placed in the "do as I say, not as I do" category, Lennon is still definitely among the most interesting of Mother R&R's bastard sons. An angry man in search of peace, a junkie in search of sobriety, and an artist seeking truth.
I just want to remind all of you rational-minded folks out there that it is okay to seperate a flawed artist from the art that he produces. Can we possibly leave John and the rest of The Beatles in a place without trigger warnings about being offended by "new unreleased footage (that has existed for 50 years)" of John Lennon making fun of disabled people? Can we let it slide? Can we see the flawed humanity in one another? I think I can, but I'm not so sure about the generations to come.
John Lennon left millions of fans wondering what the world would be like if he still inhabit it, myself included. I hate to feel as if he'd be jaded by all of this violence in the world, but my feeling is he would be. I bet he would have hated 'Dubya', though, and that kind of makes me smile.
Happy Xmas (War is Raging).
