John Lennon

It's the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death. If you are a rabid John Lennon fan, please read no further. Seriously. You don't want to see this. And I'll give him some props: yes, I know he wrote a couple of pieces of pretty music. But that's all that he was good for. And I have good reason to feel this way (and so do many others). If you want to know more, read on.

Why is it when a celebrity dies, society fawns all over him or her? Examples abound! Marilyn Monroe, JFK, John Lennon, and more. All people who probably would have passed into relative obscurity if it wasn't for their deaths. Oh sure, at the time they died they were riding the wave of popularity. But, I don't think any of them had it in them to be what the public has since seen them as: larger than life.

Let's take John Lennon and examine him in the cold light of truth. On his 20th Death Anniversary, his son Julian was strong enough to release this letter:

“I wonder what it would have been like if he were alive today,” Julian wrote. “I guess it would have depended on whether he was ‘John Lennon’ (Dad) or ‘John Ono Lennon’ (manipulated lost soul).

“Once I began to look at his life and really understand him, I began to feel so sorry for him, because once he was a guiding light, a star that shone on all of us, until he was sucked into a black hole and all of his strength consumed. Although he was definitely afraid of fatherhood, the combination of that and his life with Yoko Ono led to the real breakdown of our relationship. We did not see each other for extended periods of time and as the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind! But the Beatles themselves played no part whatsoever in our demise.”

Julian struck a blow against all absentee fathers with this honest and heart-wrenching letter.

But John Lennon was also a man with a very poor self-image, who (just like a child) was always grasping at the chance to show-off. In fact, he was just plain tacky. He took every possible advantage of the limelight.

For instance, he posed nude repeatedly with his bizarre wife Yoko Ono (she looked like Pol Pot and he was simply pathetically unattractive).

He and Ono staged a 'bed in' for world peace in 1969. Well, we know how well that worked. The only thing that came out of that was more publicity for the needy couple.

Of course everyone remembers when Lennon claimed that the Beatles were 'More popular than Jesus' but I never really saw that as scandalous (although let's credit the poor guy with trying).

He was a very nasty person at times. In later life Lennon expressed great hatred for his mother (who had never abused him, but had chosen to leave his father and live with another man). His father’s second wife, Pauline, testified that the mere mention of her name “triggered a vicious verbal attack on [his mother], whom he reviled in the most obscene language I had ever heard…”

By the late 1950s, Lennon was a profane and brawling street youth. He shoplifted, abused girls, drew obscene pictures, lied “about everything,” despised authority, and was the ringleader of a group of rowdies. The young Lennon was also very cruel. He tried to frighten old people and made fun of those who were crippled or deformed. The new music called rock & roll fit his licentious lifestyle. Later Lennon described himself as “a weird, psychotic kid covering up my insecurity with a macho façade”.

He dabbled in every illegal drug he could find, and cheerfully admitted he ate acid like candy. Gee, what a great role model for our youth of today.

The man who sang about love (“all you need is love”) and peace (“give peace a chance”) was actually very noncompassionate, self-centered to the extreme, and violent. His biographers speak of “the infamous Lennon temper.” He frequently flew into rages, screaming, smashing things, hitting people. He admitted, “I was a hitter. I couldn’t express myself and I hit. I fought men and I beat women”.

Lennon confided to a friend, “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to kill a woman, many women! It was only becoming a Beatle that saved me from actually doing it”.

When Yoko was pregnant with their son (Sean Ono Taro Lennon) John Lennon once kicked her in the stomach during an explosive confrontation; Lennon later hit the young Sean, even kicking him once in a restaurant. In 1979, Lennon flew into a rage and trashed his apartment while “filling the air with a stream of profane invective”. As for love, even Lennon’s celebrated relationship with Yoko Ono was filled with everything but love. After 1971, “John and Yoko’s great love was pretty much a public charade designed to help prop up their often flickering careers”.

Was Lennon very bright? Most definately. But intelligence alone is nothing to respect if it isn't tempered by any virtues. Did he truly believe in anything at all? For the most part, I would say he didn't. His desperate bids for press coverage indicate that he would have said and done anything to get the attention that he craved.

When I hear about his Death Anniversaries, I always wonder what he would have been like should he have lived: Probably not much at all. This year he would be 65. As he once said, "I don't intend to be a performing flea any more. I was the dreamweaver, but although I'll be around I don't intend to be running at 20,000 miles an hour trying to prove myself. I don't want to die at 40."

The only thing that his death should convey to us is that life can be short, and you never know when your time is up.

My sources: memory, various internet sources, and "Lennon in America" by Giuliano.