John Lennon was an English musician who rose to worldwide fame as a co-founder of the Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed bands in the history of popular music. Lennon was born and raised in Liverpool, where he became involved in the skiffle craze as a teenager; he formed his first band, the Quarrymen, in 1957. When the Beatles formed in 1960, Lennon was a founding member and began assuming the role of frontman over the next several years. Lennon initially embraced the group’s popularity, but as the band’s success grew, he became frustrated by their artistic stagnation and the constant invasion of their privacy. He privately began exploring a more personal style of music that incorporated elements of rock and roll, pop, and blues. After the Beatles disbanded in 1970, Lennon continued his solo career by releasing the album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, which was a commercial and critical success. He was shot and killed in December 1980, at the age of 40.
Table of Contents:
1. Early life
2. The Quarrymen
3. The Beatles
4. Solo career
5. Death
6. Influence
7. Personal life
8. Legacy
9. Discography
10. Filmography
11. Top John Lennon Quotes
Early life:
John Lennon was born on October 9, 1940, at Liverpool Maternity Hospital, to Julia (née Stanley) and Alfred Lennon. Alfred was a merchant seaman of Irish descent who was away at the time of his son’s birth. His parents named him John Winston Lennon after his paternal grandfather, John “Jack” Lennon, and then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill. His father was often away from home but sent regular pay checks to 9 Newcastle Road, where Lennon lived with his mother; the cheques stopped when he was five years old. In 1943, the Lennon family moved to 20 Falkner Street, also in Woolton. Julia Lennon found employment as a shop assistant and Alfred as a chauffeur. Several of Lennon’s schoolfriends lived nearby, and he formed a close association with them.
The Quarrymen:
In late 1957, Lennon’s mother, Julia Lennon, was killed in an accident at age 44. The following year, Lennon formed a skiffle group with several schoolfriends, calling themselves the Quarrymen. The group played at local clubs and churches around Liverpool, and occasionally further afield in England. In early 1958, Lennon met Paul McCartney at a Quarrymen gig; McCartney impressed Lennon with his proficiency on the guitar, and Lennon asked him to join the group.
The Beatles:
The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960. With members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they became widely regarded as the foremost and most influential music band in history. Rooted in skiffle and 1950s rock and roll, the Beatles later experimented with several musical styles, ranging from pop ballads and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock, often incorporating classical elements and unconventional recording techniques in innovative ways. In 1963, their enormous popularity first emerged as “Beatlemania”; as the group’s music grew in sophistication, led by primary songwriters Lennon and McCartney, the band were integral to pop music’s evolution into an art form and to the development of the counterculture of the 1960s.
Solo career:
Lennon released his first solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, in 1970. The album was a critical and commercial success, and its release was followed by a period of intense media scrutiny. Lennon continued his solo career with the release of Imagine in 1971. The album was another critical and commercial success, and its title track became one of Lennon’s best-known songs.
Death:
On December 8, 1980, Lennon was shot four times in the back by Mark David Chapman at the entrance to the Dakota apartment building in New York City. Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at Roosevelt Hospital. He was 40 years old.
Influence:
Lennon was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. In 2018, he was ranked 8th on Rolling Stone’s list of the “100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time”. His song “Imagine” was voted the United Kingdom’s favourite song in a 2002 BBC poll.
Personal life:
Lennon was married twice and had two sons, Julian and Sean. His first marriage was to Cynthia Powell, with whom he had Julian. Lennon later had an affair with Japanese artist Yoko Ono, which led to his divorce from Powell in 1968. He married Ono in 1969, and they had a son, Sean.
Legacy:
Lennon’s solo career and his work with the Beatles have received much critical acclaim. He is ranked as the greatest songwriter of all time by Rolling Stone magazine, and his song “Imagine” is ranked as the greatest song of all time by the same publication.
Discography:
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)
Imagine (1971)
Some Time in New York City (1972)
Mind Games (1973)
Walls and Bridges (1974)
Rock ‘n’ Roll (1975)
Double Fantasy (1980)
Milk and Honey (1984)
Filmography:
How I Won the War (1967)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Help! (1965)
Magical Mystery Tour (1967)
Let It Be (1970)
John Lennon Famous Words Of Wisdom
Top John Lennon Quotes:
We’ve got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can’t just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it’s going to get on by itself. You’ve got to keep watering it. You’ve got to really look after it and nurture it.
It’s better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out.
How can I go forward when I don’t know which way I’m facing?
You’re just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You’ve got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It’s all down to you, mate.
Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream.
As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.
My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.
Nobody controls me. I’m uncontrollable. The only one who controls me is me, and that’s just barely possible.
There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.
A mistake is only an error, it becomes a mistake when you fail to correct it.
I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?
You’re all geniuses, and you’re all beautiful. You don’t need anyone to tell you who you are. You are what you are.
There are no problems, only solutions.
When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.
If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that… I believe in what I do, and I’ll say it.
The postman wants an autograph. The cab driver wants a picture. The waitress wants a handshake. Everyone wants a piece of you.
Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.
If everyone could just be happy with themselves and the choices people around them make, the world would instantly be a better place!
The more real you get, the more unreal the world gets.
Get out there and get peace, think peace, and live peace and breathe peace, and you’ll get it as soon as you like.
Declare it. Just the same way we declare war. That is how we will have peace… we just need to declare it.
If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one.
When you do something beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun, every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps.
Happiness is just how you feel when you don’t feel miserable.
Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.
We live in a world where we have to hide to make love, while violence is practiced in broad daylight.
We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create.
Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
It matters not who you love, where you love, why you love, when you love or how you love, it matters only that you love.
Love is a promise, love is a souvenir, once given never forgotten, never let it disappear.
If you want peace, you won’t get it with violence.
A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.
Trying to please everybody is impossible – if you did that, you’d end up in the middle with nobody liking you. You’ve just got to make the decision about what you think is your best, and do it.
There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.
Being honest may not get you a lot of friends but it’ll always get you the right ones.
What we’ve got to do is keep hope alive. Because without it, we’ll sink.
Art is only a way of expressing pain.
If someone thinks that peace and love are just a cliche that must have been left behind in the 60s, that’s a problem. Peace and love are eternal.
I don’t believe in killing whatever the reason!
It’s weird not to be weird.
You don’t need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!
Peace is not something you wish for; It’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away.
There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance.
Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realized that the imagery in my mind wasn’t insanity. Surrealism to me is reality.
One thing you can’t hide – is when you’re crippled inside.
Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.
I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything.
I am a violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence.
The more I see, the less I know for sure.
When I cannot sing my heart, I can only speak my mind.
Source: Independent Wikipedia John Lennon Britannica Facebook Spotify Twitter Imdb Instagram Rock Hall