John Lennon

“All I’m saying is peace…
Give it a chance.”

May 1969
John wrote his song, “Give Peace a Chance”, in a week long protest called a “Bed-in for Peace.”
Protesting with his soul one, Yoko Ono, over the hate in the world; Vietnam, assassination of M.L.K Jr., riots, and the Soviet Union.

Weeks Later…
on July, 4, the song was released…
and on November 15, 250,000 Vietnam protesters in Washington D.C. sang his song together.
John watched on TV as they sang, “forever, and not stopping,” he said. “It was one of the biggest moments in my life.”

October 9, 1940
John was born in Liverpool, after one of the German air raid’s of WWII.
John’s mother, Julia, named him John Winston Lennon, honoring Winston Churchill, the English prime minister who held their safety and future in his hands.

John Lennon was different and he knew it.
It wasn’t that he was being raised by his aunt and uncle while his mother, never divorced from his father, lived nearby with another man and their children.
It was something inside him, something in the way he viewed the world.
No one else seemed to understand: not his teachers, his aunt and uncle, his friends.
It made him angry, tough, and afraid.
“It’s that same problem I had when I was five: ‘There is something wrong with me because I seem to see things other people don’t see. Am I crazy, or am I a genius?”

Rock' N 'Roll
1952-1956
“Rock’ n’ roll was real-- everything else was unreal.
To me it got through– it was the
only thing to get to me out of all
the things that were happening when
I was fifteen.”

John meets Paul
John and his band, the Quarry Men, were playing for the Liverpool City dance. Paul saw the performance and was amazed that John created some of his own lyrics.
They were introduced to each other and Paul showed the band what he could do.
John accepted him for he knew that he would do good for the band.
In Paul’s house they wrote songs and practiced.

“…absolutely the worst night of my life.”
…wondering why Julia was so late, when a police officer knocked at the door.
He asked John if he was Julia’s son, then told them she’d been hit by a car and killed.
…the driver, a drunk off-duty policeman, stood trial for reckless driving.

Why?
John came to school late, returned from lunch break drunk. Sometimes he’d retreat up to the top of the staircase and sit alone for hours. His teacher Arthur Ballard chanced upon him one day, and found him crying.
Paul understood what john was going through better than anyone else. “Now we were both in this; both losing our mothers,” said Paul. “This was a bond for us, something of ours a special thing.”

Beatles
The Quarry Men were getting bigger and needed a new name.
They were booked with shows in clubs.
Brian Epstein, a suit and tie guy heard the Beatles and decided to manage them.

And after several concerts and recordings…
Beatlemania

“It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. You’d wake up in a concert and think, Wow, how did I get here?”
Getting all four Beatles through the crowds now gathering at train stations, airports, and concert halls required a choreographed strategy:…

“I’ve always needed a drug to survive. The others too, but I always had more, I always took more pills and more everything, cause I’m more crazy.”
Now with drugs and exhaustion, John was distant from his wife, Cynthia.
Cynthia was terrified.
1966

After more than fourteen hundred performances the Beatles had just played their last show.
Who was he without the Beatles?
…he found it nearly impossible to sleep. He popped even more pills to cope.
But…
Despite his fascination with LSD and his growing interest in Yoko, John had songs to write, albums to record.
“I don’t like to do it in front of people,” Paul explained. “It’s like sex for me, I never was an orgy man.”
Their meetings were intense, collaborative, and confrontational. John would tear into Paul’s songs.
Late in November 1966, the Beatles filed back into the studio…
No longer fueled by sheer, raw vitality, they were sophisticated, talented young men…
Deeply connected with one another musically and personally, they were functioning at the height of their career.

1967-1969
The Beatles write some of their best works.
John and Yoko meet and fall in love and he left his wife Cynthia.
“I had no doubt I’d met the one.”
John thought to himself, “We’ve fuckin’ had it.”
Brain Epstein dies…

1969-1971
“I’m not the beatles, I’m me.”
John couldn’t take being known as just a Beatle and he left and shortly followed by the others.
As part of his new, post-Beatle politically aware state, John spoke out against racism and sexism, saying Yoko had opened his eyes.
They bantered uncomfortably – where were they heading as a band?
Paul thought they needed to go back on the road and do small gigs again, get back in their roots.
John looked at Paul and said bluntly, “Well, I think yer daft!...I’m leaving the group.”

“Nobody controls me. I’m uncontrollable. The only one who controls me is me, and that’s just barely possible.”
“This was a bitter time for John,” said Rubin. “Bitter, bitter, bitter.”
He was bitter about Paul…Ranted and raved about being a celebrity.
He hated it.

1975-1980
“All those years of trying to be tough and the heavy rocker and heavy womanizer and heavy drinker were killing me. And it is a relief not to have to do it.”
…on John’s 35 birthday, October 9, 1975, Yoko gave birth to Sean Taro Ono Lennon.
John became a family man and found himself.
Both of them having children reunited John and Paul’s friendship.

…Called John’s name, dropped to one knee
December 6, 1980
11:00 a.m
with a .38 revolver pointed straight at John
and repeatedly squeezed the trigger
“I’m shot, I’m shot.”