John Lennon (born John Winston Lennon, later changed to John Winston Ono Lennon; John Winston Ono Lennon). Born October 9, 1940 in Liverpool (UK) - died December 8, 1980 in New York (USA). British rock musician, singer, poet, composer, artist, writer. One of the founders and member of The Beatles, a popular musician of the 20th century. After the breakup of The Beatles solo career, but was killed in 1980.

In addition to his musical activities, Lennon was also known as a political activist. He expressed his views both in songs and in public speeches. The famous song “Imagine” expresses Lennon’s thoughts about how the world should be structured. Lennon preached the ideas of equality and brotherhood of people, peace, freedom. This made him an idol of the hippies and one of the most significant public figures 1960s-1970s.

In 2002, the BBC conducted a poll to determine the one hundred greatest Britons of all time. John Lennon took eighth place on this list. Lennon also took two places on the list of 50 greatest performers of all time according to Rolling Stone magazine: 1 as part of The Beatles and personal 38. The British magazine Classic Rock included Lennon in the list of the greatest guitarists of all time.

John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 at 6:30 am, during a German air raid on Liverpool. His parents are Julia (Julia Lennon 1914-1958) and Alfred Lennon (Alfred Lennon 1912-1976). John became their first and last child - shortly after his birth, Julia and Alfred separated.

When Julia Lennon found another man, four-year-old John was taken in by his maternal aunt Mimi Smith (1906-1991) and her husband George Smith, who had no children of their own. Mimi was a strict teacher, and this often caused Lennon rejection. Mimi did not approve of his hobby for the guitar. John was distinguished by rare wit and malice. When he was learning to play the guitar, Aunt Mimi grumbled: “The guitar is a good thing, but it will never help you make a living!” Later, at the height of his success, John bought his aunt a luxurious mansion on the coast and decorated the hall with a marble plaque with his aunt's words. But Lennon found a common language with his uncle, who replaced his father, but in 1955 George died. John then became close to his mother Julia, who lived with her second husband and his two children.

Lennon could not stand the routine of school life, therefore, despite his sharp mind, he slipped from the category of the best students to the worst. But at school he managed to reveal his creative abilities - Lennon sang in the choir and published a handwritten magazine, which he himself illustrated. His favorite books at the time were Alice in Wonderland and The Wind in the Willows. In 1952 Lennon found himself in high school Quarry Bank High School. In his studies, he did not achieve much success either, quickly finding himself in class C for the most backward students. At the same time, Lennon regularly violated discipline and drew caricatures of teachers.

In the mid-1950s, following the release of Bill Haley's "Rock around the Clock", the rock and roll craze began in Liverpool. Lonnie Donegan's song "Rock Island Line" gave birth to skiffle, which quickly gained popularity among English youth. Skiffle was notable for the fact that its performance did not require extensive knowledge of music or the ability to play any instrument well. Thanks to this, many youth skiffle groups appeared in England in the 1950s. Rock and roll finally gained popularity after appearing in the United States.

The new hobby did not pass Lennon by, and in 1956 he and his school friends founded the group The Quarrymen, named after the school they all attended. Lennon himself played guitar in the Quarrymen. Besides him, there were five people in the group: another one also played guitar, two on drums, one person on banjo and one best friend John Pete Shotton, - on a washboard. On July 6, 1957, Lennon met and accepted him into the Quarrymen. Soon McCartney brought his friend into the group.

After Lennon failed his GCSEs, he managed (with the help of his headmaster) to enroll at Liverpool Art College. There he became friends with Stuart Sutcliffe, whom he also attracted to the Quarrymen, and met his future wife Cynthia Powell.

In 1958 (July 15), John's mother died. As she was crossing the road, she was hit by a police officer in a car. Julia's death was a severe shock for Lennon. Later he dedicated several songs to her - “Julia”, “Mother” and “My Mummy’s Dead”. His mother's death greatly affected him in the future. Since Lennon was very attached to Julia, he looked for his mother in almost all women.

The Quarrymen band ceased to exist in 1959 when the name appeared - first Silver Beetles, then - The Beatles.

In 1960, The Beatles went abroad for the first time - to Hamburg, Germany, where they performed in clubs in the Reeperbahn, the center nightlife cities. In Hamburg, Lennon tried drugs for the first time. To Germany The Beatles between 1960 and 1963 came several times. Over the years they have managed to achieve local popularity in Liverpool and Hamburg.

Stuart (Stu) Sutcliffe, the most close person for Lennon during these years. Sutcliffe found a wife in Germany, photographer Astrid Kirchherr (born May 20, 1938). On April 10, 1962, Stu died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

At the end of 1961, Brian Epstein became the manager of The Beatles. He completely changed their image - the group changed their leather jackets to neat suits with the famous jackets without lapels, the musicians stopped smoking and swearing on stage. Lennon later admitted that he did not really like the change in image. However, the new image contributed to the rapid growth of The Beatles' popularity.

On August 23, 1962, John Lennon married Cynthia Powell. On April 8, 1963, John and Cynthia Lennon had a son, John Charles Julian Lennon. It was named after Julia, John's mother.

In 1963, Lennon “showed his teeth” for the first time, performing in front of the royal family. Announcing the next number, he exclaimed mischievously: "We ask those in the cheap seats to applaud. The rest can content themselves with jingling their jewelry!"

“Those in the cheap seats” greeted this call with thunderous applause. The "rest" - crowned and uncrowned Windsors - were shocked. The scandalous fame only contributed to the growth of the group's popularity, and Lennon from that time took on the role of leader - he announced numbers at concerts and was always the first to go on stage, although in fact it could not be said that one or another member of the Beatles was more important for the group than rest. If in the spring of 1963 they were well known only in Liverpool, then in October of the same year the whole country knew about them, and in 1964 world fame came to the Liverpool group.

In addition, Lennon tried himself as an actor. Not counting the films created by The Beatles, he once starred in a movie: it was the film “How I Won the War” (1967). The film was not a success with either audiences or critics. However, the film was quite in keeping with the spirit of the times, and how historical artifact(against the backdrop of the events surrounding the Vietnam War) has a definite cultural and artistic value.

From 1964 to 1966, The Beatles were at the height of their fame. They constantly toured around the world, released albums twice a year, and starred in two films: “To the Rescue!” (Help!) and “A Hard Day's Night”.

In March 1966, Lennon, in an interview with the London Evening Standard newspaper, dropped a careless phrase, saying the following: “Christianity will go away. It will disappear and dry up. There is no need to argue; I'm right and the future will prove it. We are now more popular than Jesus; I don't know which will disappear first - rock and roll or Christianity. Jesus was okay, but his followers are stupid and ordinary. And it is their perversion that destroys Christianity in me.”

In the UK, no one paid attention to this phrase, but when, five months later, the American magazine Datebook put the phrase taken out of context on the cover, a scandal began in the USA. In the south of the country, whose residents are known for their religiosity, Beatles records were publicly burned, and radio stations stopped broadcasting their songs. Even the Vatican condemned Lennon’s statement (in 2008, however, the Vatican forgave the musician, saying that his phrase could be regarded as “witness”). At the same time, the Beatles were preparing for a tour of the United States. Lennon was forced to apologize for his words, but the concerts during the tour were missing a huge number of spectators. Lennon received death threats: in Memphis, someone called The Beatles' room and said that he (Lennon) would be killed during the concert. After these tours, the Beatles decided to abandon concerts. They never performed on stage again.

In 1967, Lennon, influenced by Timothy Leary's book The Psychedelic Experience, became interested in drugs. He began to distance himself from the rest of the group and abandoned his role as its leader. After the death of Brian Epstein, Paul McCartney took over management of the Beatles. In 1967, McCartney took over the leadership of the group - the best, in the opinion of many, rock album of all time, “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was conceived and realized by him, as was the TV movie "Magic mysterious journey"("A Magical Mystery Tour"). “The film was made by Paul, for Paul,” Lennon later told Rolling Stone.

The songs from the albums of 1967-1968, although they were signed by Lennon - McCartney, in the vast majority of cases were the fruit of the creativity of only one of the Beatles. The White Album, released in 1968, shows how the band members differed from each other during this period.

During these years, Lennon composed songs that many later recognized as his the best works: philosophical “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Across the Universe”, psychedelic “I Am the Walrus” and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, gloomy “A Day in the Life” and solemn "All You Need is Love", which became the hippie anthem.

Lennon's appearance, like the rest of the group, changed greatly. The Beatles stopped dressing in neat suits and grew long hair, mustaches and sideburns. The famous round glasses appeared for the first time in Lennon's image.

In November 1968, Lennon's wife, Cynthia Lennon, divorced him. The reason for this was John's betrayal. Cynthia, returning from Greece, saw her husband and his mistress in her bed. On November 8, 1968, the divorce was formalized.

Lennon met avant-garde artist Yoko Ono in 1966 when he visited her exhibition in art gallery"Indica" Their living together began in 1968, when Lennon divorced his first wife, Cynthia. Soon she and Yoko became inseparable. As Lennon said then, they are not John and Yoko, but one soul in two bodies, John-and-Yoko.

On March 20, 1969, the marriage of John Lennon and Yoko Ono was registered in Gibraltar. After his marriage, Lennon changed his middle name, Winston, to Ono, and his name was now John Ono Lennon.

The couple spent their honeymoon in continental Europe - Paris, Amsterdam and Vienna, after which they visited Montreal. Lennon's song about this marriage, "The Ballad of John and Yoko", was released in 1969. It was recorded together with McCartney (bass, drums).

“We dreamed of changing something in this world... but everything remained the same. Still selling guns South Africa, and blacks are killed on the street. People still live in poverty and have rats running around. Only crowds of rich loafers walk around London in fashionable rags. I don't believe in the Beatles myth anymore

Relations within the Beatles finally deteriorated in 1968. Lennon and Paul McCartney have accumulated many complaints against each other. Lennon, for example, was not happy with the fact that McCartney was pulling the blanket over himself, and he was dissatisfied with Lennon’s apathy and constant presence in the studio during Yoko Ono’s recordings (although at the beginning of their career the Beatles agreed not to invite wives and girlfriends to the studio). In addition, their creative collaboration practically ceased; Lennon leaned more and more towards psychedelic rock (“Strawberry Fields Forever”), acid rock (“I am the Walrus”) and avant-garde (“Revolution 9”).

In 1968, the Beatles were on the verge of breaking up, and even announced their departure (although in the end he still remained in the group). Many of the recordings on the White Album were made with an incomplete lineup, and Lennon recorded the song “Julia” alone.

The album "Abbey Road", released in 1969, was also organized by Paul McCartney - the concept of the album belonged to him. Abbey Road was actually the last Beatles album. Released in 1970, "Let It Be" was recorded almost entirely in January 1969 during the studio sessions that became the basis for the film "Let It Be." By the time the album was released, Lennon and McCartney had already announced that they were leaving the group.

In 1968, two years before the Beatles broke up, John Lennon and Yoko Ono's first album was released. "Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins". According to Lennon, the album was recorded in one night. There was no music on it: the record contained a chaotic collection of noises, moans and screams. It was remarkable album cover - it featured a photograph of a completely naked Lennon and Yoko Ono. In 1969, two were already published. studio albums: "Wedding Album" and "Unfinished Music No.2: Life With The Lions", which also contained virtually no music. In addition, a live recording of "Live Peace In Toronto 1969" was released. Lennon and Yoko Ono formed a group called the Plastic Ono Band.

Period political activity John Lennon's lasted from 1968 to 1972. The beginning of this period was the song “Revolution”, released as a single, and its variation “Revolution 1”, which ended up on the “White Album”.

That is, after the words with which Lennon renounces violence, the word “in” follows, which gives the line a completely opposite meaning. Another political song written for a Beatles album was “Come Together,” released on the Abbey Road album. At this time, Lennon had already taken a very definite position - he advocated world peace, and even returned the Order of the British Empire to the Queen - in protest against ... “British intervention in the Nigeria-Biafra conflict, against our support for the American war in Vietnam and against that that "Cold Turkey" is slipping down the charts."

After their wedding, they went to Amsterdam and announced that they would conduct a “bedside interview.” Journalists who decided that star couple will have sex publicly, gathered in a hotel, where it turned out that Lennon and Yoko Ono were just sitting in bed and talking about peace. Donning white pajamas and decorating their hotel room with flowers, John and Yoko sat in bed. The room doors were all day long wide open. Any person from the street could enter them. And he entered. Television, photographers, and newspaper reporters spent days and nights in Lennon's rooms in Amsterdam and Toronto. They never left television screens, the front pages of newspapers and magazines. And along with the sensation, their call to end the aggression in Vietnam involuntarily seeped into the world.

After Amsterdam, the bed demonstration was repeated in Montreal, where Lennon impromptu composed the song “Give Peace a Chance,” which became the anthem of the pacifist movement. On December 15, 1969, the Lennons organized an anti-war concert under the slogan “The war will end if you want it.” On December 30 of the same year, British television showed a program dedicated to Lennon, and named him one of the three politicians decades (along with John Kennedy and Mao Zedong).

In 1969, John and Yoko had long hair during a bed action. On January 20, 1970, they cut each other's hair in Denmark. Turbulent political and musical activity led to Lennon having a psychological crisis in early 1970. Dr. Arthur Yanov, who practiced primal therapy, brought him out of this crisis. With Yanov's help, Lennon was able to return to normal, and the treatments made a deep impression on him, which is noticeable on the 1970 album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, which became Lennon's most revealing record.

In 1971, the album “Imagine” was released, telling about Lennon’s utopian dreams. At this time he political position changed dramatically - he, along with Yoko Ono, took part in a rally in support of the Irish Republican Army, and on the cover of the single “Power to the People” the Lennons were depicted in army helmets.

Since September 1971, Lennon and Yoko Ono lived in New York. After a long battle with US immigration authorities, who refused to grant entry to the couple due to a drug scandal in 1969, the Lennons finally received the right to live in the US. John Lennon never visited Great Britain again.

Immediately after moving overseas, Lennon became involved in US political life. He advocated for giving Indians civil rights, for easing the conditions of prisoners in prisons, for the release of John Sinclair, one of the leaders of American youth, sentenced to 10 years in prison for possession of marijuana (shortly after Lennon’s rally in support of Sinclair, he was released).

Lennon's last political album was Some Time In New York City (1972), after which his radicalist period ended. The 1973 album Mind Games showed that Lennon's political songs were a thing of the past.

At the beginning of 1973, US authorities issued Yoko Ono an official permit to reside in the country, while Lennon, on the contrary, was ordered to leave the United States within two months. Soon after this, the couple separated for more than a year. John fled to Yoko May Pang's secretary.

Separation from his wife and creative decline again led to a psychological crisis. Until the summer of 1974, Lennon was practically inactive, and when recording of the new album began in August, he had only one song ready. In October 1974, a new album was released under the title "Walls And Bridges". A year later, “Rock’n’Roll” was released, an album of songs that The Beatles sang before their fame.

On October 9, 1975, Lennon's thirty-fifth birthday, his son, Sean, was born. After this, Lennon announced that he was ending his musical career and devoted the next 5 years to his son. In all these years, he only appeared in public twice - when he was finally given official permission to live in the United States. This happened in 1975, also on October 9. He was also invited to a private reception with US President Jimmy Carter along with Yoko. The second time was at the Grammy Awards in 1976.

Lennon's next album was released only in 1980. It was called "Double Fantasy" and received good feedback critics. This disc was destined to become the last in the work of John Lennon, whose life was cut short a few weeks after the release of the disc. Yoko Ono co-wrote the album.

On December 8, 1980, John Lennon was assassinated US citizen. On the day of his death, Lennon gave his last interview to American journalists, and at 22:50, when John and Yoko were entering the arch of their house, returning from the Hit Factory recording studio, Chapman, who had earlier that day taken Lennon’s autograph for the cover of the new album “ Double Fantasy, which had been released three weeks earlier, fired five shots into his back, four of which hit the target. Police car, called by the gatekeeper of the Dakota, Lennon was taken to Roosevelt Hospital in just a few minutes. But the doctors’ attempts to save Lennon were in vain - due to heavy blood loss, he died, the official time of death was 23 hours 15 minutes. He was cremated at Fairncliffe Cemetery (Greenburgh, Westchester, New York) and Lennon's ashes were given to Yoko Ono.

Chapman is serving a life sentence in a New York prison for his crime. He has already submitted a petition for ten times early release(last time in August 2018), but each time these requests were rejected. Yoko Ono sent a letter to the New York State Department of Parole in 2000 urging her not to release Chapman early.

In 1984, John Lennon's posthumous album Milk and Honey was released. The songs were recorded in the last months of Lennon's life. It mainly consists of sessions for Double Fantasy.

John Lennon Family:

Father Alfred Lennon - (December 14, 1912 - April 1, 1976),
uncle Charles Lennon (1918-2002),
mother Julia Lennon (Stanley) - (March 12, 1914 - July 15, 1958),
Aunt Elizabeth Jane Stanley - (1908-1976),
Aunt Mimi (Mary) Smith (Stanley) - (April 24, 1906 - December 6, 1991),
uncle George Smith (1903-1955),
maternal sister Julia Deakins Baird (1947),
maternal sister Jacqueline Deakins (1949),
paternal brother David Henry Lennon (1969),
paternal brother Robin Francis Lennon (1973),
First wife Cynthia Lennon (Powell) (September 10, 1939 - April 1, 2015) - (marriage: August 23, 1962 - November 8, 1968),
son Julian Lennon (8 April 1963) - singer,
Yoko Ono's second wife Lennon (February 18, 1933) - avant-garde artist,
son Sean Lennon (October 9, 1975) - singer.

Lennon considered “Run for Your Life” and “It’s Only Love” to be his worst songs.

On December 8, 1980, John Lennon and Yoko Ono took part in a photo shoot for the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. The photographer was Annie Leibovitz. Five hours after the photo shoot, John Lennon was killed. The magazine was published in 1981. And currently this photo up for auction at Swann Auction Galleries.

Plastic Ono Band's album was ranked #22 among the best of the best by Rolling Stone magazine.

John Lennon's song "Imagine" was titled " best composition of all times and peoples" professional American edition"Performing Songwriter" According to a poll conducted by the magazine, this anthem to world peace even surpassed the standard “Stardust” by Hoagy Carmichael, as well as “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye. These compositions took second and third place respectively. Since 2006, “Imagine” has been heard in the last minutes of the passing “old” year in Times Square in New York. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine published 500 greatest songs

of all time, in which “Imagine” took 3rd place.

John Lennon discography:
Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins (1968)
Unfinished Music No.2: Life With The Lions (1969)
Wedding Album (1969)
Live Peace In Toronto 1969 (live album, 1969)
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)
Some Time In New York City (1972)
Mind Games (1973)
Walls And Bridges (1974)
Rock'n'Roll (1975)
Shaved Fish (compilation, 1975)
Double Fantasy (1980)
The John Lennon Collection (compilation, 1982)
Milk and Honey (1984)
Menlove Ave. (1986)
Live in New York City (live album, 1986)
John Lennon Anthology/Wonsaponatime (home demos, alternative versions, unreleased songs, 1998)
Acoustic (2004)
Working Class Hero - The Definitive Lennon (compilation, 2005)
The U.S. vs. John Lennon (soundtrack, 2006)
Double Fantasy Stripped Down (2010)

Filmography of John Lennon:

Directing works together with Yoko Ono:

1968 - Two Virgins / Two Virgins
1968 - Number 5 / No. 5
1969 - Honeymoon/Honeymoon
1969 - Abduction / Rape
1970 - Up Your Legs Forever
1970 - Freedom
1970 - Fly / Fly
1970 - Apotheosis / Apotheosis
1971 - Erection
1972 - Imagine / Imagine

Acting works of John Lennon:

1964 - A Hard Day's Night - John
1965 - Help! (Help!) - John Lennon
1967 - How I Won the War - Shooter Gripvid
1967 - Magical Mystery Tour - John/Narrator/Ticket Seller/Coffee Wizard/Sleek Waiter
1968 - Yellow Submarine - John
1968 - Two Virgins
1970 - Let It Be - John Lennon
1970 - Apotheosis
1971 - Dynamite Chicken - John Lennon
1977 - Fire in the Water

Films about John Lennon:

"Imagine: John Lennon" (1988)
"The John Lennon Story" (2001)
"John Lennon: Bringer of Good News" (2002)
"USA vs. John Lennon" (2006)
"The Assassination of John Lennon" (2006)
"Chapter 27" (2007)
"Becoming John Lennon" (2009)
"Five Bullets for Lennon" (2009)
"Naked Lennon" (2010)
"Wheel to Imagine" is an animated film about John Lennon.

John Lennon (born John Winston Lennon, later changed to John Winston Ono Lennon; English John Winston Ono Lennon, October 9, 1940, Liverpool, UK - December 8, 1980, New York, USA) - British rock musician, singer, poet, composer, artist, writer. One of the founders and member of The Beatles, a popular musician of the 20th century.

John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 at 6:30 am, during a German air raid on Liverpool. His parents are Julia (English: Julia Lennon 1914-1958) and Alfred Lennon (English: Alfred Lennon 1912-1976). John became their first and last child - shortly after his birth, Julia and Alfred separated.

When Julia Lennon found another man, four-year-old John was taken in by his maternal aunt Mimi Smith (English: Mimi Smith 1906-1991) and her husband George Smith, who had no children of their own. Mimi was a strict teacher, and this often caused Lennon rejection. Mimi did not approve of his hobby for the guitar. John was distinguished by rare wit and malice. When he was learning to play the guitar, Aunt Mimi grumbled: “The guitar is a nice thing, but it will never help you make a living!”

Later, at the height of his success, John bought his aunt a luxurious mansion on the coast and decorated the hall with a marble plaque with his aunt's words. But Lennon found a common language with his uncle, who replaced his father, but in 1953 George died. John then became close to his mother Julia, who lived with her second husband and his two children.

Lennon could not stand the routine of school life, therefore, despite his sharp mind, he slipped from the category of the best students to the worst. But at school he managed to reveal his creative abilities - Lennon sang in the choir and published a handwritten magazine, which he himself illustrated. His favorite books at the time were Alice in Wonderland and The Wind in the Willows.

In 1952, Lennon ended up at Quarry Bank High School. In his studies, he did not achieve much success either, quickly finding himself in class C for the most backward students. At the same time, Lennon regularly violated discipline and drew caricatures of teachers.

In the mid-1950s, following the release of Bill Haley's "Rock around the Clock", the rock and roll craze began in Liverpool. The new hobby did not pass Lennon by, and in 1956, together with his school friends, he founded the group The Quarrymen, named after the school where they all studied. Lennon himself played guitar in the Quarrymen.

On July 6, 1957, Lennon met Paul McCartney and accepted him into the Quarrymen. After Lennon failed his GCSEs, he managed (with the help of his headmaster) to enroll at Liverpool Art College. There he became friends with Stuart Sutcliffe, whom he also attracted to the Quarrymen, and met his future wife Cynthia Powell.

In 1958 (July 15), John's mother died. As she was crossing the road, she was hit by a police officer in a car. Julia's death was a severe shock for Lennon. Later he dedicated several songs to her - “Julia”, “Mother” and “My Mummy’s Dead”. His mother's death greatly affected him in the future. Since Lennon was very attached to Julia, he looked for his mother in almost all women.

The Quarrymen ceased to exist in 1959, when the name appeared - first the Silver Beetles, then The Beatles. In 1960, the Beatles went abroad for the first time - to Hamburg, Germany, where they performed in clubs in the Reeperbahn, the center of the city's nightlife. In Hamburg, Lennon tried drugs for the first time.

On August 23, 1962, John Lennon married Cynthia Powell. On April 8, 1963, John and Cynthia Lennon had a son, John Charles Julian Lennon. It was named after Julia, John's mother.

In 1963, Lennon “showed his teeth” for the first time, performing in front of the royal family. Announcing the next number, he exclaimed mischievously:
- We ask those who are sitting in cheap seats to applaud. The rest can limit themselves to jingling their jewelry!

The scandalous fame only contributed to the growth of the group's popularity. If in the spring of 1963 they were well known only in Liverpool, then in October of the same year the whole country knew about them, and in 1964 world fame came to the Liverpool group.

In addition, Lennon tried himself as an actor. Not counting the films made by the Beatles, he once starred in a movie: it was the film “How I Won the War” (English. “How I Won the War” (1967). The film was not a success with either audiences or critics.

In March 1966, Lennon, in an interview with the London Evening Standard newspaper, dropped a careless phrase, saying the following: “Christianity will go away. It will disappear and dry up. There is no need to argue; I'm right and the future will prove it. We are now more popular than Jesus; I don't know which will disappear first - rock and roll or Christianity. Jesus was okay, but his followers are stupid and ordinary. And it is their perversion that destroys Christianity in me.”

In the UK, no one paid attention to this phrase, but when, five months later, the American magazine Datebook put the phrase taken out of context on the cover, a scandal began in the USA. In the south of the country, whose residents are known for their religiosity, Beatles records were publicly burned, and radio stations stopped broadcasting their songs. Even the Vatican condemned Lennon’s statement (in 2008, however, the Vatican forgave the musician, saying that his phrase could be regarded as “witness.”

Lennon received death threats: in Memphis, someone called The Beatles' room and said that he (Lennon) would be killed during the concert. After these tours, the Beatles decided to abandon concerts. They never performed on stage again.

In 1967, Lennon, influenced by Timothy Leary's book The Psychedelic Experience, became interested in drugs. He began to move away from the rest of the group and abandoned the role of its leader. Lennon's appearance, like the rest of the group, changed greatly. The Beatles stopped dressing in neat suits and grew long hair, mustaches and sideburns. The famous round glasses appeared for the first time in Lennon's image.

Lennon met avant-garde artist Yoko Ono in 1966 when he attended her exhibition at the Indica Art Gallery. Their life together began in 1968, when Lennon divorced his first wife, Cynthia. Soon she and Yoko became inseparable. As Lennon said then, they are not John and Yoko, but one soul in two bodies, John-and-Yoko.

On March 20, 1969, the marriage of John Lennon and Yoko Ono was registered in Gibraltar. After his marriage, Lennon changed his middle name, Winston, to Ono, and his name was now John Ono Lennon. Relations within the Beatles finally deteriorated in 1968. In 1969, Lennon and McCartney had already announced that they were leaving the group. Lennon and Yoko Ono formed a group called the Plastic Ono Band.

Since September 1971, Lennon and Yoko Ono lived in New York. After a long battle with US immigration authorities, who refused to grant entry to the couple due to a drug scandal in 1969, the Lennons finally received the right to live in the US. John Lennon never visited Great Britain again.

On October 9, 1975, Lennon's thirty-fifth birthday, his son, Sean, was born. After this, Lennon announced that he was ending his musical career and devoted the next 5 years to his son. In all these years, he only appeared in public once - when he was finally given official permission to live in the United States. This happened in 1975, also on October 9. He was also invited to a private reception with US President Jimmy Carter along with Yoko.

Lennon's next album was released only in 1980. It was called Double Fantasy and received good reviews from critics. This disc was destined to become the last in the work of John Lennon, whose life was cut short a few weeks after the release of the disc. Yoko Ono co-wrote the album.

On December 8, 1980, John Lennon was killed by US citizen Mark David Chapman. On the day of his death, Lennon gave his last interview to American journalists, and at 22:50, when John and Yoko entered the arch of their house, returning from the Hit Factory recording studio, Chapman , who had earlier that day taken Lennon's autograph for the cover of his new album, Double Fantasy, which had been released three weeks earlier, fired five shots at him in the back, four of which hit the target. In a police car called by the gatekeeper of the Dakota, Lennon was taken to Roosevelt Hospital in just a few minutes. But the doctors’ attempts to save Lennon were in vain - due to heavy blood loss, he died, the official time of death was 23 hours 15 minutes. He was cremated in New York and Lennon's ashes were given to Yoko Ono.

Chapman is serving a life sentence in a New York prison for his crime. He has already applied for early release six times (the last time in September 2010), but each time these requests were rejected. Yoko Ono sent a letter to the New York State Department of Parole in 2000 urging her not to release Chapman early.

In 1984, John Lennon's posthumous album Milk and Honey was released. The songs were recorded in the last months of Lennon's life. It mainly consists of sessions for Double Fantasy.

Monument in Havana.

Interesting fact:
* All his life, John Lennon was aware of the meaning of the number 9. He was born on October 9, 1940, his son Sean was born on the same day, October 9, 75. The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, first came to see the guys at the Liverpool club CAVERNA on November 9, 1961, and their first contract with EMI was signed on May 9, 62. John met Yoko Ono on November 9, 1966, John and Yoko's apartment is located on West 72nd Street (seven and two add up to nine), and the number of their first apartment was also 72. Interestingly, during his student years, in Liverpool, John traveled to the art school on bus number 72. Among John's songs there are several whose titles include the number 9. "Revolution Nine", "Dream Number Nine" and "Next to 909". He wrote these songs at his mother's house, number 9 Newcastle Road. His aunt Mimi's address was 126 Panorama Road (one two and six add up to nine). John even joked that one of his most significant songs, Give Peace A Chance, contains nine main words in the chorus. In the names “John Ono Lennon” and “Yoko Ono Lennon” the letter “O” appears nine times, finally, John was killed at 10.50 New York time on December 8, 1980, in the UK at that moment it was five hours earlier, there December 9 has already arrived. John's body was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, located on Ninth Avenue.

Barry Miles: “John Winston Lennon was born on this day in Oxford Street Maternity Hospital.”

Hunter Davies: "John Winston Lennon was born in Liverpool at 6.30am on October 9, 1940."

John: “Ninety percent of the people on this planet, especially in the West, were born from a bottle of whiskey on a Saturday night; No one intended to have such children. Ninety percent of us people were born by accident - I don’t know a single person who planned to have a child. We are all creatures of Saturday nights."

Hunter Davies: “When it came time for Julia to give birth, the “Phoney War” turned into the “Battle of Britain.” The Germans occupied France, throwing the British into the sea, and night after night Luftwaffe planes bombed Liverpool. Julia was admitted to the Oxford Street Maternity Hospital. The birth was difficult and after thirty hours of agony, the doctors decided to perform a caesarean section.”

Mimi: “When I found out that a boy was born, I immediately went there, despite the air raid warning. She ran all the way. No one could stop me, not even Hitler! Boy! Just imagine, the first boy in the family! The one we've all been waiting for. When I got to the hospital, I couldn't take my eyes off him. How beautiful this fair-haired baby was! The nurses noticed this. Three and a half kilograms is just what you need, not small and not fat. As soon as I saw John for the first time, I immediately knew that he would turn out to be something extraordinary. I was suffocated with happiness, endlessly spinning around him and almost forgot about Julia. Julia was offended: “I gave birth to him after all!”

Jackie Spencer (historian): “He and his mother [John and Julia] were still in the hospital when the air raid began. And all the cribs were hidden under metal beds to save the children in case a bomb hit the hospital.”

Mimi: “Then a bomb exploded right in front of the hospital. But my sister remained in bed, and the baby was put under the bed. They wanted to send me to the basement, but that was not the case. I ran back to Newcastle Road to break the news to our father. “Get down to the shelter,” the patrolmen shouted to me. “Oh, don’t worry,” I answered them.”

John (from the book): “I was born on October 9, 1940, when, I believe, the national myths of Aduf Hitzler only knew to bomb us. At least they didn’t get me.”

Barry Miles: “Contrary to some reports, there were no Luftwaffe raids that night.” The previous raid took place on the night of September 21-22, and the next one will only be on October 16.”

Hunter Davis: “All the biographers (including me) have tirelessly repeated that the boy was born during the bombing, according to family legend, at least that’s what John’s Aunt Mimi told me personally. However, as a result of a recent thorough examination of the Liverpool newspaper archives, no evidence was found regarding the bombing on the evening of October 9, 1940. Of course, there were raids immediately before and after his birth, so it can be more accurately formulated as follows: “John Lennon was born during constant air raids.”

Robert Rodriguez: “From book to book there is a claim that Lennon was born when Liverpool was bombed by German aircraft, but this is not so. There were no heavy bombings then, and this is just a myth.”

Philip Norman: “It was Mimi who named the child John. John’s mother gave him his middle name, Winston.”

Hunter Davis: “He was given his middle name in honor of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.”

Philip Norman: “So two names were written on the birth certificate: John - the name from Aunt Mary, and Winston - the middle name from the mother. No one knew where the child’s father, Fred Lennon, was at that time. At that time he was somewhere at sea.”

The famous musician, one of the artists of the greatest group in the history of mankind, John Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 in Liverpool, England.
The parents of the future celebrity were Alfred and Julia Lennon - their first and only child born during a German air attack on the city. John's parents separated when the boy was not yet four years old. As a result of this breakup, John was taken in by his maternal aunt, Mimi Smith.
Mimi's relationship with John was not easy - she was a very strict woman, and John was as sarcastic as he was smart. His aunt did not approve of his hobby for the guitar at all, believing that it was a waste of time that would never bring him any benefit.
Like many creatively gifted individuals, John did not shine in school subjects. He was bored with earning high grades - instead he published a school magazine and sang in the choir. Despite all this, John was a regular violator of discipline, and even drew caricatures of teachers.
At this time, a youth craze for rock and roll began in England. This trend could not pass by John Lennon and he, together with his friends, organized the group The Quarrymen. This happened in 1956. John was the guitarist in the group, and besides him there were 5 more people - another guitarist, two drummers, one banjo and even one musician who played a washboard! In July 1957 occurs fateful meeting– John meets Paul McCartney and invites him to the group. After some time, Paul brings in the third member of the future Beatles - George Harrison.
John's high school experience ended just as it had lasted - he failed his final exams. But, thanks to the help of the director, he managed to enter the Liverpool Art College.
In 1959, The Quarrymen transformed first into the Silver Beatles, and then into simply The Beatles.
At first, the popularity of the new group was local - they were moderately famous in Liverpool, and even in Hamburg, where they often came to give concerts.
In 1961, the group changed its manager (Brian Epstein became) and its image - leather jackets and swaggering behavior to suits, red ties and reserved manners. Perhaps this marketing ploy served as a detonator, perhaps something else, but the fame of The Beatles grew astronomically - if in 63 they were well known in Liverpool and the surrounding area, then in 1964 the whole world knew about them.
1964-66 – the time of the unconditional and undeniable leadership of The Beatles. They toured all over the world. At this time, John carelessly said that “Christianity is no longer the same, it is losing its position.” His words, slightly corrected, were replicated around the world. This led to angry letters and the disruption of concerts. John was threatened with death more than once.
Since 1967, Lennon begins to get involved in drugs, gradually moving away from other members of the group. The leadership, previously equally shared in the Lennon-McCartney pair, passes to Paul.
Relationships in the team have reached critical point in 1968 and the stumbling block was the contradictions between Paul and John. Last album The band's album was "Abbey Road", released in 1969. By the time of its release, John and Paul announced their departure from the group.
From 1968 to 72 John Lennon had a "political period". At this time, he and his wife Yoko Ono carried out various political actions, very ambiguous in form and content. Its main postulate was the denial of war. Since 1971, John and Ono moved to live in New York and received a residence permit there. Since then, Lennon has never visited England.
For some time, John continued to be involved in politics - in particular, the problem of assimilation of American Indians. In 1973, John was ordered to leave the United States. This led to a year-long separation from his wife and a creative crisis.
In 1975, Lennon's son Sean was born. After this, John announces the end of his career as a musician and that he will devote the next five years to raising his son. Despite his statement, in 1980 he released the album “Double Fantasy”, which was destined to be the last of his life.
On December 8, 1980, John Lennon was shot at point-blank range by Mark Chapman. Four out of five shots reached the target, and John, despite prompt hospitalization, could not be saved - he died from significant blood loss. His killer received a life sentence.

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The Beatles - forever! Bagir-zade Alexey Nuraddinovich

John Winston Lennon (1940 to 1956)

John Winston Lennon

(from 1940 to 1956)

John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940, at the very moment when Hitler's Luftwaffe bombs rained down on Liverpool. John's father, Fred Lennon, a merchant seaman, was away at war when his young wife Julia, frightened by the Nazi raid, gave birth to their first and only child. Soon Fred Lennon will part with his family, part with him, only to return many years later and ask for money from his once abandoned son, the “miracle millionaire.”

When the boy was five years old, his mother Julia remarried, and John was given to be raised by Aunt Mimi, Mary Smith, the eldest of Julia Stanley's four sisters.

Mimi and her husband George, a milkman, themselves childless, gladly accepted the boy into their family. In addition, Mimi believed that Julia was a flighty woman and not quite suitable for the role of a mother. “She didn’t take life seriously. I never told John about my father and mother. I wanted to keep him out of trouble. Perhaps I was wrong. But I wanted him to be happy."

John's school years were not marked great successes. The boy was one of the “difficult” children. No one could force him to do anything he didn't like. But he could do the work he liked all the time, until he brought everything to the end. Behaviorally, things were really bad. Already in the first years of his studies at a school called Dovedale, he became famous as a bully. Fights, hitting girls, riding trams without a “travel ticket”, etc. Mimi recalls: “One day I was walking along Pennylane (the street in the block where John and Paul McCartney lived, later sung by them in the song of the same name. - B. – Z) and saw a crowd of guys watching a fight between two boys. When they parted, I, to my horror, recognized John in one of the fighters.”

The school teachers did not like the boy. He was temporarily expelled from school several times. “I constantly annoyed the teachers by, for example, chewing chocolate during prayer, imitating the swimming instructor, and generally doing all sorts of tricks,” John recalled many years later.

Having entered Quarry Bank High School (a school on one of the outskirts of Liverpool) in 1952, John continued to behave defiantly. This happened because, as he later recalled, he wanted popularity: “I wanted to be a leader. It's much more attractive than being stuck up."

Indignation at everyone around him began to accumulate in John after his mother left him. And it intensified in teenage years. But there was another side to John - sensitivity, touchiness, dreaminess, impracticality, which balanced his temperament. And one of the first to notice this other side of John was new director school, who, unlike other teachers, did not consider the boy lost. He recommended John to enter the Liverpool College of Art.

It must be said that John had the gift of writing. Already at the age of seven, John wrote short stories and poetry. Mimi considered such an activity unnecessary and tried in every possible way to wean her nephew from it. “I often told my aunt, ‘You’re throwing away my poems, but you’ll regret it when I become famous,’” John recalled.

But Mimi kept throwing them away.

At school, Lennon was much happier drawing caricatures of teachers and writing funny poems than doing his homework.

John's great happiness was the arrival of his mother, who returned back into his life. John was already a teenager and found in Julia more of a friend than a mother.

Julia was a very cheerful woman who appreciated good joke. It was from her that John inherited his magnificent sense of caustic, caustic (especially in relation to injustice) humor.

Soon the boy became interested in music. At that time, it was very fashionable to play the harmonica. John was also not spared this hobby. All day long he could sing songs he heard on the radio, while playing along with himself on the harmonica given to him by Uncle George. This fierce passion of his is also evidenced by the fact that John received his first harmonica as a gift from a bus conductor, who noticed that John reacted very vividly to the melody played on the harmonica.

But, having once visited his mother (Julia lived separately from her son), John received a gift - the first guitar in his life and fell in love with it forever. Julia encouraged his passion. She played the banjo herself and showed John the few chords she knew. Aunt Mimi didn't like it. She dreamed that the boy would learn to play the violin or piano and become a serious musician. And so she said:

“The guitar is good, John, but you’ll never make a living from it.”

Mimi really didn't want John to repeat life path his loser father. But the boy did not seem to hear his aunt’s words. He was happy. After all, everything was going so well. Mother and son were together again...

At that time, almost all popular songs were created on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, but the British, while admiring American songs, were still restrained in their enthusiasm for them. Everything changed when Bill Haley, the leader of the Comets group, performed the song that immediately became famous song“Rock Around The Clock” (“Rock around the clock”), or, as it is also translated – “Rock – the clock has been knocked off its feet.” This happened on April 12, 1954.

It was Bill Haley - “a plump guy with a curl of hair on his forehead”, and also a little later Elvis Presley, an even more gifted singer who had, as they wrote then, “a genuine feeling for the blues”, who became the first heroes of English teenagers.

Each of the guys, even those who did not know how to play the guitar, picked it up. A real “guitar rock epidemic” has hit Liverpool. Hundreds of children gathered in numerous groups, then competing with each other at variety evenings that were held in the city every day. As they said then, each of the guys who held a guitar in their hands was literally “Rock Around The Clock”, that is, “knocked off their feet.”

John and his rhythm guitar get together with friends and organize music group"Quarriman."