John Winston Lennon (later John Winston Ono Lennon) is born on 9 October 1940 in Liverpool. His musical career is influenced by the double loss of his mother. After John’s father divorced, she was unable to raise him and Aunt Mimi took John in. Musically, John, like many of his peers, is captivated by skiffle music and at the age of 16, he forms his first band, the Quarrymen, together with Paul McCartney. At the age of fourteen, his mother reappeared in his life and they enjoy a happy time together until 15 July 1958, when she was killed by a drunk driver.
Later, Yoko Ono would play an important role in helping John process this trauma. Yoko Ono is an artist of Japanese origin who specializes in conceptual art. John met her on 9 November 1966 during an exhibition in London. After they got together, they did some experimental therapy called ‘primal scream’, which helped John express his grief over losing his mum.
Between 1968 and 1970, John and Yoko make three experimental studio albums: ‘Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins’, best known for its cover, ‘Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions’ and ‘Wedding Album’, released on John and Yoko’s wedding. During this period, their famous ‘Bed-ins’ took place in Amsterdam and Montreal, where the songs ‘Ballad of John and Yoko’ and ‘Give Peace a Chance’ were written, songs on which Paul McCartney also collaborated.
After the Beatles split up, his relationship with Paul McCartney is particularly strained for a long time. According to some, this was partly due to John’s fear of being abandoned. Nevertheless, both continued to have intense feelings for each other. Lennon summed this up in an interview shortly before his death: ‘Throughout my career, I’ve chosen to work with… only two people: Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono’.
Discography
- 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, posthumous)
Plastic Ono Band (1970)
Twelve years after the death of his mother Julia, Lennon finds solace in making his first post-Beatles debut album, Plastic Ono Band. It is an intense and somewhat inaccessible album, which received mixed reviews from critics. They did agree, however, that it was a statement that united John’s state of mind and musical qualities.
The first song is harrowing: Instead of a song it is more of a catharsis with an oppressive arrangement. John plays the piano, Ringo drums and Klaus Voormann plays the bass.
Lennon has always struggled with the authoritarian structure surrounding religion. This is expressed in the song ‘God‘. For Lennon, authority, especially religious authority, used to be source of resistance. The penultimate song on the album, ‘God’, has clever lyrics. Critics consider it one of the most profound artistic statements of his career. With gospel-like sounds in the background, he makes a statement, including the words: ‘I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe in Yoga, I don’t believe in Kings, I don’t believe in Elvis, I don’t believe in Zimmerman, I don’t believe in Beatles’.
In ‘I Found Out’, he gives a concise account of his ‘primal scream’ therapy. The song ‘Class Hero ‘ is of a different nature, namely an indictment of capitalism.
Imagine (1971)
Lennon’s second solo album Imagine (1971) is much more accessible than Plastic Ono Band and would become the best-selling album of his solo career. Three songs stand out: the Yoko Ono-inspired ‘Imagine’, a plea for a peaceful world; ‘guy’ , in which he links his condescending attitude towards women to his persistent feelings of insecurity. You can listen to the first song here.
‘How do you sleep’ is a sneer at an unfriendly lyric written by Paul McCartney about him and Yoko.
Some Time in New York City (1972)
This album is a collection of songs about civil and women’s rights (‘Woman is the nigger of the world’), race relations and the situation in Northern Ireland. The album was a commercial and artistic failure and was reviled by critics, who found the political slogans heavy-handed and relentless. Tony Tyler (New Musical) called Lennon a ‘pathetic, ageing revolutionary’. It was to be expected that the song ‘Woman ‘would lead to a lot of resistance, but also to approval from the women’s movement. The song was boycotted by several radio stations.
Temporary break with Yoko Ono
In 1973, Yoko Ono announces that she and John had grown apart. She arranges for her assistant May Pang and John to start a relationship. They liked each other and agreed to go ahead. The ‘couple of convenience’ settles in Los Angeles. John would later refer to this period as his ‘lost weekend’. Pang supported Lennon and for instance to combat his chronic alcoholism. She also encouraged him to reconnect with his son Julian, whom he had not seen for two years, and to restore contact with the other ex-Beatles.
Mind Games (1973)
The album Mind Games (1973) was released at a time when his relationship with Yoko Ono was coming to an end and John was under a lot of stress since the FBI was monitoring him because of his political activities. At the same time, John is distancing himself from his political activism of recent years. Writing lyrics for a new album supports him in doing this. In a sense, the album is a chronicle of his life. Melancholy prevails when it comes to his relationship with Yoko Ono, as in ‘Out of the Blue’, but the album also contains light-hearted and humorous songs, in which John sings about the growth of his life experience during the previous period. The song ‘Mind games’ is a musical statement from the Beatles era that repeats the mantras ‘make love and not war’ and ‘love is the answer’. You can listen to it here:
The album scored moderately well in the charts and received mixed reviews: “Lennon doesn’t know which way to go, so he tries everything” (Erlewine, AllMusic), “Misguided in underrating his audience’s intelligence” (Landau, Rolling Stone), “Step in the right direction” (Christgau, Cream Magazine).
Walls and Bridges (1974)
Walls and Bridges (1974) is about what separates and connects people. The recordings went smoothly, and John is surprised that he keeps going despite his (alcohol) problems. This album also features different styles and the songs are about both his divorce from Yoko and the new freedom that came with it. This is true, for example, of ‘‘Bless you’ , which Lennon considers as the best song on the album. He is also very pleased with ‘#9 Dream’, with May Pang singing along in the background. ‘‘Beef Jerky’ is one of Lennon’s rare instrumental songs. It is also a nod to Paul McCartney, who wrote ‘Let Me Roll It’ in Lennon’s style years earlier. A nice touch is that his son Julian plays drums on the last track.
The album reached No. 1 in the US and the hit singles ‘Whatever Gets You Through the Night’ and ‘#9 Dream’ also scored high. The former was Lennon’s first No. 1 hit as a solo artist in the US and the UK.
The reviews are mixed, but they were the best since Imagine: “A truly superb album by any standards,” “Words and music are a joy to hear” (Ray Coleman, Melodymaker), but also: “The album suffers from Lennon’s disorientation and lost conviction” (Christgau, The Village Voice).
During one of the recording sessions, Elton John dropped in and sang and played along with the song ‘Whatever Gets You Through the Night’. Then bet with John, that this song would be a number one hit. After this happened, Lennon made his appearance at Madison Square Garden during Elton John’s concert on Thanksgiving Day. Here you can listen to and see the recording of ‘Whatever Gets You Through the Night’, sung by Elton John and John Lennon, followed by ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ and ‘I Saw Her Standing There‘.
The end of the lost weekend
Elton John had arranged for Yoko Ono to be in the audience. After the show, John and Yoko got talking and their relationship blossomed again in the weeks that followed. On 9 October 1975, their son Sean was born. John puts his musical career on hold and became a househusband. Rock ‘n’ Roll (1975) would be his last album for the time being. On this album, Lennon sings rock ‘n’ roll songs from the 1950s and 1960s. The album sold well and received favourable reviews: “John lends dignity to these classics; his singing is tender, convincing and fond” (Rolling Stone album guide) and “A peak in (Lennon’s) post-Imagine catalogue” (AllMusic). Listen to ‘B-Bop-A-Lula’ here.
His relationship with May Pang ends abruptly; they met a few more times, but the intimacy was gone. Pang and Ono also lost contact. Pang has written two books about her relationship with John Lennon, and in 2022, the documentary “The Lost Weekend: A Love Story” premiered.
Double Fantasy (1980)
In 1980, John and Yoko decide to return to the studio. Lennon was inspired by Paul McCartney’s recent single “Coming Up” (1980). Critics slammed the resulting album Double Fantasy (1980), on which John and Yoko each sang a few songs, calling it a monstrosity: “Indulgent sterility… a godawful yawn” (Melody Maker). Three weeks after the album’s release, John Lennon was murdered outside his apartment in New York. Sales of the album skyrocketed and the critics suddenly became more lenient: “These are really nice tunes” (Erlewine). In 1982, Yoko and John were posthumously awarded a Grammy for what had become the album of the year.
Milk and honey (posthumous 1984)
After the completion of Double Fantasy, there were enough recordings left on the shelf and Yoko Ono wrote several new songs. The album seems unfinished, but critics nevertheless find it more balanced than its predecessor. Sales figures are good, but lag behind those of Double Fantasy. The song “Nobody Told Me” became a top 10 hit worldwide. Listen to it here:
What else did John do?
John and Yoko were politically active for many years and opposed the war in Vietnam, to the extent that John was on the verge of being deported from the US. During his years as a househusband, John created erotic lithographs. During an exhibition, some of these were confiscated; this turned out to be unjustified because the exhibition took place in a private gallery. Paul also writes books: ‘Skywriting’ is his third book of drawings, autobiographical stories and poems.
Looking back
During his years as a solo artist, John wrote a limited number of hit songs. Critics praised his highly personal lyrics in ‘Mother’ and ‘Working Class Hero’ (Plastic Onoband 1970), but these songs failed to appeal to the public. This was not the case with ‘Imagine’ and ‘Jealous guy’ (Imagine’1971), which are among his most highly acclaimed and highest-scoring songs. ‘Whatever Gets You Through the Night’ (Walls and Bridges, 1974) was the first and only single by John to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 during his solo career. The song ‘(Just Like) Starting Over’ (Double Fantasy, 1981) also rose to number one in the US and UK charts after his death. Finally, ‘Nobody told me’ also scored well.
Although the harvest is meagre, John Lennon still shows that he is a good singer and songwriter, even if none of these songs match what he wrote with Paul McCartney between 1966 and 1968, for whom the same applies. The best songwriting duo ever no longer existed, and we must accept that.
Sean Lennon
In 1998, at the age of 22, Sean Lennon released his first album, Into the Sun. It is lively and melodious music. You can listen to ‘Mystery Juice’ here:
Sales were mediocre and reviews were mixed; it didn’t get more than a condescending pat on the back. Worse still, he was mainly judged as the son of…
With that, Sean decides to take a break from making albums and starts producing music for other artists. He also accompanied his mother on her tours. An interesting detail is that Sean co-wrote a song by James McCartney, ‘Hill’ .
In 2006, he tried again with the album ‘Fire’ , which was also a moderate success. He promoted this album during a long tour, which was particularly well received in France. The music from this album was later used in the film of the same name. He then wrote music for a series of other films. His most recent album is ‘Asterisms’.
He is the founder of two bands. The first, together with his girlfriend, Charlotte Kemp Muhl: ‘The Ghost of a Sabre Tooth Tiger’ (2010). In 2014, the band produced a successful album entitled ‘Midnight Sun’, which Rolling Stone ranked among the 50 best albums of that year. Here is the title track.
Even more success followed when he teamed up with Les Claypool to form Claypool Lennon Delirium. Their debut album ‘Monolith of Phobos’ reached the top 3 of the Billboard charts. You can listen to the title trackhere. Their second album, ‘South of Reality’, followed in 2019. In both cases, you will detect little influence from the Beatles.
After a somewhat difficult start, Sean has gained great fame as a musician, producer, session musician and composer of film music. He is also politically active, including campaigns for a free Tibet, against shale gas extraction and in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Music: Listen, Look and Enjoy 