When John Lennon died on 8 December 1980, the world was a very different place to the one in which we live today. Examining happenings and people from a historical and alternative lens is important as we consider personal and public events in the past, those bygone times where our heroes created wonders and made mistakes intentionally or in error. Much has been written about viewing John Lennon through a more forgiving lens in favour of an instinctive knee jerk reaction, and you can read more of that here. The cash cow status Lennon, flawed character he was, and The Beatles enjoy means neither will get cancelled through the sharp focus of contemporary standards. That aside, there are essential human reasons why affection for him the man prevails, despite bad behaviours.It may not be an identical shared experience, but a firm square peg round hole connection is omnipresent and real.
Lennon grew to be an immensely wealthy man, and whilst it is true he was brought up in a very nice semi in a leafy Liverpool suburb with clean air replacing the poverty and grime of his inner city early boyhood, the ‘give me a child for 7 years and I will give you the man’ adage is rarely more true. The experience of being born in modest circumstances never leaves us, no matter the social status reached in adulthood. Add his mother’s death and absent biological father into the mix and we are not dealing with someone of privileged beginnings. The internal conflict of never being quite good enough or accepted socially cuts deep and cannot be salved away by a carpeted teenage bedroom of one’s very own with a poster of Brigitte Bardot on the wall. Neither does the luxury of attending art college or becoming a pop star and rock n roll innovator and legend.
Of the Beatles’ enthusiastic girl following during Merseybeat, the patriarchy will instruct us to think, silly girls screaming, unthinking, hoping to bag a Beatle for a boyfriend and ruining everything for the proper music men in the process, the ones who nod ponderously and rub their chins, deep in thought. The Beatles’ appeal to girls of the era is multi layered and those early songs capture perfectly what it was like to grow up and live in that section of the 1960s. The songs – and bands themselves – had an innocence to them by today’s standards, but additionally an awareness of freedoms to come. Lennon’s vocal contributed much and akin to now, girls were told to be sugar and spice and quiet and passive, only then the social pressure to conform was more intense. To have a rock n roll singer so close to home literally and conceptually, and who sung with heart on sleeve, raw even on the sweetest of songs must have been an incredibly emotional and overwhelming experience. How his voice cracks sometimes, is on a par with a face made beautiful due to a flaw. For an artist to reach out and connect in such a way is a rare and precious thing.
Lennon jokingly recalled going to the movies as a lad, seeing Elvis Presley performing to a delighted teenage girl audience and opining, ‘that looks like a good job’. Both he and Elvis went on to be amongst the most famous men ever, titans culturally and creativily to boot. Neither fitted comfortably in their old lives before fame and success, or indeed the strange new worlds they went on to inhabit. Elvis was on the butt end of jokes due to sexism – his fans from the start were young and female, therefore not credible – and the under discussed prejudice of classism. Mocked in embracing the loud and garish, the food he consumed, clothes he wore, the way he talked. His stubborn refusal to be anything but his authentic self was a trait shared with Lennon, along with supporting the less fortunate whilst unashamedly loving luxury. Lennon had an efficient air conditioning system in one of the rooms in the Dakota Building to keep Yoko Ono’s fur coats in tip top condition. He railed against inevitable consequences of capitalism but enjoyed its rewards. Some may view this as hypocrisy, whilst a broader mind accepts humans are multi-dimensional and complex, and innovators existing in a quickly changing world made so partly due to their creativity and presence live in an alien land far away from normality.
As Lennon drew his final breath in New York 42 years ago today, who knows if he and Yoko had already put their decorations up. My parents’ plastic tree – reused each year, thereby recycling before it got trendy – here on this side of the globe lay still wrapped in a bin bag in the attic, due to stay put for a good couple of weeks yet. This small snapshot of North West working class English life past seems as joyless as a chapter in ‘Kes’ or a grim kitchen sink drama on the surface, but is a memory escape from the pressure and panic of the naked consumerism around us. On this year’s anniversary, Christmas shopping hysteria is wildly afire and will burn furiously until bank accounts are drained by panic buying of the shiny.
Marking John Lennon’s death each December feels important. We’re increasingly fed the myth each year that this month is full-on jollification, and any deviation from that insistence is just not on – and plain unsociable. It’s all levels of sad our John’s not been here for over four decades, unable to make more music for us to nod over and say yes, he is ours. His spiky humour is much missed. The festive period being a challenging experience for many, the anniversary, bizarrely, gives time to pause, breathe and think. A confirmation that there are different types of normal on the run up to and during Christmas. A blink of reality and kinship, the knowledge that sober reflections in amongst the tinsel is acceptable. In fact, it’s absolutely ok. And a bloody good thing.
