Being John Lennon (Book Review)

I recently brought a very nice hardback book, to go along with over 100 others I currently have in my collection. And I have to admit, I haven’t read more then 20 of them probably! 

(Photo from google image search) 

Some of them I haven’t even opened. And of course as a fan of the Beatles more the literature, I just go by what book has the coolest cover! At the start of the year I had just finished reading a book about Lennon that was, to say the least muddled and not well written, I gave up after about 5 chapters. 

(photo from google image search) 

Going into every detail at times when it wasn’t needed, then simply brushing over major points in Lennon’s life, the book was not my favourite that I have read. So I went on amazon and brought myself the book titled “Being John Lennon” and as a wanna be tribute artist jumped out at me! 

(photo from google image search) 

And the cover artwork was cool to! So I ordered it. When it came a few days later, I started reading it right away, and from the first pages I was hooked. After a dedicated ‘for plum’, the ‘author’s note’ takes up 3 pages. That’s followed by the forward for another 3, before chapter one is on the following page. The first chapter is titled ‘I forgot about my father’ and that’s followed by 63 other chapters. Taking in johns entire life, it really is a great insight into Lennon. 

(photo from google images) 

It’s not a book that is set out to depict Lennon as the evil drug taking wife beater and cheat some books are. But it also does not set out to make Lennon seem like the gold plated saint that he never was. It’s a very real book written in a very relaxed but informed way, that is easy to read and enjoy for all Lennon fans! Informative and interesting, it is probably one of the best books I have ever read! The book is written by Ray Connolly, who also wrote the best selling book ‘Being Elvis’.

If you want a book that gives you all the fact in an entertaining and well written book, this is probably the best you will get! I’d fully recommend this book to anyone, from ‘die hard’ Lennon nuts, to general 60’s music lovers.

RATED: FIVE STARS 

The John Lennon Peace Statue

The statue is created by Laura Lian, Laura Lian is a professional artist specialising in sculpture. 

(photo from Laura Lian) 

She was originally inspired to create the John Lennon Peace Statue project to help spread John and Yoko’s message of peace and love to the world. 

(photo from Laura Lian)

Micheal Eavis (CBE and creator of the Glastonbury Festival) is supporting the project and has been to see the statue as it has been created. The statue will start a tour at Glastonbury festival in June  2019, and the statue will be shown in front of the CND tent.

(photo from Laura Lian)

The statue is nearing completion, but needs more financial backing from the public to see it come to life, there will be a link at the bottom of this article to the fundraising page. 

(photo from Laura Lian)

In recognition of any UK donations made for over £35, a "postcard" of John Lennon in profile will be sent to to you, and that price even Includes postage! And In recognition of any donations made for over £65 from outside the UK, the same "postcard" will be sent to you. 

(photo from Laura Lian)

The Limited Editions of the ceramic Postcards will be produced in batches of 20. Each one is marked with the Batch number and Edition number and is signed by the artist, Laura Lian, and 10% after costs will go to WAR CHILD charity. 

(photo from Laura Lian)

Each Postcard is hand finished and hand painted in a bronze effect and is 13cm x 10 cm in size. Please ensure you send your name and address to laura@lauralian.co.uk to enable her to send this to you.

You can find out more and contribute to the Lennon statue’s journey at their Facebook, Twitter and my Website.

(photo from Laura Lian)

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/johnlennonpeacestatuetravels

https://twitter.com/LauraLianArtist

https://www.facebook.com/LauraLianArtist

https://www.instagram.com/laura_lian_/

http://www.lauralian.co.uk/

John at Kenwood

Kenwood is a house on the St. George's Hill estate, in Weybridge, Surrey, That John Lennon purchased in 1964. It was originally called the Brown House, and built in 1913. When John bought Kenwood on 15th July, he paid £20,000 (that’s just under £400,000 in today’s money) and along with his wife Cynthia and son Julian he moved in that summer.

(photo from google image search)

The private estate that the house was built on was also home to other music stars like Tom Jones and Cliff Richard, and not long after John moving in, Ringo and George also moved in close by.

(photo from google image search) 

Lennon spent £40,000 on renovating the house, a house he said he didn’t particularly like, thinking of it as more a stop over till a better house came up that he liked more. 

(photos from google image search)

He reduced the 22 rooms in the house into 17, he had the grounds landscaped along with an outdoor swimming pool, the swimming pool was originally meant to have an expensive mirror bottom to it,  but John finally decided on a mosaic eye on the bottom of the pool!

(Photo from google image search) 

Finally a heavy sliding wooden gate was fitted to keep the fans out. In the entrance hall Lennon had a suit of armour and a gorilla suit. In the living room was two 18 foot long sofas. And then there was the famous sun room, covered with curios, paintings, caricatures and stickers. The sofa in the sun room was a present from his Aunt Mimi, and he spent a lot of his time laying out on it. 

(photo from google image search)

And that was only some of the rooms on the ground floor, there were two other floors to explore in Lennon’s new home. As well as a massive master bedroom, there were 5 other bedrooms. In the guest  bedroom hung artwork by old band mate and friend Stuart Sutcliffe.

(photo from goole image search) 

The top floor of the house was ‘Lennon’s’ painting it in a bright colour, only to run out of paint before he finished, so he simply continued painting the rest of the room in a different colour. The join between the two was hardly flawless. He installed lots of musical equipment on this floor, for making his own demos for music.

(photos from google image search) 

It was here that John and Yoko made their unfinished music album ‘two virgins’ just before they made love for the first time together. In another room in the attic John filled with three full sets of the model car racing game, Scalextric. 

(Photo from google image search) 

John has 10 cats while at Kenwood and he would the grounds with one of them sitting on his shoulder. It was in the sunroom of Kenwood where (returning from a holiday) Cynthia walked in on John and Yoko in bath robes acting as if they were a married couple. This event signalled the end end of Cynthia and John’s marriage.

(photo from google image search) 

Tittenhurst Park

“A working class hero is something to be” and it might well be. But John was not working class, and more so I don’t believe he ever wanted to be. This is a man who was being driven around his ascot mansion in a Rolls Royce. 

(photo from google image search) 

John’s home from the summer of 1969 till the early 70’s was Tittenhurst Park. A Grade II listed early Georgian country house that was set in its own 72 acres estate. 

(photo from google image search)

It was at this house that John would film and record his most famous album and movie ‘imagine’. The house was bought in May 69 by John and his new wife Yoko for £145,000, (although some say it was £150,000) a price that was large then but now, for such a large piece of property seems amazing value for money. 

(photo from google image search)

From the minute the beatle moved in he wanted things changed. The ground floor was converted into one giant open plan space, nearly completely white. And he built his own studio on the estate also so he would no longer have to always go into London to record at Abbey Road studios either. They also, without permission, had a lake illegally dug out and filled with water at the park, making a small island in the middle to put a summer house on.

(photo from google image search) 

Small boats were purchased to row around and the lake filled with fish, however they all died as the lining that was used in the construction of the lake was actually killing the fish. In 1970 John’s famous white piano was delivered and placed in a room to the front of the house, known as the white room. 

(photo from google image search)

The room large nearly floor to ceiling windows were covered by white wooden shutters. This is the room where the music video for ‘imagine’ was filmed. The gardens of the the estate, were open to the public before The Lebanon’s had moved in, showing off its many rare trees and parkland. 

(photo from google image search) 

A grand house befitting someone with a title more then someone who had been a rebellious teen from Liverpool, it was here that The Beatles had their very last photo shoot as band before John left in late 69. 

(photo from google image search)

When John and Yoko left the grand white mansion to move to America he sold it to Ringo Starr, who went on to have more music videos shot there! And no doubt he made good use of ‘the ascot sound studios’ that John had built there.

John Lennon and Religion

If you’re someone who speaks their mind in every day life, at some point or another you are going to meet someone who doesn’t agree with you views. But for most, that is as far as it goes. However, if your one of the most famous men in the world, and it’s suddenly put all over the news that you are comparing your own musical band to a religious figure such as Jesus Christ, it doesn’t go away quite so quickly! It was this comment that made him one of the most controversial figures in music and popular culture. 

(Photo from google image search) 

During an interview that was publish (with little interest taken in England) in 1966, John was asked about religion, his answer would go down in history.  “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I'll be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first – rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.” It was just a comment to a journalist friend, while in his own home, he could never have known what effect it would have on him! The comment was first published in March 1966 in the Evening Standard news paper.

(photo from google image search)

But it wasn’t until Datebook (a US teen magazine) quoted Lennon's comments later that July, that protests broke out across the US, and things became very intense especially throughout the Bible Belt. 

Threats were being fired at the Beatles from every direction, even the Ku Klux Klan got involved against the Fab Four. There were public fires at parks, burning Beatles records and memorabilia. The Beatles upcoming tour was being cancels for their own safety was even discussed, but when Brian found out how much it would cost to do so, they decided to go ahead. Brian Epstein and John Lennon had to do something, the future of the Beatles was unsure, and the safety of them all in the upcoming tour was also extremely unsure. In one press conference lennon said “if I had said television was more popular than Jesus, I might have got away with it.” 

(photo from google image search) 

Lennon was a man who never showed his true emotion, let alone cry, yet before he went into the press conferences he nearly did just that. He must have thought he had screwed everything up. Everything he had been working for for nearly 9 years! And it did come very very close to that. Half of America wanted and waiting for the Beatles to return on tour. The other half wanted to either boycott the shows or disrupt and stop them. Leaving many tickets unsold. Some radio stations even stopped playing their music on their shows. When John was asked to apologise, he did so, but in a rather backhanded way, what perhaps didn’t help matters much. “If you want me to apologize, if that will make you happy, then okay, I’m sorry.” John said at the press conference. “I used the word Beatles as remote thing, not as what I think, Beatles as though those other Beatles, like other people see us. I just say they are having more influence on kids and things then anything else, including Jesus.

(photo from google image search) 

But I said it in that way, which was the wrong was, yap, yap.” He went on to say “I wasn’t knocking it, or putting it down. I was just saying it as a fact.” “I’m not saying we are better or greater then Jesus Christ as a person, or god as a thing, or whatever it is. I just said what I said and it was wrong, or it was taken wrong and now it’s all this.” John obviously didn’t mean for all of this to happen, but it the idea that he was putting himself on the same level as a modern day Jesus Christ in his own head might have possibly been there. Possibly. He went on to sing about God in a number of songs. 

(photo from google image search) 

‘God’ is a Lennon song from the plastic Ono band album! The song lists all the things he doesn’t believe in, from Indian gods, pop stars, Jesus and even Beatles. 

But the song starts with the line “god is a concept, in which we measure our pain” 

(photo from google image search)

“Help me to help myself” 

Is a John Lennon song from the late 70’s recorded as a demo. This song also mentioned God with the line “they say the lord, helps those, who help themselves.” 

(photo from google images)

And one of the most controversial was probably ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko’, a beatle song where John sung and played acoustic guitar and lead guitar, with his newly scribbled on Epiphone acoustic guitar, and his Epiphone Casino electric guitar. While Paul plays the bass and drums on the track. Several times during the song he tells the listen “CHRIST you know it ain't easy

You know how hard it can be

The way things are going

They're going to CRUCIFY me” 

(photo from google image search) 

Religion was always around John, as a small boy he was in a local church choir group, it was basically his first ever singing gig. But he was dismissed after he stoles fruit from the church at the harvest festival. Even right till the end religion still played a part, when in the 70’s he was tempted to give religion a stronger go after watching TV preachers from the set he had in his bedroom in New York. Even his sketches of him and Yoko sometimes had a religious tint to them, appearing that he seemed think of him and Yoko as a modern day avent-guard Adam and Eve.

('The Comment' a painting of John Lennon By Jay Kelly)

It is even rumoured that John had sometimes while under the influence of drugs such as LSD that he thought he was some sort of god himself. Apparently he even told a close friend “sometimes I think I’m a loser, sometimes I think I’m god almighty” In the late 60's while tripping, John even called a meeting with his fellow beatles to announce he was actually Jesus Christ. 

Julian Lennon

John Charles Julian Lennon, known more commonly as Julian or Jules,  is the first son of John Lennon, born on April 8th 1963, just as Beatlemania had kicked off in Britain. His mother is Cynthia Lennon, John’s first wife, who he later left to be with Yoko Ono. He was named after John’s late mother Julia. Even though in the days leading up to the birth, John had called Cynthia on the phone regularly, he was not at the birth, nor was anyone else. “Having fathers present for the birth just wasn't the custom then. The person I wanted was my mum, but she was still in Canada, so I had to go through the birth alone.” Cynthia wrote in her book about her life with John. Cynthia gave birth to Jules during the early morning after more then 24 hours in labour, feeling extremely tired and sick. A midwife had to tell her that if she didn’t push harder that both her and the baby would die. 

(John and Julian, photo from google image search) 

When Jules entered the world he arrived with the cord round his neck and yellow with jaundice, so the midwife quickly took him away from her, but he was soon reunited with his mother. The Beatles were touring while Cynthia was in labour, meaning John Lennon didn't get to see his son until 11th April. On this date he visited Liverpool's Sefton General Hospital to see his wife and get his first look at his new baby boy. Cynthia told of them event “He came in like a whirlwind, racing through the doors in his haste to find us. He kissed me, then looked at his son, who was in my arms. There were tears in his eyes: "Cyn, he's bloody marvellous! He's fantastic." 

(photo from google image search)

He sat on the bed and I put the baby into his arms. He held each tiny hand, marvelling at the miniature fingers, and a big smile spread over his face. "Who's going to be a famous little rocker like his dad, then?" He said.” By this point Cynthia had been moved to a private room, on the wishes on Lennon. The room however was not as private as expected. The window in the room soon be come crowders with people peeping in on the Lennon’s and their new born. “The room felt like a goldfish bowl and it was obvious John couldn't stay long. He hugged me and signed dozens of autographs on his way out. I was disappointed that we'd had so little time together: he had to go straight back to the tour and wouldn't be home again for a week or so.” The room became filled with cards and flowers, and one of the gifts of flowers came from Julian’s godfather, Brian Epstein. Once John finished the tour he returned to his wife and child, although not for long. Just three weeks after the birth, at a time when most fathers and mothers would be proud of their new baby, looking after them, changing them and tending to their every need, John decided to go on holiday with Brian to Spain. A trip that would cause rumours of a homosexual relationship. Over the next few years as The Beatles toured the world and became the biggest thing in popular music John’s relationship with his son was strained.  Spending little time with him John and Julian would miss out on a lot of bonding time. 

(photo from google image search) 

Like his father, Julian liked to draw and paint, and it was one of his paintings that inspired John to write ‘Lucy in the sky with diamond.’ Julian also was the main influence behind Beatles songs ‘goodnight’ and ‘hey jude.’ 

When John left Cynthia to start a relationship with Yoko Ono, it was like history repeating itself. John’s father had very rarely been around for him either, and on the few occasions they did talk, once John was an adult, it was strained and uncomfortable. When soon after, John and Yoko started their bid for world peace, it seemed to Julian as though his father was a hypocrite. 

(photo from google image search)

Here was a man talking night and day about peace and love, on every news program and every paper, yet he couldn’t give the love to his son that he so needed at this time. “I've never really wanted to know the truth about how dad was with me. There was some very negative stuff talked about me ... like when he said I'd come out of a whisky bottle on a Saturday night. Stuff like that. You think, where's the love in that? Paul and I used to hang about quite a bit ... more than Dad and I did. We had a great friendship going and there seems to be far more pictures of me and Paul playing together at that age than there are pictures of me and my dad” Julian said about the matter. "Dad could talk about peace and love out loud to the world but he could never show it to the people who supposedly meant the most to him: his wife and son. How can you talk about peace and love and have a family in bits and pieces—no communication, adultery, divorce? You can't do it, not if you're being true and honest with yourself." 

(photo from google image search) 

Their on and off relationship didn’t improve much over the next few years. In fact it wasn’t until the mid 70’s that John and Julian’s relationship began to improve a bit. During John’s lost weekend, with girlfriend May Pang he and Julian saw more of each other. And it was these mementoes that Julian would look back on fondly, “Dad and I got on a great deal better then. We had a lot of fun, laughed a lot and had a great time in general when he was with May Pang. My memories of that time with Dad and May are very clear — they were the happiest time I can remember with them.” History would soon after repeat itself again, just when Julian was getting on more with his famous father, their relationship was put to an abrupt end at the hands or a crazed fan, who killed Lennon outside his house in 1980. 

(photo from google image search) 

Just like when John was a boy, when he had got a closer bond with his mother, she too died after being hit by a car after leaving Aunt Mini’s house.  Julian traveled to visit Yoko as soon as he found out what happened. In the following years, Julian and John’s other son Sean would become close, with Julian teaching him how to play guitar. Julian went on to be a singer song writer and follow in his fathers footsteps.

John on Heroin

As 1969 came around the beatles relationships with each other was becoming more and more strained. There were many factors to The Beatles breaking up, Yoko of course being blamed by many fans as the main reason. This however if far from true, even though her constant presence in the studio had not been appreciated by the other members of the band. Paul McCartney, was very much in the driving seat, trying to keep the band together, and in trying to do so his suggestions and attempt at leadership seemed very controlling to the rest of the band. George Harrison was feeling left out, and not appreciated, as he bloomed into a very promising song writer, her believed that the partnership of Lennon and McCartney would never let him fulfill his talents. with albums still being mainly Lennon or McCartney songs. And of course by 1969 Ringo Starr had already left the group, and then returned shorty afterwards. 

(photo from, meet the beatles for real blog) 

But one of the biggest factors was that of hard drugs, and mainly Lennon’s addiction, what made him distant to the rest of the group. Even though all the members or the groups were regular users of a selection of drugs for many years, 1968 and into 1969 would bring much more dangerous  drugs into the beatles world, starting with Paul McCartney and his dalliance with cocaine, but it was Lennon’s next addiction that was one of the final nails in The Beatles coffin. Yoko Ono would joke that during the ‘let it be’ sessions, that her and John’s own form of exercise was taking Heroin, a fact that the other beatles knew. “this was a fairly big shocker for us because we all thought we were far-out boys, but we kind of understood that we’d never get quite that far out!” Paul McCartney said about Lennon’s use of the drug. 

(photo from google image search) 

In 1968 John Lennon’s house had been raided in a drugs bust, and he believe it contributed to the miscarriage of his and yoke’s unborn child. It was after this event that, he said, that  he and Yoko were in a lot of mental pain, and paired with the fact that none of the rest of the band had accepted Yoko, turned them to start snorting heroin. John blamed this choice he made all by himself, on the opinions of the other beatles and those around him, pushing him into doing it. However it it believed that he had starting sniffing the drug some time before this, and that he had been dabbling in it during his whole relationship with Yoko. 

(photo from google image search) 

It was during 1969 that Lennon went from dabbling to a full on junky, and it became a problem, he just had to have it. A man who already had and would still in the future suffer with addictions to many things, he was possible about to endure his most dangerous one of all. His behavior was all over the place, while being interviewed during early 69, he appeared stoned, his voice deep, and his manners sleepy, before he asked to stop for a minute because he didn’t feel to well. Not long after he crashed his car in Scotland while on holiday with his son Julian, Yoko, and her daughter. Once they were given the all clear at hospital he and Yoko would return to Abbey Road Studio with a bed (that he is said to have brought from Harrods) for Yoko to sleep on while he was busy recording the Abbey Road album. So now the band had a sleeping Yoko to contend with as well as a Heroin addicted Lennon. He suffered mood swings and ups and downs in his behavior at the studios. 

(photo from google images) 

Until this point, the beatles did very little drugs in the actual studio, but now Yoko and John had to get their fix wherever they were. But once The Beatles had finished the album (what would turn out to be their last) Lennon and Ono made up their mind to quite the drug. They could have gone to a hospital to get clean in a safe and controlled environment, but they instead decided to go cold turkey. It was this experience that John would later tell of in a solo song also named ‘Cold Turkey.’ To find out exactly what John went through during his attempt to kick the habit, you only need to hear the lyrics of the song, as he describes himself “Rolling in pain” as the drugs got out his system for the first time in months. It took him a few attempts to actually overcome this addiction, But as most things in his life, it was quickly replaced with another drug. 

(photo from google images) 

It is  said that he was still on this drug during the ‘live in Toronto’ concert along with Eric Clapton who was also there at the time. But was this drug addiction the straw that broke the camels back, in the case of the beatles break up…. Probably not, no one thing was, it was just a mixture of 101 things, that just brought the end of the biggest group in history. It is believed that John would still dabble in the drug in later years, during the time he was said to be at home being a ’house husband’ and ‘baking bread.’ 

Lennon's invisible wall

A cocky, loudmouth rocker, a self confident front man. The face of a generation, and one half of the 60’s leading song writing team. Lennon was often seen as the witty beatle, the one that had an answer for everything, be it sensible or not. And in later years he became the political beatle, but what if the womanising, drug taking, and sarcasm wasn’t the real John Lennon. What if it wasn’t even close! Ever since a teenager John had put up a wall around his emotion, to keep the outside out and himself in. Maybe it went back even before then, maybe the events that happened between His Mother and Father at Blackpool back when he was very young was the first thing to trigger this. Maybe that day when his he was made to choose who he wanted to stay with, his mum or dad, was the day that he started to build a wall around him that would never be knocked down.

(photo from google image search) 

He drunk and smoked from a young age, caused trouble in school and got up to no good. He portrayed the typical rebellious teen, and when skiffle and rock and roll music entered his life he had something else to hide behind. He dreamed of being rich and famous, owning a big house, being the British Elvis, and although to him it might have seemed like it took a lot of hard work, his goals came into sight much faster then he anyone expected. He (along with the other Beatles) did put in a lot of hard work of course, from shows with hardly any audience, to teddy boys wanting to beat him up after shows, from rat infested Hamburg to sweaty cellar clubs, but soon he would be living the highlife. 

(photo from google image search) 

Drugs, Sex, recognition, praise, fame and fortune all was laid at his feet, yet now he had it, it wasn’t all what he thought it would be. All the things money could by and the trappings that came with it, didn’t fill the holes that were left from his childhood like he might have believed it would. Behind a pair of black wayfarer style sunglasses, was the little boy crying for him mother not to go and him daddy to come home. The screaming fans wetting themselves and fainting at the sheer sight of him coming on stage quickly lost its appeal, he became frustrated and angry that he couldn’t hear himself play, he would even stop playing mid song during some shows, and no one would even notice. On top of that he had to constantly hide the fact he felt like a sell out, faking who he really was for fame. 

(photo from google image search) 

His dream of being a tough rock and roller had disappeared as his style turned into the suited and booted clean cut mop top image that everyone would know in the ‘beatlemania’ touring years, that Brian Epstein had insisted on! Life in the world of a beatle, was life on a merry-go-round, and John wanted to get off as soon as he could, years of dreaming ending in disappointment when he lived his dream.

(photo from google image search) 

His touring career became more and more of a task that he really didn’t want to do, but his home life wasn’t much better, he wasn’t (as he openly admired) close to his son, and his wife to Cynthia was on the rocks, although he had never been faithful to her from the very start, he had always come back to her, but now he no longer wanted to be married to her. He tried to find his escape in the trippy world of an acid addiction, taking hundreds of trips.

(photo from google image search) 

During the Beatles concerts John might have complained about not being able to hear himself, but in the studio he complained that he could. He hated the sound of his own voice, asking George Martin to put whatever he could on it to make it sound better. Most of his songs have slap back and reverb on the vocals. During the Beatles touring years he got annoyed when people with disabilities were wheeled in to see him backstage. They were showed with gifts, and press photos of themselves that were to be run in local news papers.

  

(photos from goole image search) 

 While in a hotel on tour in 1966, he is photographed looking at photos of himself with the other three members of the Beatles, and in his hand is a pen. He scribbled all over his own face, as if trying to remove it from the picture. John’s insecurities would come up over and over again through his life, even after the Beatles years were long over and he was living in New York he was still insecure, most of those insecurities coming to a head and manifesting itself in outlandish drunk behaviour during his lost weekend.

(photo from google image search)

Insecurity and doubt would be a major part of Lennon’s life, and hiding it all behind a front would be even more a part of the very complex man.