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.

Art inspires Art

Before John Lennon was a world famous singer song writer he was an art student. Maybe he wasn’t the portrait artist or fine artist that most of the other student could brag to be, but he had his own unique and sometimes disturbing art style, drawing deformities and hunch backs. His small scribble like drawings would define him as an artist, and become instantly recognisable as his style. Years on his art and his music still inspires many people. As it did me. 

(Pop Art by Jay Kelly)

Like John I enjoyed drawing from a very young age, and at the same age as John I too went to art college. The degree I was going for was in cartooning at the time, a style that I wasn’t completely comfortable with, I simply chose it because it was the only one that took in book illustrating. Within the next couple of years I’d decide to try my hand at portraiture, something I wasn’t very good at. For many years I had draw caricatures, and i found it hard to turn what I had learned into creating realistic faces. 

(Pop Art by Jay Kelly)

Being a massive Beatles fan, of course they were my first choice to draw and Always had been for many years by this point. Slowly I improved, but for me I didn’t improve enough, never being truly happy with the art I was creating. I started with using basic HB pencils and quickly move on to using artist sketching and finishing pens. Using the ink pens gave it a better more (in my opinion) finished look. Little details were still lacking, I wanted to bring art to life but was struggling to do so. 

(Digital Painting by Jay Kelly) 

After many years of trying I brought my first art creating software, and soon discovered I couldn’t draw well on it and quickly went back to hand drawing my art. It was around this time that I found out I could edit my art on the software to blend the colours more evenly and make the lines more crisp. Somewhere around this time I started trying to dabble in pop art style prints using the software and it over took my time I spent drawing by hand. When the new pop art became more popular, I moved on to doing it full time! I posted my new creations on social media and they were getting more attention then what I had previously been doing. 

(Digital Paintings by Jay Kelly)

I could created artistic scenes and it seemed to bring the art to life more, but I still wanted to be able to paint or at least draw as well as doing a large amount of graphic design and pop art. I created new ways of editing the pop art and making more edgy designs, always trying to perfect my style along side still trying to learn to paint portraits, I was very slowly getting there, but still to slowly for my liking. It was during the spring of 2017 when I was working on some artwork for a Liverpool event to mark the Beatles Sgt Pepper album’s 50th anniversary, and a couple of other illustration and design jobs, that I came across a new way to draw on my software. 

(Digital Painting by Jay Kelly) 

The new idea was, not 100% successful, but with a lot of hard work and trial and error I believe it would make a great new style of portrait painting. It was at this stage I had to take some time off from digital art for a while due to health reasons. During this break that lasted for nearly 6 months, I had a lot of time to think, to work out how to perfect the style of art I had been trying to master for more of my teenage years. While I wasn’t able to create digital art in this time I dabbled in cartoon sculptures. 

(Digital Painitng by Jay Kelly) 

When sculpting I used to measure the head as I went to make sure the proportions were not to out, it was by doing this I had an idea, a way to bring my drawings to life and make them as good as they can be! Once back working with my software I had this new idea and I was ready to go, I used measuring and dotting to map out the face, and this is how I do the work I do now.

~Artist and Beatles fan Jay Kelly 

Lennon's Home Movies

John Lennon was not only a singer and song writer, he was also into making home movies and art films. There are possibly hundreds of hours of footage laying around just waiting to be cleaned up and put out for future projects that Yoko might come up with. Some of the home movies have been made public and were actually made into films, such as the home movies that were filmed during the bed in for peace and the massive home movie of ‘imagine.’ Everything was filmed at one point, from recording sessions, to eating breakfast, he was filmed buying a summer house to put on his own man made Island (he had created a man made island in the middle of a lake at his ascot home) and he was even filmed using the bathroom! Some of the filming that was done all around the world was put into the films I mentioned earlier, but a lot of it has never been seen. 

(photo from google images)

Filming would continue in his life right up until the end, recording promotional videos for the album ‘double fantasy’ the videos included John Lip syncing to ‘im losing you’ in the studio. Another of the videos shows him and Yoko walking in Central Park, where he is wearing a very thick padded silver, fur collared jacket. And another video showed John and Yoko making love in white bed, in a white room, with John putting one of his iconic beatle boots on a plinth while undressing. In 1969 John and Yoko made a film, lasting just over an hour titled ‘Rape.’ The movie was from the point of view of the main female character, while she is followed by the camera man. 

(photo from google images)

On 10th Sep 1969 the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London hosted the premières of two films by John and Yoko, the two films were ‘Self-Portrait’ and ‘Mr & Mrs Lennon's Honeymoon.’ Three other (earlier filmed) films were also shown at the event, including Rape, Smile and Two Virgins. Yoko and John made a film called ‘erection’ what was a speeded up stop animation style film or a building being built. However the title of this movie might be mistaken for the film ‘self portrait’ film. The movie was not one of John drawing one of his cartoon faces of himself, oh no, it was much more fitting to the name ‘erection.’ During the 42 minute long film a camera in close view to a naked John Lennon captures the Beatle, slowly achieving an erection. A film that most female Beatles fans from a few years ago would have killed to see, was however probably one of the longest 45 minutes that most film critics ever have had to endure. 

(photo from google images) 

The other movie shown (Mr & Mrs Lennon's Honeymoon) was what now is shown as the bed in for peace film that does the rounds every year around Johns birthday (usually on The sky satellite channel SkyArts) During the film event two people sat in a white bag beneath the screen at the ICA throughout the evening, leading many to believe the couple was actually present. John videoed a lot of his life with Yoko, and he even filmed himself playing guitar, a practice that many youtubers still do today! This one video where John is playing for the camera became one of the best known home videos to resurface mainly because of the conspiracy theory that was built up around it. It was said that the video was proof they Lennon was alive and never died in 1980, with some people even saying that it was filmed on a webcam. Of course this is false but it drew a lot of attention to Lennon’s home videos.

Lennon In Egypt

For years John had been interested in the all kinds of fads, from meditation in India, to numerology (thanks mainly to Yoko Ono.) John would go head first into new fads and fascinations nearly yearly. Far to many then to put into one post. 

In the late 70’s his attention, along with Yoko would turn to the ancient Egyptians as their latest fad. 

(photo from google images) 

In January 1977 an exotic far away  adventure was arranged by Yoko, Sam Green had learned from someone he knew, about a archeological dig being conducted in Egypt to unearth an ancient temple. The project, however, needed funding to complete the excavation, and as soon as Green told of this news to Yoko, she wasted no time in sending the money to Cairo as fast as she could and soon began planning a visit to the site with her husband, who had at the time put himself into a sort of self hibernation. Lennon was also very excited by the prospect of an the hunt for ancient artifacts, and he couldn’t wait to get on the plane and get on his way to the land of the pharaohs. John soon was departing for Cairo, a while also stopping in Geneva for a week. His recent boredom seemed to be lifted by this new exciting adventure he was about to go on! 

(Photo from, meet the beatles for real, blog) 

John quickly filled his sketchbook, drawing cartoons of Egyptian deserts dotted with camels and Bedouins. He go a new wardrobe of clothes for the journey, he got himself a new passport photo, and changed his hairstyle. He was in full swing, he wanted everything to go well on the trip. During his life John would often want to uncover items from the past, once he even nearly went into a short lived quest to find the ‘spear of destiny.’ Meanwhile Yoko and Sam Green were finalising the details of a complicated plan to sidestep the Egyptian authorities. At the time most of Egypt’s ancient national treasures were in demand by international art dealers, Egypt’s government instituted safeguards to protect these sacred treasures and would stop at nothing to try and keep them from being taken and sold on. John being the ever drug loving rocker, was happy to find out as well as pass ports, new clothes and other normal holiday items, an amount of quite potent marijuana would be coming with them on their trip! 

(photo from google images) 

Arriving in Cairo, the Lennons checked into their hotel of choice, the Nile Hilton. When they arrived John when and took a nap before he went into the city to buy another wardrobe for the excavation. An excited and happy John spent his first night exploring one of the seven wonders of the world, the great Cheops Pyramid, built by Pharaoh Khufu, built in around 2680 B.C. He then took in the nightly Giza light-show extravaganza, a commercial tourist attraction he enjoyed thoroughly. He was for the first time in a long while out of his shell and out of the Dekota enjoying life.

The following day Lennon was full and refreshed. John was always interested in history and  he got his fill of it here, he toured the pyramid at Saqqara, which he found even more fascinating than the sites he saw the night before. he was like a kid at Christmas exploring the underground chambers, he ran his hands across the hieroglyphics and studied the ancient artwork that filled the stone walls. It is said that he even came across an open sarcophagus. 

(photo from google images)

John was somewhat obsessed with death in some ways, maybe because he had (as he would often comment) experienced so much death in his life, losing people around him. The somewhat still childish part of Lennon was unable to resist the temptation ripping of a scrap of material as a special souvenir. It was an action he would later wonder if it had been a good idea or not, he worried that the action had made him incurred the mummy’s curse. He was worried enough to even call for a meeting with a mystic who sometimes worked for Yoko, to get himself checked. While Lennon was exploring Egypt he did so alone, Yoko was arranging a visit to the excavation that was currently using their money. 

The more she wanted to see the sight the more Green didn’t want her to, fearing she might cause problems at the site. He put together a mad up story that the an art director had gotten word of their plans to take artifacts and was prepared to alert the authorities himself unless all parties left Egypt immediately. A psychic backed up the made up story, and Yoko became concerned enough to abandon the plan. Only a few days into the trip they decided to return home, John wasn’t all that disappointed, he had already had a big enough adventure on the first days, and he was ready to get back his ivory tower in New York.

Lennon and Ono’s passion for Egyptian relics went a lot deeper then just a love of history, it is rumored that they both believed they were reincarnations of ancient Egyptian royalty. “I love Egyptian art. I make sure to get all the Egyptian things, not for their value but for their magic power. Each piece has a certain magic power” Yoko told in one interview. In a Yoko album with the Plastic Ono Band callee “Feeling the Space”she appears as the Sphinx herself. 

(photo from google images)

Yoko even purchased a real Egyptian sarcophagus, and had it be delivered to the Dakota. Inside the coffin that the mummified remains of an Egyptian princess laid resting. This is obviously an item much more fitting of a museum then a room in a New York apartment, but Yoko had another reason for wanting it...... Yoko believed the dead princess was a sully herself in a past life, she even wanted to break into the coffin to see if it looked like her! The item is still in Yoko’s possession and still lays in one of the many rooms in one of the many apartments in the Dakota building that Yoko currently owns.

Baby You CAN'T Drive My Car

When Paul McCartney (with a little help from him friends) sung the line “baby you can drive my car” it was 100% not directed to his long time friend and band mate, John Lennon. John was, in all honesty a terrible driver and he didn't get his license until he was 24. In the afternoon of 15th of February 1965 the Beatles would go into Abbey Road studios to start recording their new album ‘Help.’ It was earlier that morning that John finally passed his driving test and got his license, in Weybridge, Surrey, where he lived with his wife Cynthia and son Julian. 

                                                                                                       (photo from google image search) 

He was the final of all 4 Beatles to pass the test, however before and after he got his license he rarely drove himself. It wasn’t long before Lennon's confidence was heavily knocked while driving, after crashing his car shortly after. On the rare occasion he got behind the wheel he navigated the roads poorly and had little to no respect to others on the road, Instead he expected others to get out of the way for him! In one story he was trying to navigate a narrow ‘long and winding road’ in Dorset in his Mini Cooper, with his Aunt Mimi and son Julian In the car, when he came face to face with another driver he refused to move out the middle of the road and just sat there in his car expecting the other person to reverse a great distance so he could pass. 

                                                                                                         (photo from google image search) 

When the other driver refused to Lennon got out his car to talk to the driver. When the other driver saw who he was facing he was of course very surprised, but agreed to reverse back if he signed his autograph for him to give his wife. The fact that John’s psychedelic Rolls Royce Phantom V, was in such good shape was probably a sign that he hardly drove it himself and instead let his own personal driver Les Anthony take the responsibility of driving the one of a kind car anywhere Lennon or Cynthia needed to go. July 1st 1969, marked the end of Lennon’s driving, however he would go on to ride motorbikes and off-road vehicles around his estate in Ascot. 

(photo from google image search) 

While Lennon and Ono were enjoying a trip to the Scottish Highlands, Lennon felt confident enough to try and drive the narrow roads of the surrounding area in his current car, Austin Maxi hatchback. The confidence was misplaced however as the drive ended when  he lost control of the vehicle and wound up in a ditch. The event put himself, his son Julian, Yoko Ono and her daughter Kyoko all in hospital, the four of them were taken to Lawson Memorial Hospital in Golspie, where Julian was treated for shock and Lennon, Ono, and Kyoko all received stitches to repair lacerations to their faces. 

(Photo from google image search)

Yoko was pregnant at the time, and also sustained back injuries. Cynthia, John’s ex-wife wasn't told Julian would be traveling to Scotland, and became very concerned for Julian's welfare when she found out about the accident, she became even more annoyed when she found out that he'd been sent 50 miles away to stay with John's aunt after being discharged from hospital. Cynthia then traveled to the hospital to try and get an explanation out of John, but was reportedly turned away by Lennon, who refused to see or talk to his ex-wife. When the press asked John about the incident he replied “you’re going to have a car crash, try to arrange for it to happen in the Highlands,"

(photo from google image search) 

The event left John with facial scars for the rest of his life. Lennon eventually had the crashed car placed in his garden, as a piece of art.

John In Bournemouth

Where was the 3rd place the Beatles most frequently played in the UK after London and Liverpool?  The seaside town of Bournemouth. 

They held a week-long season of two shows a night at the Gaumont Cinema in August of 1963, as well as well as shows at the Winter Gardens. They returned to the Gaumont the following year.   

(Mimi and John, photo from google image search) 

Later on Lennon was to return to Bournemouth on the request of his Aunt Mimi, (who was with him) who he was buying a house for at the time. They visited a number of houses he was thinking of buying his Aunt. Until then Mimi was still living in Johns childhood home, a place that was becoming a hot spot for Lennon and Beatles fans, and John no longer wanted his beloved aunt to have to put up with masses of fans outside the house. When he announced to her that he wanted to buy her a new home he asked where she wanted, Aunt Mimi picked Bournemouth, so off they went on the search for just the right house. 

(Aunt Mimi's Sandbanks home. Photo from google image search) 

Lennon bought her a seafront bungalow home at Sandbanks in 1965. Aunt Mimi and John were very close, even though they often had many disagreements, for the best part she had brought him up, especially following the death of his mother after she was ran over by an off duty police officer.

John phoned her every day and made once she moved to Poole he made regular visits to her, when he would give her gifts and then go for long walks doing cartwheels on the beach. John and Yoko left for Southampton (as in the song ‘the ballad of John and Yoko) from Mimi’s home before getting married in Gibraltar in 69. 

(John on the balcony, photo from google image search) 

He decided at some point to create a balcony for her to sit on and watch the boats go by. A wrought iron balustrade of seven hearts was commissioned to show how much he loved his Aunt Mimi. The house was called Harbour’s Edge, and as well as a peaceful home for Mimi the house was also an escape for Lennon on his many visits before he move to the states, never to return to England again. John was often spotted around the area driving in a Mini Cooper or being driven in his psychedelic Rolls Royce! Lennon paid £25,000 to buy the six-bedroomed semi-bungalow at 126 Panorama Road, a large amount when you compare it to the average price of a house in England at the time of around £3,500. Mimi’s ‘words of wisdom’ given to A teenage John “The guitar’s all right as a hobby John, but you’ll never make a living out of it” were engraved on a plaque, which hung on the wall at the house, one of the many gifts he had given her. “He would just turn up and there would be a whirlwind when he arrived” Mimi said as she described his visits in a 1981 interview. 

(Photo from google image search) 

“It was usually when the pressure got a bit much. He used to like to come here and turn cartwheels on the beach just by himself” John would borrow a neighbours boat and go up the River Frome to Wareham. When John left his wife Cynthia for Japanese artist Yoko Ono he still continued to visit Mimi, the first time she met Yoko she asked her what she did, when Yoko replied she was an artist Mimi told her she had never heard of her. John was planning on visiting his Aunt in years following 1980, he was going to bring Sean to meet her. Sadly this visit never took place due to John’s untimely death.

The Lost Weekend

“I’m in love for the first time, don’t you know it’s gonna last” so sung Lennon in The Beatles song ‘Don’t let me down’. He was no doubt talking about his new relationship with Japanese artist Yoko Ono, if only it had been true then John’s life in the 70’s would have been much different! By the middle of 1973, Johns marriage to Yoko was well and truly on the rocks. They were no long the loving couple that they portrayed in public. The pressure of living in each other’s pockets, as husband and wife, as artists and a musician duo had taken its toll on their relationship. 

(photo found on google image search)

Surprising to most is the fact they Yoko Ono suggested that Lennon start an affair with their present assistant, the much younger May Pang. It was this decision of Yoko’s that led to John’s “Lost Weekend,” that lasted a whole 18 months. In that time Lennon lived with May in her New York apartment (where he saw the UFO) and a rented home in Los Angeles. Talking of the start of the lost weekend he said “Well, first I thought, Whoopee! Bachelor life! Whoopee, whoopee! And then I woke up one day and thought, What is this? I want to go home. But she wouldn't let me come home. That's why it was eighteen months instead of six.” 

Even though the lost weekend was know mainly for Lennon’s wild antics and drunker stoned behaviouer, it was also a very productive time as well. Lennon completed three albums – ‘Mind Games,’ ‘Walls and Bridges’ and ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’, and he also produced records for both Ringo and Harry Nilsson. ‘Mind games’ was John Lennon's fourth solo album, and was recorded at the beginning of the Lost Weekend. 

(John and May, photo from google image search) 

At the time of recording his confidence as a musician had taken a heavy knock, his last album ‘sometime in New York City’ had not been a success and received bad reviews. The following album ‘Walls and Bridges’ featured his own childhood artwork as the album cover. The ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ was just as sentimental with its album cover, this time it was a photo of lennon before he was a famous Beatle, before Yoko, before Brian Epstein, before beatlemania, when he was a young rock and roller living on pep pills in the red light district of Hamburg! While Lennon enjoyed his lost weekend, and his freedom something happened that no one would have been possible just a few years earlier during the ‘imagine’ album. 

He took part in an jam session, in this jam session was his former band mate and (in recent years) rival, Paul McCartney,  that would be the last time he would record with Paul McCartney. Lennon was producing Harry Nilsson's album, Pussy Cats, when Paul and Linda McCartney dropped in after the first night of the sessions, at Burbank Studios on 28 March 1974. Also in the jam session was Stevie Wonder, Harry Nilsson, Jesse Ed Davis, May Pang, Bobby Keys and producer Ed Freeman. Lennon is said to be on cocaine during the session and is heard offering people a ‘toot’ or a ‘snort’ during the recording. 

(John and Paul, photo from google image search) 

Lennon is on vocals and guitar and Paul as well as singing also played Ringo Starr’s drum kit. If only for a little while, their bitter break up seemed far far behind them, their friendship seemed to be back. If this event would still have had happened had Lennon been with Yoko at the time and not May then we will never know, but it does seem somewhat unlikely. Just two weeks before the jam session, a drunken Lennon was tossed out of the Troubadour. The evening started with the brandy Alexander cocktails that Lennon was newly introduced to by Harry, he got very drunk very quickly. Lennon and Harry were chucked out for relentlessly heckling the Smothers Brothers and (according to the staff) assaulting a waitress. “I got drunk and shouted," Lennon told. "It was my first night on Brandy Alexanders, that’s brandy and milk, folks. I was with Harry Nilsson, who didn’t get as much coverage as me, the bum. He encouraged me. I usually have someone there who says 'Okay, Lennon. Shut up.'" When it came to ejecting the pair from the club a very angry Lennon lashed out, losing his glasses in the fuss. 

(John and May, from google image search) 

He then, according to Tommy Smothers, kicked the valet. Lennon and Nilsson reportedly had flowers delivered to the Smothers Brothers the next day, something John had done in the past when he had been in fights. Lennon said "There was some girl who claimed that I hit her, but I didn’t hit her at all, you know. She just wanted some money and I had to pay her off, because I thought it would harm my immigration. So I was drunk. When it’s Errol Flynn, the showbiz writers say: 'Those were the days, when men were men.' When I do it, I’m a bum. So it was a mistake, but hell, I’m human." This actually wasn't the first time, that Lennon caused trouble at the Troubadour. Around a month earlier, A heavily drunk Lennon was at the club to see soul singer Ann Peebles, when he somehow ended up with a sanitary pad attached to his forehead. When a waitress was at his table he said the immortal words “Do you know who I am?" After the waitress questioned why he wasn't leaving a tip on the way out. "Yes," the waitress replied "You're some asshole with a Kotex on your head." 

How this event wasn’t photographed and didn’t end up in every newspaper is a surprise.  

(photo from google image search) 

Everything that happened and Lennon did in his lost weekend could easily fill a whole blog or book for that matter on its own!  Of course finally the lost weekend came to an end, John broke up his girlfriend May and returned to Yoko and the Dekota building. Soon after Yoko became pregnant with their first son (John’s second) and John went into a type of hibernation within the walls of the Dekota.