John Lennon miscellanea

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This list is a summary of facts and theories relating to the life, career, and murder of John Lennon.

Contents

[edit] Musician/songwriter/composer

  • On April 19, 2006, John Lennon's 1952 schoolbook collection of writings and drawings, entitled "My Anthology," fetched $226,150.00 at the London auction house Cooper Owen Plc. [1]
  • On July 28, 2005 Lennon's handwritten lyrics sheet for the classic "All You Need is Love" sold for £600,000 at an auction in London.
  • Lennon's friend, musician Klaus Voorman, did the artwork for The Beatles Revolver album cover and the 3-disc cover of the Beatles Anthology. In addition to playing bass guitar with Lennon's Plastic Ono Band, Voorman also performed with George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Manfred Mann.
  • John Lennon once told Anne Murray that her cover of The Beatles' "You Won't See Me" was the best cover of a Beatles' song.
  • On Lennon's posthumous compilation album Acoustic, a demo recording of the song "God" contains the lines "I just believe in me/And that's reality". This lyric was changed to "I just believe in me/Yoko and me/And that's reality" when the song was included on the Plastic Ono Band album.

[edit] Musical Taste

John Lennon had a very eclectic musical taste, and when asked what he was listening to in a 1980 interview he stated, "Hank Williams, Carl Perkins, John Gielgud reading Shakespeare and anything that Bing Crosby had ever done." [1] In an interview with Elliot Mintz marking the 20th anniversary of John Lennon's death, he further elaborated on Lennon's taste of music, saying, "Yoko gave him this old-fashioned jukebox and John stocked it with Bing Crosby records. People kind of expected him to have rock 'n' roll records in there, but it was almost totally Crosby stuff. There were 3 songs which John played over and over. I still remember them. They were Crosby with a jazz quartet from the 50's, I think. He would banter and talk in the songs and John thought that was just the end. The songs were Whispering, I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter and Dream a Little Dream of Me. Yeah, those were the songs, I can still see John listening to them." [2]

[edit] Lennon's murder

[edit] Political views

  • Though Lennon is widely remembered as a vocal campaigner for peace, in 2000 the late rock star was accused of secretly funding the IRA during the 1970s. A former MI5 agent, David Shayler (exiled in France after breaking a British Official Secrets Act), went public with the accusation, referring to MI5 documents he had seen while in service. These alleged MI5 documents were based on information from the FBI, and where Shayler claimed to have learned of a £175,000 donation to the IRA. Lennon is known to have identified with and spoken in favour of the Irish civil rights movement, especially during his Some Time In New York City-era fling with radical-militant politics. Yet both Lennon's widow Yoko Ono and biographer Jon Wiener have disputed Shayler's charges. Wiener, a history professor, had previously filed for Lennon's FBI records under the Freedom of Information Act. Many of the documents that have been released are available at Wiener's website, and no proof has yet surfaced to support Shayler's accusation. Ten pages remain unreleased by the FBI, with reports indicating that the British government may have asked the US to keep Lennon's file secret. It is known that Lennon underwrote the funeral expenses for the victims of Bloody Sunday during 1972, and wanted to speak out for Irish unity (as McCartney had with "Give Ireland Back to the Irish"), with two songs on New York City. (Both men were of Irish ancestry, as was much of Liverpool's population.) The whole issue may be no more than speculation based on these actions.
  • He was called a revolutionist by Fidel Castro when Castro unveiled a statue of him on the 20th anniversary of his murder in 2000.
  • Although known for being left-wing and even a Communist sympathizer, his personal assistant, Frederic Seaman has claimed that Lennon actually supported Ronald Reagan for President in 1980 because President Carter made America look weak. He also claims Lennon said Reagan would be "the greatest President of all time." This seems highly dubious, and it should be noted that Seaman is perhaps not the most reliable of sources. In 1983 Seaman admitted to the Manhattan District Attorney that he'd stolen photos, letters and other personal effects from Lennon and Ono over a two-year period, and he agreed to give them back. But in 1999 Ono sued Seaman over more pictures she claimed he'd failed to return, pictures he'd used when he appeared as an "expert" in a 1999 Fox Family Channel special about Lennon. The case was reported on in a New York Times article published on 4/14/99, "Yoko Ono Sues Ex-Aide Over Photographs." Also, in his last major interview, published in Playboy immediately before his death, Lennon said, "I have never voted for anybody, anytime, ever. Even at my most political. I have never registered and I never will." He also quoted Gore Vidal on voting: "Don't vote for them, it only encourages them."

[edit] Public entertainment figure

  • One of his closest friends was actor Peter Boyle (Everybody Loves Raymond). They were such good friends that Lennon ended up being Boyle's best man at his wedding. Lennon actually introduced Boyle to his future wife, whom Lennon knew through Rolling Stone.
  • Lennon was the only member of the Beatles that did not host Saturday Night Live.
  • The new English textbook, which replaced the GCE (Advanced Level) English textbook in 1975, was controversial, because it avoided Chaucer and Shakespeare, but included Bob Dylan and John Lennon (Imagine).
  • It was rumoured that John Lennon had either anorexia or bizarre eating habits, which explains his drastic weight loss and emaciated appearance from the late 1960's until his death. Some sources, such as Lennon In America: 1971-1980 claim that, during this period, he had a body weight of at most 135 lbs (61 kg), which is alarmingly thin for his 5'11" (1.80 m) height. This may be attributed to his heroin addiction during the late 1960's.
  • In 1967, Lennon purchased a private island in Clew Bay, County Mayo, Ireland known as Dorinish. The island served as a temporary place of escape for Lennon and was eventually used by Sid Rawle as a hippie commune.
  • He had an apartment at the Dakota set aside for his collection of fur coats. Another was used to store his and Yoko's videotape collection.
  • One of his favorite films was El Topo, directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky, as was Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[edit] Ban on "Imagine"

A Church of England primary school has dropped John Lennon's song Imagine from a concert because its anti-religious message was deemed to be unsuitable. [3] Geoffrey Williams, the head of St Leonard's Primary School in Exeter, Devon, omitted the song, which contains the words "and no religion too", after a teacher expressed concern. This was also the case in the "Irish Institute", located in Mexico City, after one of the teachers attempted to add this song to a school concert repertoire and was also denied because of the "no religion" line in the song.

[edit] John Lennon Wall

In Prague John Lennon became an inspiration for political freedom in occupied Czechoslovakia.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Lewis, Stephen. Internet Museum. Retrieved on 2006-30-12.
  2. ^ Lewis, Stephen. Internet Museum. Retrieved on 2006-30-12.
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