JOHN LENNON 1940-1980

JOHN LENNON 1940-1980

NOTHING TO DO TO SAVE HIS LIFE

by

J. Kordosh

"...Laurel and Hardy, that's John and Yoko. And we stand a better chance under that guise 'cause all the serious people like Martin Luther King and Kennedy and Gandhi got shot..."

—John Lennon to interviewer David Wigg, June, 1969 (The Beatle Tapes.)

Ten years after the Beatles broke up, John Lennon's guise disintegrated under the blast of Mark David Chapman's .38. Chapman, a Beatles fan, managed to take Beatlemania to the ultimate when he pulled that trigger four times. To Chapman, John Lennon was evidently a person to be taken very seriously.

How seriously Lennon took himself is another question. He was, for example, the author of "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)"—a song released as the flip side of "Let It Be"—that Hugh Fielder described as "a cheerful piece of self-mockery that debunks everything in sight." To cheerfully debunk and mock oneself while the most successful and influential rock group in the world is going down the tubes doesn't sound particularly somber. It was, however, typical Lennon behavior. He had cheerfully opined that the Beatles were bigger than Christ, cheerfully admitted that he took drugs, and cheerfully returned his MBE to the/ British government. On the whole, he seemed to be a iairly cheerful person prone to a candor that bordered on carelessness. He was tragically close to the truth when he said (about "Mr. Kite" in particular, but the Beatles in general): "I didn't believe in it when I was doing it. But nobody will believe it. They don't want to. They want it to be important." (My emphasis.)

Lennon's impulsive self-contradictions will remain one of the most interesting aspects of his character. After spending a few months dabbling with the Maharishi— lending considerable credibility to the TM movement in the process—he denounced him as "Sexy Sadie." After confessing that drugs helped him (and amid reports that he'd become a television addict) he wrote "they keep you doped with religion and sex and TV." And after becoming firmly established in the public's mind as a dedicated socialist, he proceeded to become a millionaire recluse, leading a frustrated Esquire (unable to get an interview) to wonder if he might be recording "Leisure Class Hero."

Lennon took_chances continuously and he took a lot of shit for it. Ironically, one position he never changed his stance on was non-violence. From "Revolution" to the Playboy interview ("Don't expect me to be on the barracades unless it is with flowers"), Lennon was, in his own words, a peacenik.

"And though the news was rather sad... "

—"A Day In The Life."

Of course, the Beatles were the best group in the world. The only figures that compare to them are twcf American solo artists, Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan. To recite the litany of Beatle achievements would be pointless and redundant. The Beatles died 10 years before John Lennon was murdered and have been competently mourned during that decade.

Still, the Beatles' overwhelming commercial and aesthetic success has-stalked them all—particularly Lennon and McCartney—as solo artists, and undoubtedly led to Lennon's death. To a world with an insatiable appetite for celebrities, John Lennon was still "Beatle John Lennon." In America, usually only former presidents are accorded the deference of their title.

Media coverage of Lennon's murder was, in fact, strangely like reporting the assassination of an incumbent president.

1 The major television networks all ran specials on the event. Perhaps the weirdest vision invoked was a blase, gum-popping Paul McCartney being mobbed by reporters outside a British recording studio. How did he feel about Lennon's death? "Jt's a drag, isn't it?" Why was McCartney in the recording studio today? "I didn't feel like staying at home.'''The interview ended with McCartney going to his car and saying "cheers" to the assembled press corps; hopefully, at least one newsman knew "fuck off" when he heard it.

Man-on-the-street interviews in London were equally pointless." "He should've stayed in England; it never would've happened here." Sure, and should've had his limo pull into the garage at the Dakota. Or he should've never resumed his recording career. Or he should've never been Beatle John Lennon.

Newspaper coverage wasn't much different: practically every newspaper in America eulogized him editorially and ran special sections on his career. Reactions and opinions swifted into as much nonsense as a Beatles' tape played backwards. Wayne Robins (Newsday News Service) drew the interesting conclusion that "the Beatles taught us how to^ think." It should be mentioned, perhaps, that teacher Lennon once said, "It's nice when people like it, but when they start 'appreciating it,' getting great deep things out of it, making a thing of it, then it's a lot of shit."

John Lennon, the person, was barely visible in most media reports. The way the story was reported and the reason Lennon was murdered are probably not Unrelated. It would be intriguing to know if Mark Chapman felt that John Lennon taught him to think,.too.

"This Beatles talk bores me to death. "

—John Lennpn to interviewer David Sheff, {Playboy, January, 1981.)

What's left to say about the murder of John Lennon? Reports of several despondent people committing suicide have surfaced. Authorities have expressed fears for Chapman's safety, not only as a potential suicide but as a potential murder victim himself. The usual head-shaking over gun control has enjoyed its weekly post-assassination vogue. Nothing has changed, it's still the same.

What John Lennon did with his life was rare and incredible; in death he will surely become something of a legend. He is already fast approaching the deification he consistently mocked or ignored. This final irony is inevitable, for Lennon was a lot of things to a lot of people: rock star, worldchanger, voice of truth, moneyed landowner, half-crazed genius, and Beatle.

In the ledgers 6f the New York City Police Department, though, John Lennon is simply the third and final homicide victim of December 8, 1980, the other two deaths having occurred in the Bronx. I don't know their names, but what a day.

"...I'm not afraid of dying...I'm prepared for death because I don't believe in it. I think it's just getting out of one car and getting into another."

—John Lennon to interviewer David Wigg, June, 1969 (The Beatles Tapes.)