Young John Lennon. Dear John: Facts about John Lennon

John Lennon was born in the port English city Liverpool. His mother Julia and father Alfred Lennon practically did not live together. Soon after the birth of their son, Alfred was taken to the front, and Julia met another man and married him. When John was 4 years old, he went to live with his mother's sister Mimi Smith, who had no children of her own. The boy rarely saw his own mother; their relationship was more friendly than mother-son.

John had a fairly high IQ, but he did very poorly at school because he could not stand the routine of daily classes. But creative potential the boy began to implement it as a child. John sang in the choir, published his own magazine, and was a talented painter.

When the rock 'n' roll boom hit England in the mid-50s, teenagers began creating their own bands at every turn. Young Lennon did not stand aside either. He organized the group “The Quarrymen”, its name was given by the school where all its participants studied.

A year later, the first boy from another area of the city joined the group. He was younger than the others, but played the guitar much better. It was he who soon brought him to study with him.

While graduating from secondary school, John Lennon managed to fail all his final exams and was the only one educational institution, which agreed to accept unusual teenager, turned out to be Liverpool Art College.

But even art education didn't appeal to John. He spent more and more time with Paul, George and Stuart Sutcliffe, whom he met in college and invited him to play bass in The Quarrymen. The band's name was soon changed to Long Johnny and Silver Beetles, and later shortened to the last word, changed one letter to include a play on words, and became known as " The Beatles».

"The Beatles"

Since the early 60s, the guys have completely focused on music. They not only did their own cover versions famous hits, but also started writing own songs. Gradually the group became popular in their native Liverpool, after which the Beatles traveled to Hamburg several times, where they played in nightclubs.

John Lennon and the Beatles at the beginning of their career

At that time, the style of music and the image of the group was standard for a rock band: leather jackets, cowboy boots, hair like that and so on. But in 1961, Brian Epstein became the Beatles' manager and completely changed their appearance. The boys change into formal suits without lapels, they begin to behave professionally on stage. The world-famous Beatles' hairstyle was invented by German photographer Astrid Kircher, for whose sake Stuart Sutcliffe stayed in Germany.

John Lennon and the Beatles in a new image

The change in image contributed to the popularity of the group. The band's performance at the Royal Concert Hall, where John Lennon famously said:

“Those who are sitting in the cheap seats, applaud. The rest of us can jingle our jewels.”

"We're more popular than Jesus now."

After the release of the first single “Love Me Do” and the subsequent full-length album “Please Please Me,” Beatlemania began in the UK. And after the release of the new single “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” a wave of popularity swept across America and then the whole world.

For the next few years, the Beatles practically lived out of suitcases, touring non-stop and releasing one album after another.

In 1967, when John, Paul, George and Ringo stopped touring and concentrated on recording and writing new songs, Lennon began to lose interest in the group. At first he refused the role of the leader of the Beatles, then for the first time in many years he began to compose separately from McCartney.

Previously, they created all the songs only together. After releasing several more very successful records, the group ceased to exist. Officially, this happened in 1970, but there were problems in the team over the past 2 years.

Solo career

John Lennon recorded his first independent album in 1968 and called it “Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins.” Yoko Ono also took part in the work on this disc. It was a psychedelic musical experiment that was recorded in one night. There are no songs on this record; it consists of a fragmentary set of sounds, screams and moans. The following works “Wedding Album” and “Unfinished Music No.2: Life With The Lions” are in a similar vein.

The first "song" album was John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, released in 1970. And the next album, “Imagine,” released a year later, practically repeated the success of the last albums of “The Beatles.” The title song became the singer's signature song and is still considered one of the anti-political and anti-religious anthems.

In the "500" list greatest songs of all times", which was compiled by the magazine " Rolling Stone"in 2004, this composition took 3rd place.

Subsequently, John Lennon released 5 more studio albums, several collections and concert recordings.

Creation

John Lennon is famous not only as the author of many popular songs. He is also known as an actor. Along with the other Beatles, Lennon starred in the musical films A Hard Day's Night, Help!, The Magical Mystery Journey and Let It Be. He also played the shooter Gripweed in the military comedy How I Won the War, the satirical comedy Dynamite Chicken and the drama Fire in the Water. In addition, Lennon directed several films with Yoko Ono. These were mainly political social films.

John Lennon realized himself as a writer back in the 60s. He published 3 books: in 1964 “I’m Writing as It’s Spelled” was published, a year later “The Spreader in the Wheel” appeared, and in 1986 the book “Oral Skywriting” was posthumously published. Each edition presents a collection of stories in the style of black humor, with a large number of planned errors, puns and wordplay, which is reflected in the titles of the works.

Personal life

John Lennon first married his classmate Cynthia Powell in 1962. In April 1963, their son Julian Lennon was born. But the marriage was not strong due to John’s constant absences associated with the Beatles’ tours, as well as due to his collapsed popularity. Cynthia, who wanted a quiet life more, left her husband in 1967, and they officially divorced a year later.

In 1966, John met a Japanese avant-garde artist. In 1968, they began an affair, and a year later John and Yoko got married and became inseparable.

The couple dedicated the song “The Ballad of John and Yoko” to their wedding. In October 1975, their son Sean Lennon was born. After this event, John officially announced the end of his musical career, stopped touring, almost never appeared in public and focused on raising his son.

Murder

At the end of 1980, John Lennon released the studio album Double Fantasy after a long hiatus. On December 8, 1980, he gave an interview to journalists at the Hit Factory recording studio in New York. As he left the studio, the singer signed numerous autographs, including signing the cover of his own record, which a man named Mark Chapman asked him to do.

When John and Yoko returned home and were already entering the arch of the Dakota building where they lived, Chapman fired 5 shots into Lennon's back. The singer was taken to the hospital named after a few minutes later, but due to the large loss of blood, the doctors were unable to save the life of the famous musician, and he died on the same day.

John Lennon was cremated and his ashes were scattered by Yoko Ono in New York's Strawberry Fields Central Park.

Mark Chapman was convicted of his crime and is serving a life sentence. He said the motive for the murder was the desire to become as famous as John Lennon himself.

Solo discography

1968 - Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins
1969 - Unfinished Music No.2: Life With The Lions
1969 - Wedding Album
1970 - John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
1971 - Imagine
1972 - Some Time In New York City
1973 - Mind Games
1974 - Walls And Bridges
1975 - Rock'n'Roll
1980 - Double Fantasy

John Winston Ono Lennon

British rock musician, singer, poet, composer, artist, writer. One of the founders and member of The Beatles, one of the most popular musicians of the 20th century. After The Beatles broke up, he began a solo career, but was killed by a fan in 1980.

Childhood

John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 at 6:30 am, during a German air raid on Liverpool. John's parents soon separated and, although they were alive, did not participate in the boy's upbringing, which forever left a scar on his soul. John became their first and last child.

When Julia Lennon found another man, four-year-old John was taken in by his maternal aunt Mimi Smith (1906-1991) and her husband George Smith, who had no children of their own.

In 1955, Uncle George died, and the boy became close to his mother Julia, who lived with her second husband and his two children.

Mimi did not approve of his hobby for the guitar. John was distinguished by rare wit and malice. When he was learning to play the guitar, Aunt Mimi grumbled: “The guitar is a nice thing, but it will never help you make a living!” Later, at the height of his success, John bought his aunt luxury mansion on the coast and decorated the hall with a marble plaque with the words of his aunt.

Lennon did not tolerate the routine of school life, so despite his sharp mind, he was not a good student and did not study well. At school he became interested in creativity, he began to sing in the choir and published a handwritten magazine, which he himself illustrated.

In the mid-1950s, after the release of Bill Haley's song "Rock around the Clock", the rock 'n' roll craze began in Liverpool. In the 1950s, many youth skiffle groups appeared in England. Rock and roll finally gained popularity after the appearance of Elvis Presley in the United States.

At the age of 16, John became interested in rock and roll, learned to play guitar and created the Quarrymen group, which also included Paul McCartney and George Harrison. It was 1956. The group was named after the school where they all studied. There were five people in the group.

After Lennon failed his final exams at school, the only educational institution that agreed to accept the unusual teenager was Liverpool Art College. At college he became friends with Stuart Sutcliffe, whom he also brought into the Quarrymen. He spent more and more time with Paul, George and Stuart Sutcliffe, where he was at college.

On July 15, 1958, while John's mother was crossing the road, she was hit by a police officer in a car. She couldn't survive. Julia's death was a severe shock for Lennon. “Julia”, “Mother” and “My Mummy’s Dead” are the songs that John later dedicated to his mother.

The band's name was soon changed to "Long Johnny and Silver Beetles", and later shortened to the last word, changed one letter to include a pun, and became "The Beatles".

"T he Beatles"

British rock band from Liverpool, founded in 1960, featuring John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. also in different time The group included Stuart Sutcliffe, Pete Best and Jimmy Nicol. Most of The Beatles' compositions were co-authored and signed by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The group's discography includes 13 official studio albums, released in 1963-1970, and 211 songs.

Since the early 60s, John, Paul, Georgie Ringo have focused entirely on music. They not only made their own cover versions of famous hits, but also began writing their own songs. Gradually the group became popular in their native Liverpool. In 1960, The Beatles went abroad for the first time - to the German city of Hamburg, where they performed in clubs in the Reeperbahn, the center of the city's nightlife. In Hamburg, Lennon tried drugs for the first time. The Beatles visited Germany several times between 1960 and 1963. Over the years they have managed to achieve local popularity in Liverpool and Hamburg.

Stuart (Stu) Sutcliffe, the most close person for Lennon during these years. In 1962, Stu died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

At that time, the style of music and the image of the group was standard for a rock band: leather jackets, cowboy boots, hairstyles like Elvis Presley.

At the end of 1961, Brian Epstein became the manager of The Beatles. He completely changed their image - the group changed their leather jackets to neat suits with the famous jackets without lapels, the musicians stopped smoking and swearing on stage. Lennon later admitted that he did not really like the change in image. However, the new image contributed rapid growth popularity of The Beatles.

On August 23, 1962, John Lennon married Cynthia Powell. On April 8, 1963, John and Cynthia Lennon had a son, John Charles Julian Lennon. It was named after Julia, John's mother.

From 1964 to 1966, The Beatles were at the height of their fame. They constantly toured around the world, released albums twice a year, and starred in two films: “To the Rescue!” (English: Help!) and “A Hard Day’s Night”.

"We're more popular than Jesus now."

In the UK, no one paid attention to this phrase, but when, five months later, the American magazine “Datebook” put a phrase taken out of context about “The Beatles are more popular than Christ” on the cover, a scandal began in the USA. In the south of the country, whose residents are known for their religiosity, Beatles records were publicly burned, and radio stations stopped broadcasting their songs. Even the Vatican condemned Lennon’s statement (in 2008, however, the Vatican forgave the musician, saying that his phrase could be regarded as “witness”). At the same time, The Beatles were preparing for a tour of the United States. Lennon was forced to apologize for his words, but the concerts during the tour were missing a huge number of spectators. Lennon received death threats: in Memphis, someone called The Beatles' room and said that he (Lennon) would be killed during the concert. After these tours, The Beatles decided to abandon concerts. They never performed on stage again.

Lennon began to lose interest in the group. At first he refused the role of the leader of the Beatles, then for the first time in many years he began to compose separately from McCartney.

Lennon's appearance, like the rest of the group, changed greatly. The Beatles stopped dressing in neat suits and grew long hair, mustache and sideburns. The famous round glasses appeared for the first time in Lennon's image.

In November 1968, Lennon's wife, Cynthia Lennon, divorced her husband. The reason for this was John's infidelity with Yoko Ono. Cynthia, returning from Greece, saw her husband and his mistress in her bed. On November 8, 1968, the divorce was formalized.

Th eye It

Japanese avant-garde artist, singer and artist, widow of John Lennon. Received US citizenship.

Friends called this couple “Romeo and Juliet of the 70s,” and ill-wishers considered her a demon in female form, and him an uncomplaining victim.

She was seven years older than him and had been married twice. They met at Yoko Ono’s exhibition, which consisted of abstract sculptures and non-objective compositions that were incomprehensible to a simple Liverpudlian guy.

Yoko (Yoko) Ono was born on February 18, 1933 in Tokyo. Yoko received a good education in Japan and the USA. In 1956, Yoko married Toshi Ichiyanagi, a talented but poor composer. Unsuccessful attempts to assert herself in America led the aspiring avant-garde artist to depression, suicide attempts, and ended with her parents taking their daughter back to Japan and placing her in prison. psychiatric clinic. From there, Yoko Ono was rescued by a fan of her work, Anthony Cox, who took her to the USA and became her second husband. In 1963, the couple had a daughter, Kyoko.

Lennon spoke about the meeting -

“It was in 1966 in England. I was told that a Japanese avant-garde artist who came from America was organizing a happening. I was walking around the exhibition and saw a ladder, climbed up it to the ceiling, found a hanging pipe there, looked into it - feeling like an idiot - and read one word “Yes”. And in those years, it was considered avant-garde when a person smashed a piano or a sculpture into smithereens, in general, everything was anti-, anti-, anti-. Boring denial. And then I read this “yes” and decided to stay at this exhibition among the nails and apples.

There was one inscription that piqued my curiosity: “Drive a nail.” I asked: “Can I drive a nail?” Yoko replied: “No, because the opening is scheduled for tomorrow.” But then the owner of the gallery approached her and whispered in her ear: “Let him beat it in.” You know, he's a millionaire. Maybe he’ll buy this exhibit later.” They began to whisper and confer. Finally she says, “Okay, you can hammer this nail in, but first you have to pay 5 shillings for it.” And so I say: “Okay. I’ll give you an imaginary 5 shillings and drive an imaginary nail.” That’s how our meeting happened, she felt something, I felt something, and the rest is, as they say, history.”

When Brian Epstein, the Beatles' producer, died, Yoko and Lennon suggested their accountant (he was a close relative of Yoko) to play the role of muckraker, and the rest of the trio suggested theirs. This was followed by a noisy scandal, mutual vilification in the press and years of litigation - the mature Beatles sued with the same fervor as they had once fought.

Yoko Ono and John Lennon separated from their spouses and began living together in 1968. IN next year The Beatles broke up. Many blamed Yoko Ono for the group's breakup.

The Beatles' millions in joint accounts were frozen. John and Yoko had to earn money themselves. This did not frighten them: Lennon’s name by this time had become a real gold mine - everything he did brought good profits.

They carried out bed strikes: for several months in a row they lay on their beds and talked about the fate of the world. They donated money to the needs of the Irish Republican Army. After moving to the United States, they fought for the release of Angela Davis.

For the cover of the Two Innocents album, John and Yoko were photographed naked. Life has become exciting.

When she had a miscarriage, Lennon settled down to spend the night right in the hospital - on a rug lying on the floor, at the feet of Yoko’s bed... She taught him humility, removed the aggression that frightened those who knew Lennon before. Now I could live with him.

In 1971, John Lennon's album “Imagine” was released. The title track from the album became Lennon's most famous solo song. In 1971, the single "Imagine" reached number three on the US singles chart. In the UK, the single “Imagine” was released only in 1975 and reached number 6 in the charts. However, after Lennon's death in 1980, the single "Imagine" was released again in the UK and stayed at number one on the charts for 4 weeks.

In 1973, Yoko Ono decided to break up with Lennon for a while in order to once again give both of them the opportunity to feel free and understand their feelings for each other. Yoko chose Lennon's Chinese assistant May Pang (born October 24, 1950), whom Lennon considered sexy, as his mistress, and sent them to Los Angeles, where they spent a year and a half. Lennon drank a lot at this time. Tommy Smothers, his longtime, trusted friend, invited John to his band's performance. Lennon came, got drunk, began to make trouble, disrupted the Smothers Brothers' performance and hit a female reporter - after that he could not find a place for himself out of shame and remorse. So six months passed: drunkenness, promiscuous sex, social parties - Lennon was a welcome guest to everyone Hollywood stars, and the meek Mei Pang was waiting for him at home.

He started writing good songs again and earned a lot of money, but this did not make him happy: remembering Yoko, John fell into black melancholy, went to a bar, got drunk and started a scandal.

When Lennon made his choice, Yoko allowed him to return. This happened in 1975. On October 9, 1975, Lennon's thirty-fifth birthday, his son, Sean, was born. John Lennon decided to devote himself entirely to his family for several years and sacrifice his creativity. A dissolute guitarist turned into a good husband: he stopped singing and devoted himself to his wife and the child Yoko gave birth to.

By this time, the Beatles had stopped suing each other, their accounts were unfrozen, and John got one hundred and fifty million dollars - twelve million dollars a year were brought in by his old songs, which were performed by others.

Yoko managed her money better than any manager: she bought two huge estates (one of them previously belonged to the Vanderbilts), 250 Holstein cows, 1,000 acres of pasture, a yacht, and apartment buildings.

The turbulent sixties are a thing of the past, and the seventies are over: the leader of the “new left,” whom Yoko and Lennon once prayed for, got a decent job at a bank, President Nixon won the election and lost power after Watergate. The case for the deportation of John Lennon, a multimillionaire and an exemplary citizen, was closed.

John Lennon's next album, Double Fantasy, was released only in 1980. This disc was destined to become the last in the work of John Lennon, whose life was cut short a few weeks after the release of the disc.

On December 8th, Lennon left the house: he had a lot of things to do, and he did not pay attention to the man who stepped towards him. He called out to him, raised his hand, and Lennon had time to think that the thing this guy pulled out from under his jacket looked damn similar to an army Colt. This was John Lennon's last thought: the shot rang out, the bullet threw him against the wall, and he still didn't understand anything.

John Lennon was killed by US citizen Mark David Chapman.

In December 1980, Mark David Chapman decided that his god was a fake. He read an article in Esquire magazine - the author wrote that he was looking for John Lennon - "the conscience of the era", and found "a forty-year-old businessman in tax shackles." Chapman suffered from schizophrenia.

John Lennon - f acts

“When I was 5 years old, my mother told me that the most important thing in life is to be happy. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote: “Happy.” They told me: “You don’t understand the task!” I replied: “You don’t understand life!”

John, after an accident in 1969 in which he received 17 stitches, never drove again, renting limousines in his opinion was bragging and he used the services of a hired driver or took a taxi.

John Lennon received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

On the show “The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus” (1968) Lennon performed for the first time in his life without “The Beatles” - he played as part of the temporary group “The Dirty Mac”, which included him, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, Mitch Mitchell and Keith Richards. “It was cool to share the stage with Eric and Keith and hear a completely different sound coming out of the speakers, even though I was playing and singing in my old style,” Lennon later said that playing with different musicians was fun.

Liverpool Airport was named after John Lennon in the spring of 2002. Since then, the airport logo has included John's self-portrait. Every part of the airport has something in its interior that is reminiscent of John and the Beatles: a huge yellow submarine is located in front of the airport entrance, and a 2.1-meter bronze statue of Lennon is installed in front of the check-in hall. The airport's cafes and restaurants are also decorated in the Beatles' style. The airport's motto is written on the roof of the main building - a line from John's song “Imagine”: “Above us only sky.”

He loved to play Monopoly. He had his own own set“Monopoly” and he often played it in hotel rooms or on board airplanes. He played very emotionally and was ready to bet real money if he lost.

John Lennon borrowed round glasses as an element of his image from his hero, Private Gripweed, whom he played in Richard Lester’s film “How I Won the War.”

An asteroid was named in honor of Lennon - “(4147) Lennon”. Also, on the 69th anniversary of John’s birth (October 9, 2009), one of the lunar craters was named “The Crater of Peace” - in memory of Lennon’s numerous actions and songs calling for the fight for peace.

In 2005, the manuscript of his song All You Need Is Love was sold at auction for $1,000,000.

Incredibly, one of the greatest singers in history hated his own voice. John didn't like his voice and, as a result, didn't like listening to his clean vocals. He constantly asked to retouch his voice after recording.

He was the only Beatle who did not become a vegetarian.

The Canadian group Barenaked Ladies gained long-awaited fame with the song “Be My Yoko Ono”. It is sung from the face young man, which invites the girl to create an equally strong and beautiful couple. All this is accompanied by good banter about the image of John and Yoko.
The widow (by the time the song was released, it was 1989) of John Lennon fell in love with this song and sent the group film footage of her life with John, which Barenaked Ladies inserted into their video clip (this was already the second video for the song, they recorded the first one in one dollar in a street video booth), although she herself noted that she preferred another song of the group: “If I had a million dollars.”
The song was also performed in the most popular series“The Big Bang Theory” in the “Cooper-Nowitzki Theorem” series. They also recorded the song that plays in the series' intro.

John was sleeping in a coffin. According to Alan Williams, the Beatles' manager, John liked to sleep in old coffins. Alan had a cafe, in the basement of which there was an old coffin. John loved to take a nap in it.

Lennon considered Run for his worst songs. Your Life and It's Only Love.

John considered his favorite number to be 9. In his life, you can find many important events in which this number appears. In particular, he was born on the ninth, he was killed on the eighth (in New York), but in his homeland (in England) it was already the ninth.

While in the Beatles, Lennon favored Epiphone and Gibson guitars, but his first guitar was a flathead acoustic guitar unknown brand. Many are sure that his mother bought him the guitar, but John did it himself and simply brought the guitar to Julia’s house so that the instrument would not catch Mimi’s eye. Earlier, Julia had shown her son some banjo chords and sparked John's interest. As stated in Andy Babuk's book Beatles Gear, Lennon himself recalled: “I bought my first guitar at the age of 14. It was a second-hand Spanish guitar for £10, and at first I played it like a stringed banjo.”

John's last photograph was of him a few hours before his death, signing an autograph for his future killer.

Later, the same photographer entered the morgue where John's body lay and took the only photograph of John after his death. John was cremated the day after the murder.

Quotes from John Lennon

Life is what happens to you while you are making other plans.

We live in a world where we have to hide to make love, while violence is practiced in broad daylight.

Great pain and joke always go side by side.

If you do something beautiful and sublime, and no one notices, don’t be upset: the sunrise is generally the most beautiful sight in the world, but most people are still sleeping at this time.

Honesty won't bring you many friends, but the ones you make will be genuine ones.

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.

Those in the cheap seats, clap. The rest of you just jingle your jewelry.

When you are in love and when someone asks you: “How can you be with this woman?”, you answer: “What do you mean? Why do you want to throw a stone at her or punish me for loving her?”

We live in a world where we have to hide to make love while violence is practiced in broad daylight.

If anyone says that love and peace are a cliché that went away with the sixties, that will be their problem. Love and peace are eternal.

Time lost in pleasure is not considered lost.

If everyone worked while sitting in sacks, there would be no prejudices. We would have to judge people by their qualities and not by their appearance.

Our society is a pursuit of crazy people for crazy goals.

We dreamed of changing something in this world... but everything remained the same. Still selling guns South Africa, and blacks are killed on the street. People still live in poverty and have rats running around. Only crowds of rich loafers walk around London in fashionable rags. I don't believe in the Beatles myth anymore.

If you are standing on the edge of a cliff and wondering whether to jump or not, jump!

I've been changing all my life.

"Working Class Hero". I think it's a revolutionary song. In the sense that it was written for workers - real workers, not for sentimental whores or philosophizing perverts. In some ways it is akin to “Give peace A Chance”, although perhaps not everyone will understand it correctly. The song speaks to "working class heroes" like me - upstarts from the lower classes moving into the middle class. I have walked this path and decided to issue a kind of warning to everyone who hopes for success.

No matter what we say, it never corresponds to what we want to say.

Nobody explained to me what sex is. I learned about him from the writings on the walls.

The dream is over. It's time to get down to business.

Anyone can achieve success. You need to repeat these words to yourself all the time, and success will come.

Talent is the ability to believe in success. It’s complete nonsense when they say that I suddenly discovered a talent in myself. I was just working.

Death is like changing from one car to another.

Music belongs to everyone. Only record companies still believe that they are the owners.

When I was about twelve years old, I often thought that I was probably a genius, but no one noticed. I thought: “I’m either a genius or crazy. Which of them? I can’t be crazy, because I’m not in a mental hospital. That means I'm a genius." I want to say that genius is apparently a form of madness.

I never thought that I would write great things, I just went and wrote them.

Rock and roll is eternal because it is simple, there is nothing superfluous in it. Its rhythm penetrates all barriers. I read a book by Elridge Cleaver - he writes about how blacks helped a white man with his music to find himself, to become aware of his body. Their music has penetrated us forever. Already at the age of fifteen, nothing existed for me except rock and roll in this life. Its strength lies in some special realism. The amazing naturalness of rock strikes you even at the very first acquaintance with it. In a word, this is true art.

For every man driving force- this is a woman. Without a woman, even Napoleon would have been a simple idiot.

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

When you have six feet of earth above you, everyone loves you.

You can put on shoes and a suit, you can comb your hair and look pretty, you can hide your true self behind a smile, you can go to church and defend mass, you can judge others based on the color of their skin, you can lie until you die, but you can never hide the fact that... that you are a moral cripple.

One part of me constantly worries that I am an ordinary loser, while the other fancies himself as the Lord God.

You have the whole world. How do you feel?
- How do you feel about being raped?

Life is easy with eyes closed without understanding what you are seeing.

Source – top-anthropos.com, Wikipedia, fishki.net, music-facts.ru, 24smi.org, ru.beatles.wikia.com.

About the life of this outstanding person many books have been written; some authors even received scientific degrees for them. His songs, his thoughts and actions were repeatedly subjected to careful study and comprehension. We will not talk about who John Lennon really is and what he wanted to say with his work - we will simply tell his story.

Childhood

John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 at Oxford Street Hospital. In almost any biography of John Lennon they write that this happened during the bombing - the Second World War. However, in reality, nothing of the kind happened, and the man who first wrote about it in his book about the Beatles denied his words many years later. John's mother, Julia, did not spend much time with the child. A year and a half later, she separated from the boy’s father, and a little later she found herself another man, and Aunt Mimi took John into her house.

Mimi was a strict woman and kept the boy in. Of course, she loved the boy and wished him better life, but in her own way: the limit of her hopes was that John would finish his studies at the institute and find a job. She wanted to raise him decent person, so she strictly monitored his morals and tried to prevent him from “mingling with street punks,” while John had already put together his own hooligan gang and fought with all the boys in the area.

When John went to school, he discovered that the local dull life was not at all for him: he began to study disgustingly, openly engaged in nonsense in class and was in a state of permanent war with teachers. Nevertheless, then his penchant for drawing appeared, or more precisely, for drawing mocking caricatures and obscene drawings.

Around this time, John becomes close to his mother, Julia. Julia was " black sheep“in her family - devoid of prejudices, she did as she pleased, living for her own pleasure, and this aroused the admiration of John, who was always a rebel. They became good friends, and the mother always supported any inventions and hobbies of her son.

The Quarrymen

And at that time it was the 50s: Bill Haley’s song “Rock around the clock” was released, in 1956 Elvis Presley appeared on the stage, and the wave of rock and roll swept over Britain. However, here it resulted in a slightly different form: skiffle appeared - this style had little resemblance to rock and roll, but it did not require any complex instruments, nor the ability to play well, and therefore became unusually popular among young people.

John did not stand aside either: he and his friends from school pranks created their own skiffle group. His instrument was the guitar, although he did not know how to play. The only thing is that John's mother showed him a couple of chords on the banjo (the first song he learned was That"ll Be The Day

The guys played from time to time just for fun and did not consider it something serious. People in the group were constantly changing, someone came and left, new faces constantly flashed by. And on July 6, 1957, Paul McCartney appeared. After some time he brought George Harrison. George's mother, unlike Mimi, supported the children in their passion for music: the company always found a warm welcome in the Harrisons' house.

Art College

Having successfully failed all the exams at school, John, under the patronage of Principal Podgeboy (who sincerely tried to establish contact with the uncontrollable student), somehow entered art college. There, too, he practically did not study, he constantly staged various pranks and sometimes disrupted classes. He still didn’t know what he wanted to do, but he had already firmly understood that he hated any routine - be it work, study or something else that required work and diligence.

At that period of his life, he experiences a severe shock - the death of his mother, Julia. In the short period of time that they were friends, John became very attached to her. Julia was one of the few who truly understood him. After the death of his mother, John seemed to have broken free: he became embittered, his antics became even angrier, his jokes even more sarcastic.

At the same time, John met Cynthia Powell. Perhaps he needed her: John was trying to fill the void left by his mother's death. In fact, he simply took out all his anger on the girl. John also met a promising artist at the institute; Stu became interested in John's band and took the place of the bassist, even though he couldn't play. He was much smarter and more intellectually developed than everyone else in the group, and John admired Stu; many elements of the Beatles' style were invented by him.

The group slowly, but slowly, developed: they played in youth clubs, at parties, and once managed to go on a tour of Scotland. All this time they didn't have specific name- The Quarrymen were long forgotten, the rest changed, and only after a while The Silver Beatles appeared, composed by John in the manner of Buddy Holly’s “The Crickets”.

Hamburg

In 1960, the Beatles were very lucky: Alan Williams invited them to go to Hamburg. At that time, he had already put Liverpool groups on tour there, and the guys were not the first. The place where they played was on Hamburg's red light district, and the Beatles performed all night for 6-8 hours straight, and slept in the cinema.

The Hamburg audience initially reacted lukewarmly to the guys standing on stage like idols; their manager, Koschmeider, was yelling at them, “Mack show,” a twisted version of “do a show.” And the Beatles began to “put on a show.” They kicked their feet loudly, jumped around the stage, rolled in the dust - in a word, they went crazy. Three-minute compositions were stretched over a third of an hour. The audience rejoiced.

It all ended very unexpectedly - George Harrison, a minor, was deported from the country. Following him, the rest of the group had to leave Germany. The first trip to Hamburg ended unsuccessfully, but it was here that the Beatles grew significantly in their skills and acquired many skills that would be useful to them later.

Under Epstein's wing

Returning to the hardened German club scene in Liverpool, the Beatles made a splash. They are firmly established in the most famous club local hooligan youth, and there they acquired a crowd of fans. Their relaxed behavior on stage, free communication with the audience, and rocking music produced an unprecedented effect: all performances ended in a grandiose brawl. It was there that they were picked up by the well-groomed white-handed Brian Epstein, who later became their manager. Under his strict leadership, the group completely changed its image: from the leather-clad, unwashed, foul-mouthed “Teddy Boys” the Beatles turned into neat, sleek young men in suits. Subsequently, Lennon regretted that the group “succumbed” to show business: with the new image they lost part of themselves - their unique spontaneity, simplicity and liveliness. John was annoyed that they were now climbing like vines “for the sake of publicity,” which they had previously despised. With his new image, he will long forget who John Lennon really is - a rebel and an implacable enemy of decency and the public.

During this time they traveled to Hamburg several more times. On the second tour of his arrival, John learned that Sutcliffe, who was staying there with his girlfriend Astrid, had died of a cerebral hemorrhage. The death of a close friend crippled Lennon: according to the recollections of friends, he burst into tears after Astrid’s words; This was rare case, when John showed emotion in public.

Beatlemania

Meanwhile, the Beatles were noticed by George Martin, and under his strict guidance they recorded a record, then another, a third and finally a fourth, She Loves You, which definitely marked the beginning of that three-year madness called Beatlemania. The band toured the world, wreaking havoc on ticket lines and unhinged fans. John and his friends enjoyed their success to the fullest: we will not cite the facts, scrupulously collected by fans, about what poured into the glasses, what they filled their pipes with, and how many girls spent the night in each of the hotels where the Beatles stayed. However, in show business, the group remained a bunch of sleek, rosy-cheeked boys singing sappy love songs. Subsequently, John would call this the worst time in his life: he was forced to be something other than what he was, for the sake of commerce, they turned a rebel rocker into a good boy, literally took away his real identity. Despite their outward brilliance and triumph, within the Beatles there was absolute moral degradation.

Acid and the end of concert activity

Having finished the tour and returned to England, John at first did not know what to do with himself. After the frantic pace of life on the edge of human capabilities, he felt empty and restless. It was then that John became interested in psychedelic experiences, marijuana and LSD. Perhaps this was his way of trying to destroy everything that had made up his life before and discover his purpose - to re-understand who John Lennon really was. By the way, around the same time, an attribute appeared, which later became an indispensable detail of the musician’s image. These were John Lennon's famous round glasses.

After some time, the band's concert career also ended. They have grown significantly in musically and moved on to more intellectual studio albums. Then John developed a craving for the avant-garde and psychedelic or acid rock. The results of his experiments were, for example, the fantastic I Am The Walrus and the hippie anthem All You Need Is Love.

Yoko Ono and the breakup of the Beatles

Yoko Ono took advantage of John’s interest in the avant-garde. John Lennon and Yoko Ono were perfect for each other - a purposeful Japanese woman, main passion who was an attention-getter, and a restless superstar who needed a muse or a genius to replace the simpleton Cynthia. They literally found each other. At this time, the Beatles were experiencing discord both in financial matters and in relationships within the group. The result was disintegration with litigation. However, by that time John was already glad to leave the Beatles: his interests were taking him in a completely different direction.

Solo career and political activity

First joint album John and Yoko consisted of sound experiments, noise and interference, and simpler people remembered it mainly for the cover, where the married couple appeared completely naked. This was just the beginning of the protest, the challenge they posed to the whole world. Subsequently, they will hold an extraordinary number of different events and performances designed to draw attention to the problems of violence in the world. The most famous of them is the “bed interview”, which took place in several cities; during it, John and Yoko sat in their hotel room (where anyone could enter) on a white bed in pajamas, decorated with flowers, and talked to countless journalists. Also in 1969, Lennon returned the Order of the Knights Commander of the British Empire, which he had received four years earlier, to the Queen as a sign of protest against participation in the Nigeria-Biafra armed conflict and US support in Vietnam. After moving to New York, he actively participated in local anti-war events, which brought him under government surveillance.

John continued to create - after vague experimental albums, he released Walls And Bridges while in the USA, which had significant success. Later for a long time- a break taken in connection with the birth of his son Sean - his second album (featuring Yoko) Double Fantasy is released, which has become one of the pearls joint creativity spouses. Tempting opportunities opened before them. creative perspectives. Perhaps John Lennon's best creative period was beginning. However, everything ended unexpectedly.

Death of John Lennon

Lennon was killed on December 8, 1980. Returning late at night from the recording studio, he heard someone call out to him. mysterious man. Without waiting for an answer, he fired five bullets from a revolver at the musician. Lennon was taken to hospital, where he bled to death. This is a rare posthumous photo of John Lennon taken in the morgue.

Crowds of thousands gathered in the streets. His songs were broadcast all over the world. A little later, in New York's Central Park, 400,000 people honored the musician's memory with a ten-minute silence. The murder of John Lennon shocked the whole world.

Lennon's integrity, honesty and straightforwardness truly deserve respect. His personal creativity has always been inextricably linked with his immediate state of mind and way of thinking. Extraordinary inner strength, which made him who he became, who John Lennon is, carried away millions of people who preserved not only his memory, but also a part of his soul.

The controversial figure of John Lennon still excites the imagination of his fellow Britons. In 2002, the BBC ranked him eighth in the list of the first hundred Englishmen whom his compatriots, as a result of a survey, named as the greatest personalities in national history.

What was John Lennon like, the creator and destroyer of The Beatles, a group that many consider the ensemble of all times? Who is he, the musician whose most famous song, “Imagine,” was written after the Yellow Submarine sank?

A hippie idol who preached equality and brotherhood, peace and freedom, John Lennon was born in the morning hours of a German air raid that hit his hometown of Liverpool on October 9, 1940.

The only son of Julia and Alfred Lennon, who received the middle name Winston from his parents, he did not live long in the status of a prosperous family.

A divorce soon followed, his mother quickly found a replacement for her ex-husband, and at the age of 4 John had a second family. The boy was taken in by the childless Smith couple, in which George's wife, Mimi, was the aunt of the future creator of the Beatles. Her parenting methods were strict, causing John to interact more with George, and when he passed away, Lennon became closer to his mother.

As a teenager, John Lennon demonstrated the makings of an extraordinary personality and an undoubted leader. The school routine was detrimental to him sharp mind. His academic performance left much to be desired; he devoted all the impulses of his soul to singing in the choir and publishing a handwritten journal.

Soon he was transferred to another school, but even there he quickly slipped into a lagging student, not showing himself in knowledge of science, regularly violating discipline and drawing caricatures of his teachers.

At the same time, Liverpool found itself under the rule of a completely new musical style- rock and roll, pioneered by Bill Haley and his legendary Comets. When Lonnie Donegan took the helm of the skiffle style, there was a real flood of groups of this style in Britain.

And when show business gave the world Elvis Presley, John Lennon realized: it was time to prove himself! He joined a school band as a guitarist, where another teenager played the guitar, one tried to play the banjo, two played percussion instruments, and the sixth member of the group specialized in washboards.

Making the Greatest Duo Lennon-McCartney refers to July 6, 1957. It was then that John met Paul, dragged him into his group, and soon McCartney’s friend George Harrison appeared there. Over the next few months, events alternated in a kaleidoscopic order.

Having failed his final exams, John Lennon nevertheless managed to continue his studies at the Liverpool College of Art. Here he met the future first Beatles bass player Stuart (Stu) Sutcliffe and met his future wife Cynthia Powell. Then his mother Julia died, which was the greatest shock for John.

He was so strongly attached to her that even after her death he continued to look for the image of his mother in all the women he met in his life. He named his first son Julian (who, by the way, continued his father’s work in show business) and several of his songs after her.

"The Beatles": beginning, success and decline

1959 was the beginning of the group of all times and peoples. The very next year, the Beatles, who called themselves "Silver Bugs", went to Germany for fame, which was fashionable in those days for English groups. In Hamburg, Lennon became acquainted with drugs.

Then their management was taken over by one of the two people who own the laurels of promoting The Beatles - Brian Epstein. It was he who insisted on his idea to dress all the Beatles in the costumes that later became internationally popular (they were also worn by the very first Soviet rock group “Singing Guitars”).

This move turned out to be successful, and the group's popularity increased. The second person who had a huge influence on the emergence of the Beatlemania phenomenon was George Martin.

Dies in 1962 best friend Lennon - Stu Sutcliffe. Soon John registers his marriage with Cynthia, and his first son Julian is born. In the summer of 1963 alone, the group's fame crossed the borders of Liverpool and became nationwide. At the same time, John Lennon took over the functions of the leader of the ensemble.

In 1964, he first tried himself as a writer. Unfortunately, he failed to achieve any tangible success in this genre of art, unlike, for example, the brilliant leader of TheDoors, Jim Morrison.

Lennon’s attempts to prove himself as an actor were also unsuccessful: the film “How I Won the War” went unnoticed by both viewers and critics.

Between 1964 and 1966, the Beatles were at the peak of their success. In 1966, John showed obvious tactlessness when he said in an interview that his group was more popular than Jesus Christ. The American Datebook placed this phrase on its cover.

The result of such self-confidence was the bonfires of the ensemble's records, which were lit by residents of the southern states. Lennon had to publicly apologize, but since then the popularity of The Beatles began to decline. And when, before a concert in Memphis, an unknown person said on the phone that he would kill him, John insisted on stopping his touring activities.

The Beginning of Introversion, Yoko Ono

Lennon's true biography as a public figure began in 1967, when he became addicted to drugs and began to move away from the group, relinquishing his leadership duties to Paul McCartney. The result of these actions, oddly enough, was the release of “Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band” - the best album of all time.

Since then, a black cat has run between the members of the Lennon-McCartney creative tandem, and this was the beginning of the end of The Beatles. Most of the songs (including the great “Yesterday”) were written by McCartney, although dual credits remained in the credits.

It was at this time that Lennon began writing those works that brought him world fame - “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, “All You Need is Love” and others. His apathy affected the image of the group: John Lennon himself put on his famous “Cat Basilio glasses” for the first time, and the rest of the Beatles, looking at him, grew mustaches and beards. The era of hippies began...

Since that time, John's relationship with Yoko Ono has been strengthening, whom the other three Beatles call the true reason for the collapse of the group of all times. Of course, having lost interest in his creation, Lennon simply had to find a replacement.

This replacement was the aspiring avant-garde artist, whom John was introduced to by Paul McCartney in 1966. However, they only got together in 1968. John Lennon divorced Cynthia, registered his relationship with Yoko a year later and adopted the middle name Ono instead of Winston.

In general, 1968 can be called the year when John’s biography took a completely different path. He releases his first solo album " Endless Music Number One: Two Virgins" It can hardly be called a musical creation, since the contents of the record were a cacophony of sounds, groans and screams.

On the cover were John and Yoko wearing whatever their mother gave birth to. This absolutely useless work inspired Lennon so much that the next year he released two similar albums, and then created the “Plastic Ono Group”, essentially putting an end to the existence of The Beatles.

Policy

From that time until 1972, Lennon was involved in politics. In 1969, he and Yoko gave an interview on peace from their Amsterdam hotel beds. After repeating this precedent, the pacifist anthem “Give Peace a Chance” was born in Montreal. And the anti-war concert they organized allowed the television crew to call John the third politician of the decade, after Kennedy and Mao Zedong.

In 1971, the album “Imagine” was released, where John outlined his ideas of global equality. By that time, the couple had left for the USA and never returned to England. True to form, John advocated for Indian freedom and released his last politically charged opus, Some Time in New York, in 1972.

Then the Lennons separated for a year, but in 1975, on his birthday, Yoko’s wife gave him a son, Sean, and for the next 5 years, John Lennon raised this child. On December 8, 1980, he was shot five times in the back by a fan. Mark Chapman had gotten an autograph from his idol a few hours earlier.

John Lennon (born John Winston Lennon, later changed to John Winston Ono Lennon; English John Winston Ono Lennon, October 9, 1940, Liverpool, UK - December 8, 1980, New York, USA) - British rock musician, singer, poet, composer, artist, writer. One of the founders and member of The Beatles, a popular musician of the 20th century.

John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 at 6:30 am, during a German air raid on Liverpool. His parents are Julia (English: Julia Lennon 1914-1958) and Alfred Lennon (English: Alfred Lennon 1912-1976). John became their first and last child - shortly after his birth, Julia and Alfred separated.

When Julia Lennon found another man, four-year-old John was taken in by his maternal aunt Mimi Smith (English: Mimi Smith 1906-1991) and her husband George Smith, who had no children of their own. Mimi was a strict teacher, and this often caused Lennon rejection. Mimi did not approve of his hobby for the guitar. John was distinguished by rare wit and malice. When he was learning to play the guitar, Aunt Mimi grumbled: “The guitar is a nice thing, but it will never help you make a living!”

Later, at the height of his success, John bought his aunt a luxurious mansion on the coast and decorated the hall with a marble plaque with his aunt's words. But Lennon found it mutual language with his uncle, who replaced his father, but in 1953 George died. John then became close to his mother Julia, who lived with her second husband and his two children.

Lennon could not stand the routine of school life, therefore, despite his sharp mind, he slipped from the category of the best students to the worst. But at school he managed to reveal his Creative skills- Lennon sang in a choir and published a handwritten magazine, which he himself illustrated. His favorite books at the time were Alice in Wonderland and The Wind in the Willows.

In 1952, Lennon ended up at Quarry Bank High School. In his studies, he did not achieve much success either, quickly finding himself in class C for the most backward students. At the same time, Lennon regularly violated discipline and drew caricatures of teachers.

In the mid-1950s, following the release of Bill Haley's "Rock around the Clock", the rock and roll craze began in Liverpool. The new hobby did not pass Lennon by, and in 1956 he, together with his school friends, founded The group Quarrymen, named after the school they all attended. Lennon himself played guitar in the Quarrymen.

On July 6, 1957, Lennon met Paul McCartney and accepted him into the Quarrymen. After Lennon failed his GCSEs, he managed (with the help of his headmaster) to enroll at Liverpool Art College. There he became friends with Stuart Sutcliffe, whom he also attracted to the Quarrymen, and met his future wife Cynthia Powell.

In 1958 (July 15), John's mother died. As she was crossing the road, she was hit by a police officer in a car. Julia's death was a severe shock for Lennon. Later he dedicated several songs to her - “Julia”, “Mother” and “My Mummy’s Dead”. His mother's death greatly affected him in the future. Since Lennon was very attached to Julia, he looked for his mother in almost all women.

The Quarrymen ceased to exist in 1959, when the name appeared - first the Silver Beetles, then The Beatles. In 1960, the Beatles went abroad for the first time - to Hamburg, Germany, where they performed in clubs in the Reeperbahn, the center of the city's nightlife. In Hamburg, Lennon tried drugs for the first time.

On August 23, 1962, John Lennon married Cynthia Powell. On April 8, 1963, John and Cynthia Lennon had a son, John Charles Julian Lennon. It was named after Julia, John's mother.

In 1963, Lennon “showed his teeth” for the first time, performing in front of the royal family. Announcing the next number, he exclaimed mischievously:
- We ask those who are sitting in cheap seats to applaud. The rest can limit themselves to jingling their jewelry!

The scandalous fame only contributed to the growth of the group's popularity. If in the spring of 1963 they were well known only in Liverpool, then in October of the same year the whole country knew about them, and in 1964 world fame came to the Liverpool group.

In addition, Lennon tried himself as an actor. Not counting the films made by the Beatles, he once starred in a movie: it was the film “How I Won the War” (English. “How I Won the War” (1967). The film was not a success with either audiences or critics.

In March 1966, Lennon, in an interview with the London Evening Standard newspaper, dropped a careless phrase, saying the following: “Christianity will go away. It will disappear and dry up. There is no need to argue; I'm right and the future will prove it. We are now more popular than Jesus; I don't know which will disappear first - rock and roll or Christianity. Jesus was okay, but his followers are stupid and ordinary. And it is their perversion that destroys Christianity in me.”

In the UK, no one paid attention to this phrase, but when, five months later, the American magazine Datebook put the phrase taken out of context on the cover, a scandal began in the USA. In the south of the country, whose residents are known for their religiosity, Beatles records were publicly burned, and radio stations stopped broadcasting their songs. Even the Vatican condemned Lennon’s statement (in 2008, however, the Vatican forgave the musician, saying that his phrase could be regarded as “witness.”

Lennon received death threats: in Memphis, someone called The Beatles' room and said that he (Lennon) would be killed during the concert. After these tours, the Beatles decided to abandon concerts. They never performed on stage again.

In 1967, Lennon, influenced by Timothy Leary's book The Psychedelic Experience, became interested in drugs. He began to move away from the rest of the group and abandoned the role of its leader. Lennon's appearance, like the rest of the group, changed greatly. The Beatles stopped dressing in neat suits and grew long hair, mustaches and sideburns. The famous round glasses appeared for the first time in Lennon's image.

Lennon met avant-garde artist Yoko Ono in 1966 when he visited her exhibition in art gallery"Indica" Their living together began in 1968, when Lennon divorced his first wife, Cynthia. Soon she and Yoko became inseparable. As Lennon said then, they are not John and Yoko, but one soul in two bodies, John-and-Yoko.

On March 20, 1969, the marriage of John Lennon and Yoko Ono was registered in Gibraltar. After his marriage, Lennon changed his middle name, Winston, to Ono, and his name was now John Ono Lennon. Relations within the Beatles finally deteriorated in 1968. In 1969, Lennon and McCartney had already announced that they were leaving the group. Lennon and Yoko Ono formed a group called the Plastic Ono Band.

Since September 1971, Lennon and Yoko Ono lived in New York. After a long battle with US immigration authorities, who refused to grant entry to the couple due to a drug scandal in 1969, the Lennons finally received the right to live in the US. John Lennon never visited Great Britain again.

On October 9, 1975, Lennon's thirty-fifth birthday, his son, Sean, was born. After this, Lennon announced that he was finishing musical career and devoted the next 5 years to his son. In all these years, he only appeared in public once - when he was finally given official permission to live in the United States. This happened in 1975, also on October 9. He was also invited to a private reception with US President Jimmy Carter along with Yoko.

Lennon's next album was released only in 1980. It was called "Double Fantasy" and received good feedback critics. This disc was destined to become the last in the work of John Lennon, whose life was cut short a few weeks after the release of the disc. Yoko Ono co-wrote the album.

On December 8, 1980, John Lennon was killed by US citizen Mark David Chapman. On the day of his death, Lennon gave his last interview to American journalists, and at 22:50, when John and Yoko entered the arch of their house, returning from the Hit Factory recording studio, Chapman, who had earlier that day taken Lennon’s autograph on the cover of the new album “Double Fantasy”, which was released in three weeks earlier, fired five shots into his back, four of which reached their target. Police car, called by the gatekeeper of the Dakota, Lennon was taken to Roosevelt Hospital in just a few minutes. But the doctors’ attempts to save Lennon were in vain - due to heavy blood loss, he died, the official time of death was 23 hours 15 minutes. He was cremated in New York and Lennon's ashes were given to Yoko Ono.

Chapman is serving a life sentence in a New York prison for his crime. He has already applied for early release six times (the last time in September 2010), but each time these requests were rejected. Yoko Ono sent a letter to the New York State Department of Parole in 2000 urging her not to release Chapman early.

In 1984, John Lennon's posthumous album Milk and Honey was released. The songs were recorded in recent months Lennon's life. It mainly consists of sessions for Double Fantasy.

Monument in Havana.

Interesting fact:
* All his life, John Lennon was aware of the meaning of the number 9. He was born on October 9, 1940, his son Sean was born on the same day, October 9, 75. The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, first came to see the guys at the Liverpool club CAVERNA on November 9, 1961, and their first contract with EMI was signed on May 9, 62. John met Yoko Ono on November 9, 1966, John and Yoko's apartment is located on West 72nd Street (seven and two make nine), and their first apartment number was also 72. Interestingly, in student years, in Liverpool, John traveled to art school on bus number 72. Among John's songs there are several that include the number 9 in the title: "Revolution Nine", "Dream Number Nine" and "Next to 909". He wrote these songs at his mother's house, number 9 Newcastle Road. His aunt Mimi's address was 126 Panorama Road (one two and six add up to nine). John even joked that one of his most significant songs, Give Peace A Chance, contains nine main words in the chorus. In the names “John Ono Lennon” and “Yoko Ono Lennon” the letter “O” appears nine times, finally, John was killed at 10.50 New York time on December 8, 1980, in the UK at that moment it was five hours earlier, there December 9 has already arrived. John's body was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, located on Ninth Avenue.