The New Generation 1980, he has, in many ways, become even more of an enigma. So many questions left unanswered. Would he have recorded more music? Would he have collaborated with other musicians.
Would The Beatles have eventually got back together? Who knows? None of us ever will. All we have is a brief snapshot of the life that he did lead post-Beatles.
I believe that, in terms of using the media to his advantage, John Lennon was light years ahead of anyone. Behind the cheeky one liners, there was a fertile mind and a complete realisation of the power that he possessed through his fame. This often brought troubles to his door. In 1966 this was the case when in an interview with the London Standard Lennon stated "Christianity will go.
It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I'll be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity. " Despite the controversy that surrounded him following that line, have a look around you today in 2019, 55 years later, how many people go to church every Sunday?
Lennon knew. Love him or loathe him, John Lennon was one of us, one of the people, the common man. He just happened to be famous for singing in a band; that to him seemed incidental, he never lost his common touch. Disillusioned by the goings on of the world around him he kept it simple and used his fame to access the media to spread what he believed to be right.
His weapons in life were his pen, his guitar, his voice and his fame. He married Yoko Ono in 1969 and spent a week in bed in the Hilton Amsterdam campaigning with a week-long ‘Bed-In For Peace’ , an act repeated in Montreal where they recorded the iconic Give Peace A Chance. In December of that year he flew to Toronto, Canada to witness a campaign of huge posters and billboards posted around the city proclaiming "War is over! If you want it!
Happy Christmas from John & Yoko" . These billboards also appeared in eleven other countries, translated into the native language in some. Two years later this mantra became a song (my favourite seasonal tune). John Lennon had a way of using his fame and common touch to cut through the bulls**t that surrounded politics at the time.
Today, we really need a Lennon for our generation. We have the ingredients: rising political tensions, a fame-obsessed population, general unrest around the globe, it's all there in more ways than it was back then and that’s before you add in the impact of social media! The nearest we've come since was Bob Geldof in 1984/5 with Band Aid and Live Aid. Can you imagine (excuse the pun) today, in 2019, Ed Sheeran doing a fraction of this?
Would you get Katy Perry or Justin Bieber doing a ‘Bed In for Peace’ protest, attempting to reach out to the people of the world in the way that John Lennon did? He confronted and challenged convention and government in a way that had not been seen before or since. Sorry Bono, good try, but not even close! Maybe today we need our own Lennon, though the guitar would more likely be a Denon Prime 4 MIDI controller, an external hard drive packed with samples, beats & loops, and a monster sound system.
Happy Christmas, War Is Over (If You Want It)... Doesn't get more simple than that does it?
