Yes, I know, this post is late. I apologize.
But this being the year that John Lennon turns 70 and the 30th anniversary of his tragic death, I thought I should give a little tribute to a musician who I consider one of my idols.
Lennon is one of the few “classic” musicians today that everybody knows. Whether “A Hard Day’s Night” or “Strawberry Fields Forever” or “Imagine,” everyone has one John Lennon song that they love. But Lennon was more than a musician to many–and to me. He is larger than life, yet at the same time the vulnerability in his music brings him “back to Earth,” in a sense. Listen to the simple guitar picking and solitude of “Julia,” an ode to his deceased mother, or the bitterness of “Norwegian Wood,” and you will see a side of Lennon that contrasts the bombastic, “we’re more popular than Jesus” confidence that he exuded publicly.
But what makes him so compelling and mystifying? It’s because John Lennon’s music speaks to us, rather like Bob Dylan’s did in the 1960s (note: I was not alive then, but I’ve read and seen enough footage of Dylan to make that statement). What he did in his private life was interesting, yes–but his music said more than anything else he did. When he was with the Beatles, Lennon spoke for a world on the brink of change–his early work expressed the childish optimism of the early 1960s, his mid-Beatles work like Rubber Soul shifting into a maturity and rawness that would define his music. Works like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band reveal the surrealist Lennon, the psychadelic Lennon, the Lennon that was not afraid to explore the possibilities of the human mind. And then, when the Beatles broke up, he delved into his personal life–his religious beliefs (“God”), his faith in humanity (“Imagine”), and his newborn child (“Beautiful Boy”). His activism revealed his willingness to care, his unyielding desire to see no man lift sword against another. It was this optimism that helped a nation in turmoil through the Nixon administration and the war in Vietnam.
Lennon, first and foremost, wrote about himself. But something about him–perhaps the fact that he was such a major public figure, or perhaps just the raw talent in his songwriting–makes us see a little bit of ourselves in him. I know that when I’ve hit rough patches, Lennon’s music has helped me spiritually; when I feel lost, I turn to the message that rings throughout Lennon’s songwriting:
All You Need Is Love.
Happy Belated Birthday, John.
