First published in The Mirror, 9 October 2000
IMAGINE JOHN LENNON AT 60
Birthday Tribute to a genius of the music world.
by Christine Smith and Jane Ridley
John Lennon would have celebrated his 60th birthday today.
The occasion is being marked by the re-release of two of his best-known albums, Double Fantasy and John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band from 1970.
Three new tracks will be issued, including Walking on Thin Ice, which Lennon completed on December 8, 1980 - the night he was shot dead by MDC.
Later today, Lennon's widow, Yoko will open a museum dedicated to him in Tokyo, Japan. Here are 60 facts we've uncovered about one of the greatest figures in the world of rock...
1. He was born, with brown eyes, on October 9, 1940 at the Royal Infirmary in Liverpool.
2. Loved eating jelly, [Jello, to you Americans!] curries and steak and chips.
3. Bought his first electric guitar from the proceeds of a holiday job on a building site.
4. Formed his first band at 16
5. Warmed to Paul McCartney because he knew the words to one of John's favorite Elvis songs [Twenty Flight Rock, was the actual song]. They went to an audition, calling themselves The Nurk Twins.
6. His Aunt Mimi told his off for playing the guitar as a teenager: "The guitar is fine and well, but you'll never make a living off it."
7. Art was his best subject at school. He failed miserably at maths and science and was more interested in "fags [cigarettes!] and girls".
8. Played Gripweed in the movie, How I won the War.
9. Was arrested at Ringo Starr's flat in 1968 for possession of marijuana.
10. Regarded Sir Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono as his two greatest partners.
11. First marriage was to Cynthia Powell in 1962 at Mount Pleasent Register Office, Liverpool. His best man was Paul McCartney. It only lasted 6 years.
12. Lennon's son Julian was the first of the Beatles offspring, born on April 8, 1963. John Charles Julian Lennon weighed 6lb 5oz.
13. John saw the death of Brian Epsein on August 27, 1967 as the main reason the Beatles broke up.
14. His hit single Give Peace a Chance was recorded in a Montreal hotel room.
15. Met Yoko Ono at a gallery opening, and fell in love almost immediately in 1966. They married in Gibraltar in 1969.
16. Nobody controlled the Beatles, but John always nominated himself unofficial chairman.
17. It was Lennon's decision to form The Beatles. He originally called the band The Quarrymen.
18. In 1965, he said: "We are more popular than Jesus." As a result records were banned in South Africa and there was an uproar in the US.
19. Lennon met the Beatles for the last time in a recording studio on August 20, 1969, when the group completed its Abbey Road album.
20. Lennon spent the first half of the seventies fighting US immigration for a green card, and the second half in seclusion, after the birth of son, Sean.
21. Was shot 5 times with a .38 revolver by his killer MDC outside his home in the Dakota Building, New York.
22. On Yoko, Lennon said: "We are two halves, and together we're whole."
23. Lennon attended Liverpool college of Art. He spent hours drawing cartoons and sketches while on tour with the group.
24. His dad, Fred, a seaman, was jailed for desertion. His mother sent John to his Aunt Mimi's to be looked after.
25. At school he was caught shoplifting, hitching rides on trolleys and harassing girls. His report card branded him "hopeless".
26. He and Yoko made the single [album?] Two Virgins in 196, covering the cover with pictures of two naked lovers [John and Yoko]. Copies were confiscated.
27. The other Beatles sarcastically called Yoko the fifth member.
28. Asked to speak at a literary lunch to mark Shakespeare's 400th birthday, Lennon said only, "Thanks very much, you've got a lucky face."
29. He wrote two books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works, published in 1964 and 1965.
30. Changed his middle name from Winston to Ono in 1969.
31. The ballard of John and Yoko, released in June 1969 was the band's first stereo single and their last no 1. [?]
32. John and Julian Lennon, and Yoko, starred in a Rolling Stones film called Rock and Roll Circus. Produced for TV it was never aired. [It has been.]
33. In 1990 asteroid 4147 was named after Lennon.
34. Police closed a London exhibition of sexy lithographs of Lennon on the grounds that they were obscene.
35. Lennon's song Good Morning Good Morning was inspired by a TV ad for Kelloggs Cornflakes.
36. John Lennon used the single God to state all the things he didn't believe in [at that time].
37. More than 2500 versions of the Lennon-McCartney ballard Yesterday have been recorded.
38. After Lennon received an MBE in 1965 with the rest of the group, Canadian MP Hector Duprais said: "The British house of royalty have put me on the same level as a bunch of vulgar numbskulls."
39. He played a harmonium used by Ena Sharples in Coronation Street when performing We Can Work it Out in an ITV studio in 1965 - he had forgotten his own.
40. The final Beatles concert was in San Francisco on August 29, 1966. They closed with the Little Richard song Long Tall Sally.
41. Lennon made more than 1400 live appearances with the group.
42. To promote world peace, Lennon and Ono stayed in bed for seven days at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam.
43. John Lennon's humor surfaced at the Royal Variety Performance in 1963, when he said, "The people in the cheap seats clap your hands. The rest of you rattle your jewelry."
44. Lennon made his first national TV appearance with The Beatles on Thank Your Lucky Stars in January 19, 1963.
45. First record to feature Lennon, McCartney and George Harrison was a demo of Buddy Holly's That'll Be The Day
46. Lennon's decision to call the group The Beatles caused uproar in Germany as it sounds like "peedles", German slang for penis.
47. He performed with the group at the famous Cavern 274 times [Not the correct figure, I think its 292 or 242 perhaps?]
48. He was devastated when his best friend and former band member bass player Stuart Sutcliffe died of a brain hemorrhage in Hamburg in 1962.
49. Favorite single was Daytripper.
50. In the space of four years Madame Tussaud's had to change his hair and clothes five times.
51. Lennon and other band members claimed they smoked marijuana in the toilets at Buckingham Palace.
52. He went to Bangor, Wales in 1967 to study transcendental meditation under the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
53. Turned down £18million to reform the Beatles in 1976
54. Lennon in America, a recent book written by Geoffrey Guilliano and slammed by Ono as 'totally untrue' claims Lennon slept with Linda McCartney and that he was bisexual. [Completely untrue. Never believe anything Guilliano writes.]
55. Lennon's sons Julian and Sean came to blows 2 years ago. Sean claimed that their father's death was the result of a CIA witchhunt
56. An area in New York's Central Park had been set up a permanent memorial.
57. Lennon was the first to drift away from the band - to spend more time with Yoko.
58. Favorite hobbies - other than singing - were writing off beat poetry and painting.
59. Could switch from Goon-style tomfoolery to a serious, sensible man at the drop of a drumstick.
60. John was 5ft 11in and weighed 11st 5lb when he died on December 8, 1980.
