John Lennon was born on October 9, 1940 in Liverpool, England. John`s parents separated when he was just four years old. John never really saw alot of his father. As a child, John was a prankster and enjoyed getting in trouble. John began drawing grotesque figures and cripples. One of the reasons for his obsession with cripples and deformities was because of the death of his mother, Julia just before his 18th birthday. Then John's school master thought that John could go to an art school for college, since he did not get good grades in school, but had artistic talent. He made it to art school, and was not allow to play "Rock`n`Roll" music. At that point Elvis and Buddy Holly were Johns biggest musical influences. Which let John to create a group called "Quarry Men". This is when he met the talented Paul McCartney and Geogre Harrison. The first recording they made was called "That will be the day" by Buddy Holly. Then John came up with the name "The Beatles" for the group. He got the name from a vision he had when he was 12 years old, of a man on a flaming pie that said unto them 'From this day on you are Beatles with an 'A'. The Beatles were ruling the charts before they even knew what hit them. Their song "Love Me Do" went up the charts the second day it was released. The Beatles first number one chart was "Please Please Me" written by John Lennon himself. This song was inspired primarily by Roy Orbison but also fed by John's infatuation with the pun in Bing Crosby's famous "Please, lend your little ears to my please,"
Then in August 1962, John married Cynthia Powell. They had a son together named, Julian. Shortly after they divorced and John re-married, an asian women named Yoko Ono.
Then 1970, the Beatles broke up after Paul McCartney announced he was leaving the band. After the Beatles broke up, John Lennon went his way and he tried to send out his message clearer. He started doing this by releasing his first solo album Imagine. Imagine was a passion of Johns. It crystallized his dream for the world and his idealism. And it was something that John really wanted to say to the world. Imagine was the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed of all John Lennon's post-Beatles efforts. After the Beatles broke up, Paul wrote some songs with hidden message, which upset John. In response to this John wrote, "How do you sleep ?" and released this also on the Imagine album.
In 1973, John and Yoko separated for 14 months, because of all the public pressure and problems they were going through. Then John went to Los Angeles and John recorded different records like "Mind Games", "Rock and Roll", "Walls and Bridges" . He worked with Ringo on his album, David Bowie with his "Fame" album and also with Elton John during this time. After going through all this, John realized that he loved Yoko, so they got back together. On October 9, 1975, Yoko gave birth to John's other son Sean. John left his whole music career to raise his son. John did not miss music at all during this period. He became a house husband and raised his son. John did not really exist anymore in the music world. Then after 5 years John realized that there was no life without music. He was able to write songs now with ease since there were no pressure from the music world. John wrote all the songs on "Double Fantasy" in a period of 3 weeks. This album was written, recorded, and released in 1980. Unfortunately, John was shot in front of his apartment complex in New York while he was in the process of releasing another album "Milk and Honey". John died at the age of 40 in the Roosevelt Hospital on December 8, 1980, after receiving multiple gun shot wounds in the back.
The Double Fantasy album contained one ironic song title, "Just like starting over". Its ironic because John was just starting over again, then his life was cut short. John Lennon created the Beatles and with Paul, Ringo and George, they made great music together. John was not only a great music writer, but also an excellent pop artist and did a lot in the Rock and Roll music world. His songs will live forever in all our hearts and minds if we can all Just Give Peace a Chance.
