John Winston Ono Lennon[nb 1] MBE (born John Winston Lennon, 9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter and peace activist[2] who gained worldwide fame as the founder, co-lead vocalist, and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. His songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney remains the most successful in history.[3] In 1969, he started the Plastic Ono Band with his second wife, Yoko Ono. After the Beatles disbanded in 1970, Lennon continued as a solo artist and as a collaborator of Ono's music.
Born in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the skiffle craze as a teenager. In 1957, he formed his first band, the Quarrymen, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. He was initially the group's de facto leader, a role gradually rescinded to McCartney. Starting in 1967, Lennon's lyrics began to espouse a pacifist message, and some of his songs were soon adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement and the larger counterculture. From 1968 to 1972, he produced more than a dozen records with Ono, including a trilogy of avant-garde albums, his first solo LP John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, and the international top 10 singles "Give Peace a Chance", "Instant Karma!", "Imagine" and "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)".
Lennon was characterised for the rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, writing, drawings, on film and in interviews. He was controversial through his political and peace activism. After moving to New York City in 1971, his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a three-year attempt by the Nixon administration to deport him. In 1975, Lennon disengaged from the music business to raise his infant son Sean, and in 1980, returned with the Ono collaboration Double Fantasy. He was shot and killed in the archway of his Manhattan apartment building three weeks after the album's release.
By 2012, Lennon's solo album sales in the US had exceeded 14 million units. He had 25 number-one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart as a writer, co-writer or performer. In 2002, Lennon was voted eighth in a BBC poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, and in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth-greatest singer of all time. In 1987, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Lennon was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, as a member of the Beatles in 1988 and as a solo artist in 1994
Lennon was born on 9 October 1940 at Liverpool Maternity Hospital, to Julia (née Stanley) (1914–1958) and Alfred Lennon (1912–1976). Alfred was a merchant seaman of Irish descent who was away at the time of his son's birth.[5] His parents named him John Winston Lennon after his paternal grandfather, John "Jack" Lennon, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill.[6] His father was often away from home but sent regular pay cheques to 9 Newcastle Road, Liverpool, where Lennon lived with his mother;[7] the cheques stopped when he went absent without leave in February 1944.[8][9] When he eventually came home six months later, he offered to look after the family, but Julia, by then pregnant with another man's child, rejected the idea.[10] After her sister Mimi complained to Liverpool's Social Services twice, Julia gave her custody of Lennon. In July 1946, Lennon's father visited her and took his son to Blackpool, secretly intending to emigrate to New Zealand with him.[11] Julia followed them – with her partner at the time, Bobby Dykins – and after a heated argument, his father forced the five-year-old to choose between them. In one account of this incident, Lennon twice chose his father, but as his mother walked away, he began to cry and followed her.[12] According to author Mark Lewisohn, however, Lennon's parents agreed that Julia should take him and give him a home. A witness who was there that day, Billy Hall, has said that the dramatic portrayal of a young John Lennon being forced to make a decision between his parents is inaccurate.[13] Lennon had no further contact with Alf for close to 20 years.[14]
Throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence, Lennon lived at Mendips, 251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton, with Mimi and her husband George Toogood Smith, who had no children of their own.[15] His aunt purchased volumes of short stories for him, and his uncle, a dairyman at his family's farm, bought him a mouth organ and engaged him in solving crossword puzzles.[16] Julia visited Mendips on a regular basis, and when John was 11 years old, he often visited her at 1 Blomfield Road, Liverpool, where she played him Elvis Presley records, taught him the banjo, and showed him how to play "Ain't That a Shame" by Fats Domino.[17] In September 1980, Lennon commented about his family and his rebellious nature:
A part of me would like to be accepted by all facets of society and not be this loudmouthed lunatic poet/musician. But I cannot be what I am not ... I was the one who all the other boys' parents – including Paul's father – would say, "Keep away from him" ... The parents instinctively recognised I was a troublemaker, meaning I did not conform and I would influence their children, which I did. I did my best to disrupt every friend's home ... Partly out of envy that I didn't have this so-called home ... but I did ... There were five women that were my family. Five strong, intelligent, beautiful women, five sisters. One happened to be my mother. [She] just couldn't deal with life. She was the youngest and she had a husband who ran away to sea and the war was on and she couldn't cope with me, and I ended up living with her elder sister. Now those women were fantastic ... And that was my first feminist education ... I would infiltrate the other boys' minds. I could say, "Parents are not gods because I don't live with mine and, therefore, I know."[18]
He regularly visited his cousin, Stanley Parkes, who lived in Fleetwood and took him on trips to local cinemas.[19] During the school holidays, Parkes often visited Lennon with Leila Harvey, another cousin, and the threesome often travelled to Blackpool two or three times a week to watch shows. They would visit the Blackpool Tower Circus and see artists such as Dickie Valentine, Arthur Askey, Max Bygraves and Joe Loss, with Parkes recalling that Lennon particularly liked George Formby.[20] After Parkes's family moved to Scotland, the three cousins often spent their school holidays together there. Parkes recalled, "John, cousin Leila and I were very close. From Edinburgh we would drive up to the family croft at Durness, which was from about the time John was nine years old until he was about 16."[21] Lennon's uncle George died of a liver haemorrhage on 5 June 1955, at age 52.[22]
Lennon was raised as an Anglican and attended Dovedale Primary School.[23] After passing his eleven-plus exam, he attended Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool from September 1952 to 1957, and was described by Harvey at the time as a "happy-go-lucky, good-humoured, easy going, lively lad".[24] He often drew comical cartoons that appeared in his own self-made school magazine called the Daily Howl.[25][nb 2]
In 1956, Julia bought John his first guitar. The instrument was an inexpensive Gallotone Champion acoustic for which she lent her son five pounds and ten shillings on the condition that the guitar be delivered to her own house and not Mimi's, knowing well that her sister was not supportive of her son's musical aspirations.[27] Mimi was sceptical of his claim that he would be famous one day, and she hoped that he would grow bored with music, often telling him, "The guitar's all very well, John, but you'll never make a living out of it."[28] On 15 July 1958, Lennon's mother was struck and killed by a car while she was walking home after visiting the Smiths' house.[29]
Lennon failed his O-level examinations and was accepted into the Liverpool College of Art after his aunt and headmaster intervened.[30] At the college, he started wearing Teddy Boy clothes and was threatened with expulsion for his behaviour.[31] In the description of Cynthia Powell, Lennon's fellow student, and subsequently his wife, he was "thrown out of the college before his final year".[32]
1957–1970: The Quarrymen to the Beatles
Further information: The Quarrymen, Lennon–McCartney, The Beatles, Beatlemania, British Invasion, and More popular than Jesus
1957–1966: Formation, commercial break-out and touring years
At age 15, Lennon formed a skiffle group, the Quarrymen. Named after Quarry Bank High School, the group was established by Lennon in September 1956.[33] By the summer of 1957, the Quarrymen played a "spirited set of songs" made up of half skiffle and half rock and roll.[34] Lennon first met Paul McCartney at the Quarrymen's second performance, which was held in Woolton on 6 July at the St Peter's Church garden fête. Lennon then asked McCartney to join the band.[35]
McCartney said that Aunt Mimi "was very aware that John's friends were lower class", and would often patronise him when he arrived to visit Lennon.[36] According to McCartney's brother Mike, their father similarly disapproved of Lennon, declaring that Lennon would get his son "into trouble".[37] McCartney's father nevertheless allowed the fledgling band to rehearse in the family's front room at 20 Forthlin Road.[38][39] During this time, Lennon wrote his first song, "Hello Little Girl", which became a UK top 10 hit for the Fourmost in 1963.[40]
McCartney recommended his friend George Harrison to be the lead guitarist.[41] Lennon thought that Harrison, then 14 years old, was too young. McCartney engineered an audition on the upper deck of a Liverpool bus, where Harrison played "Raunchy" for Lennon and was asked to join.[42] Stuart Sutcliffe, Lennon's friend from art school, later joined as bassist.[43] Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Sutcliffe became "The Beatles" in early 1960. In August that year, the Beatles were engaged for a 48-night residency in Hamburg, in West Germany, and were desperately in need of a drummer. They asked Pete Best to join them.[44] Lennon's aunt, horrified when he told her about the trip, pleaded with Lennon to continue his art studies instead.[45] After the first Hamburg residency, the band accepted another in April 1961, and a third in April 1962. As with the other band members, Lennon was introduced to Preludin while in Hamburg,[46] and regularly took the drug as a stimulant during their long, overnight performances
Brian Epstein managed the Beatles from 1962 until his death in 1967. He had no previous experience managing artists, but he had a strong influence on the group's dress code and attitude on stage.[48] Lennon initially resisted his attempts to encourage the band to present a professional appearance, but eventually complied, saying, "I'll wear a bloody balloon if somebody's going to pay me."[49] McCartney took over on bass after Sutcliffe decided to stay in Hamburg, and Best was replaced with drummer Ringo Starr; this completed the four-piece line-up that would remain until the group's break-up in 1970. The band's first single, "Love Me Do", was released in October 1962 and reached No. 17 on the British charts. They recorded their debut album, Please Please Me, in under 10 hours on 11 February 1963,[50] a day when Lennon was suffering the effects of a cold,[51] which is evident in the vocal on the last song to be recorded that day, "Twist and Shout".[52] The Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership yielded eight of its fourteen tracks. With a few exceptions, one being the album title itself, Lennon had yet to bring his love of wordplay to bear on his song lyrics, saying: "We were just writing songs ... pop songs with no more thought of them than that – to create a sound. And the words were almost irrelevant".[50] In a 1987 interview, McCartney said that the other Beatles idolised Lennon: "He was like our own little Elvis ... We all looked up to John. He was older and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the smartest
The Beatles achieved mainstream success in the UK early in 1963. Lennon was on tour when his first son, Julian, was born in April. During their Royal Variety Show performance, which was attended by the Queen Mother and other British royalty, Lennon poked fun at the audience: "For our next song, I'd like to ask for your help. For the people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands ... and the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewellery."[54] After a year of Beatlemania in the UK, the group's historic February 1964 US debut appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show marked their breakthrough to international stardom. A two-year period of constant touring, filmmaking, and songwriting followed, during which Lennon wrote two books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works.[55] The Beatles received recognition from the British establishment when they were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1965 Queen's Birthday Honours.[56]
Lennon grew concerned that fans who attended Beatles concerts were unable to hear the music above the screaming of fans, and that the band's musicianship was beginning to suffer as a result.[57] Lennon's "Help!" expressed his own feelings in 1965: "I meant it ... It was me singing 'help'".[58] He had put on weight (he would later refer to this as his "Fat Elvis" period),[59] and felt he was subconsciously seeking change.[60] In March that year he and Harrison were unknowingly introduced to LSD when a dentist, hosting a dinner party attended by the two musicians and their wives, spiked the guests' coffee with the drug.[61] When they wanted to leave, their host revealed what they had taken, and strongly advised them not to leave the house because of the likely effects. Later, in a lift at a nightclub, they all believed it was on fire; Lennon recalled: "We were all screaming ... hot and hysterical."[62] In March 1966, during an interview with Evening Standard reporter Maureen Cleave, Lennon remarked, "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink ... We're more popular than Jesus now – I don't know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity."[63] The comment went virtually unnoticed in England but caused great offence in the US when quoted by a magazine there five months later. The furore that followed, which included the burning of Beatles records, Ku Klux Klan activity and threats against Lennon, contributed to the band's decision to stop touring.[64]
1966–1970: Studio years, break-up and solo work
After the band's final concert on 29 August 1966, Lennon filmed the anti-war black comedy How I Won the War – his only appearance in a non-Beatles feature film – before rejoining his bandmates for an extended period of recording, beginning in November.[65] Lennon had increased his use of LSD[66] and, according to author Ian MacDonald, his continuous experimentation with the drug in 1967 brought him "close to erasing his identity".[67] The year 1967 saw the release of "Strawberry Fields Forever", hailed by Time magazine for its "astonishing inventiveness",[68] and the group's landmark album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which revealed lyrics by Lennon that contrasted strongly with the simple love songs of the group's early years.[69] In late June, the Beatles performed Lennon's "All You Need Is Love" as Britain's contribution to the Our World satellite broadcast, before an international audience estimated at up to 400 million.[70] Intentionally simplistic in its message,[71] the song formalised his pacifist stance and provided an anthem for the Summer of Love.[72]
After the Beatles were introduced to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the group attended an August weekend of personal instruction at his Transcendental Meditation seminar in Bangor, Wales.[73] During the seminar, they were informed of Epstein's death. "I knew we were in trouble then", Lennon said later. "I didn't have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music. I was scared – I thought, 'We've fucking had it now.'"[74] McCartney organised the group's first post-Epstein project,[75] the self-written, -produced and -directed television film Magical Mystery Tour, which was released in December that year. While the film itself proved to be their first critical flop, its soundtrack release, featuring Lennon's Lewis Carroll-inspired "I Am the Walrus", was a success.[76][77]
Led by Harrison and Lennon's interest, the Beatles travelled to the Maharishi's ashram in India in February 1968 for further guidance.[78] While there, they composed most of the songs for their double album The Beatles,[79] but the band members' mixed experience with Transcendental Meditation signalled a sharp divergence in the group's camaraderie.[80] On their return to London, they became increasingly involved in business activities with the formation of Apple Corps, a multimedia corporation composed of Apple Records and several other subsidiary companies. Lennon described the venture as an attempt to achieve "artistic freedom within a business structure".[81] Released amid a period of civic unrest and protests, the band's debut single for the Apple label included Lennon's B-side "Revolution", in which he called for a "plan" rather than committing to Maoist revolution. The song's pacifist message led to ridicule from political radicals in the New Left press.[82] Adding to the tensions at the Beatles' recording sessions that year, Lennon insisted on having his new girlfriend, the Japanese artist Yoko Ono, beside him, thereby contravening the band's policy regarding wives and girlfriends in the studio. He was especially pleased with his songwriting contributions to the double album and identified it as a superior work to Sgt. Pepper.[83] At the end of 1968, Lennon was featured in the film The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus in the role of a Dirty Mac band member. The film was not released until 1996. The supergroup, composed of Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell, also backed a vocal performance by Ono in the film
Born in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the skiffle craze as a teenager. In 1957, he formed his first band, the Quarrymen, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. He was initially the group's de facto leader, a role gradually rescinded to McCartney. Starting in 1967, Lennon's lyrics began to espouse a pacifist message, and some of his songs were soon adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement and the larger counterculture. From 1968 to 1972, he produced more than a dozen records with Ono, including a trilogy of avant-garde albums, his first solo LP John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, and the international top 10 singles "Give Peace a Chance", "Instant Karma!", "Imagine" and "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)".
Lennon was characterised for the rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, writing, drawings, on film and in interviews. He was controversial through his political and peace activism. After moving to New York City in 1971, his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a three-year attempt by the Nixon administration to deport him. In 1975, Lennon disengaged from the music business to raise his infant son Sean, and in 1980, returned with the Ono collaboration Double Fantasy. He was shot and killed in the archway of his Manhattan apartment building three weeks after the album's release.
By 2012, Lennon's solo album sales in the US had exceeded 14 million units. He had 25 number-one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart as a writer, co-writer or performer. In 2002, Lennon was voted eighth in a BBC poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, and in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth-greatest singer of all time. In 1987, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Lennon was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, as a member of the Beatles in 1988 and as a solo artist in 1994
Lennon was born on 9 October 1940 at Liverpool Maternity Hospital, to Julia (née Stanley) (1914–1958) and Alfred Lennon (1912–1976). Alfred was a merchant seaman of Irish descent who was away at the time of his son's birth.[5] His parents named him John Winston Lennon after his paternal grandfather, John "Jack" Lennon, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill.[6] His father was often away from home but sent regular pay cheques to 9 Newcastle Road, Liverpool, where Lennon lived with his mother;[7] the cheques stopped when he went absent without leave in February 1944.[8][9] When he eventually came home six months later, he offered to look after the family, but Julia, by then pregnant with another man's child, rejected the idea.[10] After her sister Mimi complained to Liverpool's Social Services twice, Julia gave her custody of Lennon. In July 1946, Lennon's father visited her and took his son to Blackpool, secretly intending to emigrate to New Zealand with him.[11] Julia followed them – with her partner at the time, Bobby Dykins – and after a heated argument, his father forced the five-year-old to choose between them. In one account of this incident, Lennon twice chose his father, but as his mother walked away, he began to cry and followed her.[12] According to author Mark Lewisohn, however, Lennon's parents agreed that Julia should take him and give him a home. A witness who was there that day, Billy Hall, has said that the dramatic portrayal of a young John Lennon being forced to make a decision between his parents is inaccurate.[13] Lennon had no further contact with Alf for close to 20 years.[14]
Throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence, Lennon lived at Mendips, 251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton, with Mimi and her husband George Toogood Smith, who had no children of their own.[15] His aunt purchased volumes of short stories for him, and his uncle, a dairyman at his family's farm, bought him a mouth organ and engaged him in solving crossword puzzles.[16] Julia visited Mendips on a regular basis, and when John was 11 years old, he often visited her at 1 Blomfield Road, Liverpool, where she played him Elvis Presley records, taught him the banjo, and showed him how to play "Ain't That a Shame" by Fats Domino.[17] In September 1980, Lennon commented about his family and his rebellious nature:
A part of me would like to be accepted by all facets of society and not be this loudmouthed lunatic poet/musician. But I cannot be what I am not ... I was the one who all the other boys' parents – including Paul's father – would say, "Keep away from him" ... The parents instinctively recognised I was a troublemaker, meaning I did not conform and I would influence their children, which I did. I did my best to disrupt every friend's home ... Partly out of envy that I didn't have this so-called home ... but I did ... There were five women that were my family. Five strong, intelligent, beautiful women, five sisters. One happened to be my mother. [She] just couldn't deal with life. She was the youngest and she had a husband who ran away to sea and the war was on and she couldn't cope with me, and I ended up living with her elder sister. Now those women were fantastic ... And that was my first feminist education ... I would infiltrate the other boys' minds. I could say, "Parents are not gods because I don't live with mine and, therefore, I know."[18]
He regularly visited his cousin, Stanley Parkes, who lived in Fleetwood and took him on trips to local cinemas.[19] During the school holidays, Parkes often visited Lennon with Leila Harvey, another cousin, and the threesome often travelled to Blackpool two or three times a week to watch shows. They would visit the Blackpool Tower Circus and see artists such as Dickie Valentine, Arthur Askey, Max Bygraves and Joe Loss, with Parkes recalling that Lennon particularly liked George Formby.[20] After Parkes's family moved to Scotland, the three cousins often spent their school holidays together there. Parkes recalled, "John, cousin Leila and I were very close. From Edinburgh we would drive up to the family croft at Durness, which was from about the time John was nine years old until he was about 16."[21] Lennon's uncle George died of a liver haemorrhage on 5 June 1955, at age 52.[22]
Lennon was raised as an Anglican and attended Dovedale Primary School.[23] After passing his eleven-plus exam, he attended Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool from September 1952 to 1957, and was described by Harvey at the time as a "happy-go-lucky, good-humoured, easy going, lively lad".[24] He often drew comical cartoons that appeared in his own self-made school magazine called the Daily Howl.[25][nb 2]
In 1956, Julia bought John his first guitar. The instrument was an inexpensive Gallotone Champion acoustic for which she lent her son five pounds and ten shillings on the condition that the guitar be delivered to her own house and not Mimi's, knowing well that her sister was not supportive of her son's musical aspirations.[27] Mimi was sceptical of his claim that he would be famous one day, and she hoped that he would grow bored with music, often telling him, "The guitar's all very well, John, but you'll never make a living out of it."[28] On 15 July 1958, Lennon's mother was struck and killed by a car while she was walking home after visiting the Smiths' house.[29]
Lennon failed his O-level examinations and was accepted into the Liverpool College of Art after his aunt and headmaster intervened.[30] At the college, he started wearing Teddy Boy clothes and was threatened with expulsion for his behaviour.[31] In the description of Cynthia Powell, Lennon's fellow student, and subsequently his wife, he was "thrown out of the college before his final year".[32]
1957–1970: The Quarrymen to the Beatles
Further information: The Quarrymen, Lennon–McCartney, The Beatles, Beatlemania, British Invasion, and More popular than Jesus
1957–1966: Formation, commercial break-out and touring years
At age 15, Lennon formed a skiffle group, the Quarrymen. Named after Quarry Bank High School, the group was established by Lennon in September 1956.[33] By the summer of 1957, the Quarrymen played a "spirited set of songs" made up of half skiffle and half rock and roll.[34] Lennon first met Paul McCartney at the Quarrymen's second performance, which was held in Woolton on 6 July at the St Peter's Church garden fête. Lennon then asked McCartney to join the band.[35]
McCartney said that Aunt Mimi "was very aware that John's friends were lower class", and would often patronise him when he arrived to visit Lennon.[36] According to McCartney's brother Mike, their father similarly disapproved of Lennon, declaring that Lennon would get his son "into trouble".[37] McCartney's father nevertheless allowed the fledgling band to rehearse in the family's front room at 20 Forthlin Road.[38][39] During this time, Lennon wrote his first song, "Hello Little Girl", which became a UK top 10 hit for the Fourmost in 1963.[40]
McCartney recommended his friend George Harrison to be the lead guitarist.[41] Lennon thought that Harrison, then 14 years old, was too young. McCartney engineered an audition on the upper deck of a Liverpool bus, where Harrison played "Raunchy" for Lennon and was asked to join.[42] Stuart Sutcliffe, Lennon's friend from art school, later joined as bassist.[43] Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Sutcliffe became "The Beatles" in early 1960. In August that year, the Beatles were engaged for a 48-night residency in Hamburg, in West Germany, and were desperately in need of a drummer. They asked Pete Best to join them.[44] Lennon's aunt, horrified when he told her about the trip, pleaded with Lennon to continue his art studies instead.[45] After the first Hamburg residency, the band accepted another in April 1961, and a third in April 1962. As with the other band members, Lennon was introduced to Preludin while in Hamburg,[46] and regularly took the drug as a stimulant during their long, overnight performances
Brian Epstein managed the Beatles from 1962 until his death in 1967. He had no previous experience managing artists, but he had a strong influence on the group's dress code and attitude on stage.[48] Lennon initially resisted his attempts to encourage the band to present a professional appearance, but eventually complied, saying, "I'll wear a bloody balloon if somebody's going to pay me."[49] McCartney took over on bass after Sutcliffe decided to stay in Hamburg, and Best was replaced with drummer Ringo Starr; this completed the four-piece line-up that would remain until the group's break-up in 1970. The band's first single, "Love Me Do", was released in October 1962 and reached No. 17 on the British charts. They recorded their debut album, Please Please Me, in under 10 hours on 11 February 1963,[50] a day when Lennon was suffering the effects of a cold,[51] which is evident in the vocal on the last song to be recorded that day, "Twist and Shout".[52] The Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership yielded eight of its fourteen tracks. With a few exceptions, one being the album title itself, Lennon had yet to bring his love of wordplay to bear on his song lyrics, saying: "We were just writing songs ... pop songs with no more thought of them than that – to create a sound. And the words were almost irrelevant".[50] In a 1987 interview, McCartney said that the other Beatles idolised Lennon: "He was like our own little Elvis ... We all looked up to John. He was older and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the smartest
The Beatles achieved mainstream success in the UK early in 1963. Lennon was on tour when his first son, Julian, was born in April. During their Royal Variety Show performance, which was attended by the Queen Mother and other British royalty, Lennon poked fun at the audience: "For our next song, I'd like to ask for your help. For the people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands ... and the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewellery."[54] After a year of Beatlemania in the UK, the group's historic February 1964 US debut appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show marked their breakthrough to international stardom. A two-year period of constant touring, filmmaking, and songwriting followed, during which Lennon wrote two books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works.[55] The Beatles received recognition from the British establishment when they were appointed Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1965 Queen's Birthday Honours.[56]
Lennon grew concerned that fans who attended Beatles concerts were unable to hear the music above the screaming of fans, and that the band's musicianship was beginning to suffer as a result.[57] Lennon's "Help!" expressed his own feelings in 1965: "I meant it ... It was me singing 'help'".[58] He had put on weight (he would later refer to this as his "Fat Elvis" period),[59] and felt he was subconsciously seeking change.[60] In March that year he and Harrison were unknowingly introduced to LSD when a dentist, hosting a dinner party attended by the two musicians and their wives, spiked the guests' coffee with the drug.[61] When they wanted to leave, their host revealed what they had taken, and strongly advised them not to leave the house because of the likely effects. Later, in a lift at a nightclub, they all believed it was on fire; Lennon recalled: "We were all screaming ... hot and hysterical."[62] In March 1966, during an interview with Evening Standard reporter Maureen Cleave, Lennon remarked, "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink ... We're more popular than Jesus now – I don't know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity."[63] The comment went virtually unnoticed in England but caused great offence in the US when quoted by a magazine there five months later. The furore that followed, which included the burning of Beatles records, Ku Klux Klan activity and threats against Lennon, contributed to the band's decision to stop touring.[64]
1966–1970: Studio years, break-up and solo work
After the band's final concert on 29 August 1966, Lennon filmed the anti-war black comedy How I Won the War – his only appearance in a non-Beatles feature film – before rejoining his bandmates for an extended period of recording, beginning in November.[65] Lennon had increased his use of LSD[66] and, according to author Ian MacDonald, his continuous experimentation with the drug in 1967 brought him "close to erasing his identity".[67] The year 1967 saw the release of "Strawberry Fields Forever", hailed by Time magazine for its "astonishing inventiveness",[68] and the group's landmark album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which revealed lyrics by Lennon that contrasted strongly with the simple love songs of the group's early years.[69] In late June, the Beatles performed Lennon's "All You Need Is Love" as Britain's contribution to the Our World satellite broadcast, before an international audience estimated at up to 400 million.[70] Intentionally simplistic in its message,[71] the song formalised his pacifist stance and provided an anthem for the Summer of Love.[72]
After the Beatles were introduced to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the group attended an August weekend of personal instruction at his Transcendental Meditation seminar in Bangor, Wales.[73] During the seminar, they were informed of Epstein's death. "I knew we were in trouble then", Lennon said later. "I didn't have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music. I was scared – I thought, 'We've fucking had it now.'"[74] McCartney organised the group's first post-Epstein project,[75] the self-written, -produced and -directed television film Magical Mystery Tour, which was released in December that year. While the film itself proved to be their first critical flop, its soundtrack release, featuring Lennon's Lewis Carroll-inspired "I Am the Walrus", was a success.[76][77]
Led by Harrison and Lennon's interest, the Beatles travelled to the Maharishi's ashram in India in February 1968 for further guidance.[78] While there, they composed most of the songs for their double album The Beatles,[79] but the band members' mixed experience with Transcendental Meditation signalled a sharp divergence in the group's camaraderie.[80] On their return to London, they became increasingly involved in business activities with the formation of Apple Corps, a multimedia corporation composed of Apple Records and several other subsidiary companies. Lennon described the venture as an attempt to achieve "artistic freedom within a business structure".[81] Released amid a period of civic unrest and protests, the band's debut single for the Apple label included Lennon's B-side "Revolution", in which he called for a "plan" rather than committing to Maoist revolution. The song's pacifist message led to ridicule from political radicals in the New Left press.[82] Adding to the tensions at the Beatles' recording sessions that year, Lennon insisted on having his new girlfriend, the Japanese artist Yoko Ono, beside him, thereby contravening the band's policy regarding wives and girlfriends in the studio. He was especially pleased with his songwriting contributions to the double album and identified it as a superior work to Sgt. Pepper.[83] At the end of 1968, Lennon was featured in the film The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus in the role of a Dirty Mac band member. The film was not released until 1996. The supergroup, composed of Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell, also backed a vocal performance by Ono in the film
