John Lennon

English musician and member of the Beatles (1940–1980)

John Winston Ono Lennon[nb 1] (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. Lennon’s work was characterised by the rebellious nature and acerbic wit of his music, writing and drawings, on film, and in interviews. His songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney remains the most successful in history.[2]
Born in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the skiffle craze as a teenager. In 1956, he formed The Quarrymen, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Sometimes called “the smart Beatle”, he was initially the group’s de facto leader, a role gradually ceded to McCartney. Lennon soon expanded his work into other media by participating in numerous films, including How I Won the War, and authoring In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works, both collections of nonsense writings and line drawings. Starting with “All You Need Is Love”, his songs were adopted as anthems by the anti-war movement and the larger counterculture of the 1960s. In 1969, he started the Plastic Ono Band with his second wife, the multimedia artist Yoko Ono, held the two-week-long anti-war demonstration Bed-ins for Peace, and left the Beatles to embark on a solo career.
Between 1968 and 1972, Lennon and Ono collaborated on many works, including a trilogy of avant-garde albums, several more films, his solo debut John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, and the international top 10 singles “Give Peace a Chance”, “Instant Karma!”, “Imagine” and “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”. Moving to New York City in 1971, his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a three-year deportation attempt by the Nixon administration. Lennon and Ono separated from 1973 to 1975, during which time he produced Harry Nilsson’s album Pussy Cats. He also had chart-topping collaborations with Elton John (“Whatever Gets You thru the Night”) and David Bowie (“Fame”). Following a five-year hiatus, Lennon returned to music in 1980 with the Ono collaboration Double Fantasy. He was murdered by a Beatles fan, Mark David Chapman, three weeks after the album’s release.
As a performer, writer or co-writer, Lennon had 25 number-one singles in the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Double Fantasy, his best-selling album, won the 1981 Grammy Award for Album of the Year. In 1982, Lennon won the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. In 2002, Lennon was voted eighth in a BBC history poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. Rolling Stone ranked him the fifth-greatest singer and 38th greatest artist of all time. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (in 1997) and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (twice, as a member of the Beatles in 1988 and as a solo artist in 1994).

Early years: 1940–1956

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. His parents named him John Winston Lennon after his paternal grandfather, John “Jack” Lennon, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill. His father was often away from home but sent regular pay cheques to 9 Newcastle Road, Liverpool, where Lennon lived with his mother; the cheques stopped when he went absent without leave in February 1944.[7] 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. 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.[9] 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. According to author Mark Lewisohn, however, Lennon’s parents agreed that Julia should take him and give him a home. Billy Hall, who witnessed the incident, has said that the dramatic portrayal of a young John Lennon being forced to make a decision between his parents is inaccurate. Lennon had no further contact with Alf for close to 20 years.
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. 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. Julia visited Mendips on a regular basis, and John 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. 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.”
He regularly visited his cousin Stanley Parkes, who lived in Fleetwood and took him on trips to local cinemas.[17] During the school holidays Parkes often visited Lennon with Leila Harvey, another cousin, and the three 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. 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.” Lennon’s uncle George died of a liver haemorrhage on 5 June 1955, aged 52.
Lennon was raised as an Anglican and attended Dovedale Primary School. 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”. He also established a reputation as the class clown.[23] He often drew comical cartoons that appeared in his own, self-made school magazine called the Daily Howl.[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. 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.”
On 15 July 1958, Julia Lennon was struck and killed by a car while she was walking home after visiting the Smiths’ house. His mother’s death traumatised the teenage Lennon, who, for the next two years, drank heavily and frequently got into fights, consumed by a “blind rage”. Julia’s memory would later serve as a major creative inspiration for Lennon, inspiring songs such as the 1968 Beatles song “Julia”.
Lennon’s senior school years were marked by a shift in his behaviour. Teachers at Quarry Bank High School described him thus: “He has too many wrong ambitions and his energy is often misplaced”, and “His work always lacks effort. He is content to ‘drift’ instead of using his abilities.”[31] Lennon’s misbehaviour created a rift in his relationship with his aunt.
Lennon failed his O-level examinations, and was accepted into the Liverpool College of Art after his aunt and headmaster intervened. At the college he began to wear Teddy Boy clothes and was threatened with expulsion for his behaviour. 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”.

The Quarrymen to the Beatles: 1956–1970

Formation, fame and touring: 1956–1966

At the age of 15, Lennon formed a skiffle group, the Quarrymen. Named after Quarry Bank High School, the group was established by Lennon in September 1956. By the summer of 1957, the Quarrymen played a “spirited set of songs” made up of half skiffle and half rock and roll. 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.
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. According to McCartney’s brother Mike, their father similarly disapproved of Lennon, declaring that Lennon would get his son “into trouble”. McCartney’s father nevertheless allowed the fledgling band to rehearse in the family’s front room at 20 Forthlin Road. During this time Lennon wrote his first song, “Hello Little Girl”, which became a UK top 10 hit for the Fourmost in 1963.
McCartney recommended that his friend George Harrison become the lead guitarist. 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. Stuart Sutcliffe, Lennon’s friend from art school, later joined as bassist. 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. Lennon’s aunt, horrified when he told her about the trip, pleaded with Lennon to continue his art studies instead. 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, 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. 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.” 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, a day when Lennon was suffering the effects of a cold,[53] which is evident in the vocal on the last song to be recorded that day, “Twist and Shout”. 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”. 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.”

McCartney, Harrison and Lennon, 1964
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.” 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. 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.
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. Lennon’s “Help!” expressed his own feelings in 1965: “I meant it … It was me singing ‘help'”. He had put on weight (he would later refer to this as his “Fat Elvis” period), and felt he was subconsciously seeking change. 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. 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.”
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.” 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.

Studio years, break-up and solo work: 1966–1970

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. Lennon had increased his use of LSD and, according to author Ian MacDonald, his continuous use of the drug in 1967 brought him “close to erasing his identity”. The year 1967 saw the release of “Strawberry Fields Forever”, hailed by Time magazine for its “astonishing inventiveness”, 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.
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. Intentionally simplistic in its message, the song formalised his pacifist stance and provided an anthem for the Summer of Love. 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. 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.'” McCartney organised the group’s first post-Epstein project, 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.
Led by Harrison and Lennon’s interest, the Beatles travelled to the Maharishi’s ashram in India in February 1968 for further guidance. While there, they composed most of the songs for their double album The Beatles, but the band members’ mixed experience with Transcendental Meditation signalled a sharp divergence in the group’s camaraderie. 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”. Released amid the Protests of 1968, 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. 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.[85] At the end of 1968, Lennon participated in The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, a television special that was not broadcast. Lennon performed with the Dirty Mac, a supergroup composed of Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Mitch Mitchell. The group also backed a vocal performance by Ono. A film version was released in 1996.

By late 1968, Lennon’s increased drug use and growing preoccupation with Ono, combined with the Beatles’ inability to agree on how the company should be run, left Apple in need of professional management. Lennon asked Lord Beeching to take on the role but he declined, advising Lennon to go back to making records. Lennon was approached by Allen Klein, who had managed the Rolling Stones and other bands during the British Invasion. In early 1969, Klein was appointed as Apple’s chief executive by Lennon, Harrison and Starr but McCartney never signed the management contract.
Lennon and Ono were married on 20 March 1969 and soon released a series of 14 lithographs called “Bag One” depicting scenes from their honeymoon, eight of which were deemed indecent and most of which were banned and confiscated. Lennon’s creative focus continued to move beyond the Beatles, and between 1968 and 1969 he and Ono recorded three albums of experimental music together: Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins (known more for its cover than for its music), Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions and Wedding Album. In 1969, they formed the Plastic Ono Band, releasing Live Peace in Toronto 1969. Between 1969 and 1970, Lennon released the singles “Give Peace a Chance”, which was widely adopted as an anti-Vietnam War anthem, “Cold Turkey”, which documented his withdrawal symptoms after he became addicted to heroin, and “Instant Karma!”.

In protest at Britain’s involvement in “the Nigeria-Biafra thing”[95] (namely, the Nigerian Civil War), its support of America in the Vietnam War and (perhaps jokingly) against “Cold Turkey” slipping down the charts,[97] Lennon returned his MBE medal to the Queen. This gesture had no effect on his MBE status, which could not be renounced. The medal, together with Lennon’s letter, is held at the Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood.[99]
Lennon left the Beatles in September 1969, but agreed not to inform the media while the group renegotiated their recording contract. He was outraged that McCartney publicised his own departure on releasing his debut solo album in April 1970. Lennon’s reaction was, “Jesus Christ! He gets all the credit for it!” He later wrote, “I started the band. I disbanded it. It’s as simple as that.” In a December 1970 interview with Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone magazine, he revealed his bitterness towards McCartney, saying, “I was a fool not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record.” Lennon also spoke of the hostility he perceived the other members had towards Ono, and of how he, Harrison and Starr “got fed up with being sidemen for Paul … After Brian Epstein died we collapsed. Paul took over and supposedly led us. But what is leading us when we went round in circles?”

Solo career: 1970–1980
Initial solo success and activism: 1970–1972
Advertisement for “Imagine” from Billboard, 18 September 1971

When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor.

—John Lennon[105]

Between 1 April and 15 September 1970, Lennon and Ono went through primal therapy with Arthur Janov at Tittenhurst, in London and at Janov’s clinic in Los Angeles, California. Designed to release emotional pain from early childhood, the therapy entailed two half-days a week with Janov for six months; he had wanted to treat the couple for longer, but their American visa ran out and they had to return to the UK.[106] Lennon’s debut solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970), was received with praise by many music critics, but its highly personal lyrics and stark sound limited its commercial performance. The album featured the song “Mother”, in which Lennon confronted his feelings of childhood rejection, and the Dylanesque “Working Class Hero”, a bitter attack against the bourgeois social system which, due to the lyric “you’re still fucking peasants”, fell foul of broadcasters.
In January 1971, Tariq Ali expressed his revolutionary political views when he interviewed Lennon, who immediately responded by writing “Power to the People”. In his lyrics to the song, Lennon reversed the non-confrontational approach he had espoused in “Revolution”, although he later disowned “Power to the People”, saying that it was borne out of guilt and a desire for approval from radicals such as Ali. Lennon became involved in a protest against the prosecution of Oz magazine for alleged obscenity. Lennon denounced the proceedings as “disgusting fascism”, and he and Ono (as Elastic Oz Band) released the single “God Save Us/Do the Oz” and joined marches in support of the magazine.

Sample of “Imagine”, Lennon’s most widely known post-Beatles song. Like “Give Peace a Chance”, the song became an anti-war anthem, but its lyrics offended religious groups. Lennon’s explanation was: “If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion – not without religion, but without this ‘my god is bigger than your god’ thing – then it can be true.”

Eager for a major commercial success, Lennon adopted a more accessible sound for his next album, Imagine (1971). Rolling Stone reported that “it contains a substantial portion of good music” but warned of the possibility that “his posturings will soon seem not merely dull but irrelevant”. The album’s title track later became an anthem for anti-war movements, while the song “How Do You Sleep?” was a musical attack on McCartney in response to lyrics on Ram that Lennon felt, and McCartney later confirmed, were directed at him and Ono.[nb 3] In “Jealous Guy”, Lennon addressed his demeaning treatment of women, acknowledging that his past behaviour was the result of long-held insecurity.
In gratitude for his guitar contributions to Imagine, Lennon initially agreed to perform at Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh benefit shows in New York. Harrison refused to allow Ono to participate at the concerts, however, which resulted in the couple having a heated argument and Lennon pulling out of the event.
Lennon and Ono moved to New York in August 1971 and immediately embraced US radical left politics. The couple released their “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” single in December. During the new year, the Nixon administration took what it called a “strategic counter-measure” against Lennon’s anti-war and anti-Nixon propaganda. The administration embarked on what would be a four-year attempt to deport him.[125] Lennon was embroiled in a continuing legal battle with the immigration authorities, and he was denied permanent residency in the US; the issue would not be resolved until 1976.
Some Time in New York City was recorded as a collaboration with Ono and was released in 1972 with backing from the New York band Elephant’s Memory. A double LP, it contained songs about women’s rights, race relations, Britain’s role in Northern Ireland and Lennon’s difficulties in obtaining a green card. The album was a commercial failure and was maligned by critics, who found its political sloganeering heavy-handed and relentless. The NME’s review took the form of an open letter in which Tony Tyler derided Lennon as a “pathetic, ageing revolutionary”.[130] In the US, “Woman Is the Nigger of the World” was released as a single from the album and was televised on 11 May, on The Dick Cavett Show. Many radio stations refused to broadcast the song because of the word “nigger”.
Lennon and Ono gave two benefit concerts with Elephant’s Memory and guests in New York in aid of patients at the Willowbrook State School mental facility. Staged at Madison Square Garden on 30 August 1972, they were his last full-length concert appearances. After George McGovern lost the 1972 presidential election to Richard Nixon, Lennon and Ono attended a post-election wake held in the New York home of activist Jerry Rubin.[125] Lennon was depressed and got intoxicated; he left Ono embarrassed after he had sex with a female guest. Ono’s song “Death of Samantha” was inspired by the incident.[134]

“Lost weekend”: 1973–1975
Publicity photo of Lennon and host Tom Snyder from the television programme Tomorrow. Aired in 1975, this was the last television interview Lennon gave before his death in 1980.
As Lennon was about to record Mind Games in 1973, he and Ono decided to separate. The ensuing 18-month period apart, which he later called his “lost weekend” in reference to the film of the same name,[136] was spent in Los Angeles and New York City in the company of May Pang.[137] Mind Games, credited to the “Plastic U.F.Ono Band”, was released in November 1973. Lennon also contributed “I’m the Greatest” to Starr’s album Ringo (1973), released the same month. With Harrison joining Starr and Lennon at the recording session for the song, it marked the only occasion when three former Beatles recorded together between the band’s break-up and Lennon’s death.[nb 4]
In early 1974, Lennon was drinking heavily and his alcohol-fuelled antics with Harry Nilsson made headlines. In March, two widely publicised incidents occurred at The Troubadour club. In the first incident, Lennon stuck an unused menstrual pad on his forehead and scuffled with a waitress. The second incident occurred two weeks later, when Lennon and Nilsson were ejected from the same club after heckling the Smothers Brothers. Lennon decided to produce Nilsson’s album Pussy Cats, and Pang rented a Los Angeles beach house for all the musicians. After a month of further debauchery, the recording sessions were in chaos, and Lennon returned to New York with Pang to finish work on the album. In April, Lennon had produced the Mick Jagger song “Too Many Cooks (Spoil the Soup)” which was, for contractual reasons, to remain unreleased for more than 30 years. Pang supplied the recording for its eventual inclusion on The Very Best of Mick Jagger (2007).[142]
Lennon had settled back in New York when he recorded the album Walls and Bridges. Released in October 1974, it included “Whatever Gets You thru the Night”, which featured Elton John on backing vocals and piano, and became Lennon’s only single as a solo artist to top the US Billboard Hot 100 chart during his lifetime.[nb 5] A second single from the album, “#9 Dream”, followed before the end of the year. Starr’s Goodnight Vienna (1974) again saw assistance from Lennon, who wrote the title track and played piano. On 28 November, Lennon made a surprise guest appearance at Elton John’s Thanksgiving concert at Madison Square Garden, in fulfilment of his promise to join the singer in a live show if “Whatever Gets You thru the Night”, a song whose commercial potential Lennon had doubted, reached number one. Lennon performed the song along with “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and “I Saw Her Standing There”, which he introduced as “a song by an old estranged fiancé of mine called Paul”.
In the first two weeks of January 1975, Elton John topped the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart with his cover of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, featuring Lennon on guitar and backing vocals – Lennon is credited on the single under the moniker of “Dr. Winston O’Boogie”. As January became February, Lennon and Ono reunited as Lennon and Bowie completed recording of their co-composition “Fame”,[147][148][150] which became David Bowie’s first US number one, featuring guitar and backing vocals by Lennon. In February, Lennon released Rock ‘n’ Roll (1975), an album of cover songs. “Stand by Me”, taken from the album and a US and UK hit, became his last single for five years. He made what would be his final stage appearance in the ATV special A Salute to Lew Grade, recorded on 18 April and televised in June. Playing acoustic guitar and backed by an eight-piece band, Lennon performed two songs from Rock ‘n’ Roll (“Stand by Me”, which was not broadcast, and “Slippin’ and Slidin'”) followed by “Imagine”. The band, known as Etc., wore masks behind their heads, a dig by Lennon, who thought Grade was two-faced.[153]

Hiatus and return: 1975–1980
Lennon’s green card, which allowed him to live and work in the United States
Sean was Lennon’s only child with Ono. Sean was born on 9 October 1975 (Lennon’s thirty-fifth birthday), and John took on the role of househusband. Lennon began what would be a five-year hiatus from the music industry, during which time, he later said, he “baked bread” and “looked after the baby”. He devoted himself to Sean, rising at 6 am daily to plan and prepare his meals and to spend time with him. He wrote “Cookin’ (In the Kitchen of Love)” for Starr’s Ringo’s Rotogravure (1976), performing on the track in June in what would be his last recording session until 1980. He formally announced his break from music in Tokyo in 1977, saying, “we have basically decided, without any great decision, to be with our baby as much as we can until we feel we can take time off to indulge ourselves in creating things outside of the family.” During his career break he created several series of drawings, and drafted a book containing a mix of autobiographical material and what he termed “mad stuff”, all of which would be published posthumously.
Lennon emerged from his hiatus in October 1980, when he released the single “(Just Like) Starting Over”. In November, he and Ono released the album Double Fantasy, which included songs Lennon had written in Bermuda. In June, Lennon chartered a 43-foot sailboat and embarked on a sailing trip to Bermuda. En route, he and the crew encountered a storm, rendering everyone on board seasick, except Lennon, who took control and sailed the boat through the storm. This experience re-invigorated him and his creative muse. He spent three weeks in Bermuda in a home called Fairylands writing and refining the tracks for the upcoming album.[160][161][162]
The music reflected Lennon’s fulfilment in his new-found stable family life. Sufficient additional material was recorded for a planned follow-up album Milk and Honey, which was issued posthumously, in 1984. Double Fantasy was not well received initially and drew comments such as Melody Maker’s “indulgent sterility … a godawful yawn”.

Murder: 8 December 1980

Wintertime at Strawberry Fields in Central Park with the Dakota in the background
At approximately 5:00 p.m. on 8 December 1980, Lennon autographed a copy of Double Fantasy for Mark David Chapman before leaving The Dakota with Ono for a recording session at the Record Plant. After the session, Lennon and Ono returned to the Dakota in a limousine at around 10:50 p.m. (EST). They left the vehicle and walked through the archway of the building. Chapman then shot Lennon twice in the back and twice in the shoulder[167] at close range. Lennon was rushed in a police cruiser to the emergency room of Roosevelt Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival at 11:15 p.m. (EST).[169]
Ono issued a statement the next day, saying “There is no funeral for John”, ending it with the words, “John loved and prayed for the human race. Please do the same for him.” His remains were cremated at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. Ono scattered his ashes in New York’s Central Park, where the Strawberry Fields memorial was later created. Chapman avoided going to trial when he ignored his lawyer’s advice and pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20-years-to-life.[172][nb 6]
In the weeks following the murder, “(Just Like) Starting Over” and Double Fantasy topped the charts in the UK and the US. “Imagine” hit number one in the UK in January 1981 and “Happy Xmas” peaked at number two. “Imagine” was succeeded at the top of the UK chart by “Woman”, the second single from Double Fantasy.[176] Later that year, Roxy Music’s cover version of “Jealous Guy”, recorded as a tribute to Lennon, was also a UK number-one.

Personal relationships
Cynthia Lennon

Lennon met Cynthia Powell (1939–2015) in 1957, when they were fellow students at the Liverpool College of Art. Although Powell was intimidated by Lennon’s attitude and appearance, she heard that he was obsessed with the French actress Brigitte Bardot, so she dyed her hair blonde. Lennon asked her out, but when she said that she was engaged, he shouted, “I didn’t ask you to fuckin’ marry me, did I?” She often accompanied him to Quarrymen gigs and travelled to Hamburg with McCartney’s girlfriend to visit him.
Lennon was jealous by nature and eventually grew possessive, often terrifying Powell with his anger. In her 2005 memoir John, Powell recalled that, when they were dating, Lennon once struck her after he observed her dancing with Stuart Sutcliffe. She ended their relationship as a result, until three months later, when Lennon apologised and asked to reunite.[182] She took him back and later noted that he was never again physically abusive towards her, although he could still be “verbally cutting and unkind”.[183] Lennon later said that until he met Ono, he had never questioned his chauvinistic attitude towards women. Despite the fact that he said that the Beatles song “Getting Better” told his (or his peers’) own story—”I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically – any woman. I was a hitter. I couldn’t express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace”—there is no further evidence of him ever having struck a woman again.
Recalling his July 1962 reaction when he learned that Cynthia was pregnant, Lennon said, “There’s only one thing for it Cyn. We’ll have to get married.” The couple wed on 23 August at the Mount Pleasant Register Office in Liverpool, with Brian Epstein serving as best man. His marriage began just as Beatlemania was taking off across the UK. He performed on the evening of his wedding day and would continue to do so almost daily from then on. Epstein feared that fans would be alienated by the idea of a married Beatle, and he asked the Lennons to keep their marriage secret. Julian was born on 8 April 1963; Lennon was on tour at the time and did not see his infant son until three days later.
Cynthia attributed the start of the marriage breakdown to Lennon’s use of LSD, and she felt that he slowly lost interest in her as a result of his use of the drug. When the group travelled by train to Bangor, Wales in 1967 for the Maharishi Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation seminar, a policeman did not recognise her and stopped her from boarding. She later recalled how the incident seemed to symbolise the end of their marriage. After spending a holiday in Greece, Cynthia arrived home at Kenwood to find Lennon sitting on the floor with Ono in terrycloth robes and left the house, feeling shocked and humiliated,^ Lennon 2005, pp. 214–215: “I was in shock, […] It was clear that they had arranged for me to find them like that and the cruelty of John’s betrayal was hard to absorb”, “I felt utterly humiliated, and longed to disappear. […] Their intimacy had been so powerful that I had felt like a stranger in my own home”.

^ Lennon 2005, p. 222: “It was laughable. Roberto had been kind and a good friend, but I had never been unfaithful to John. It was his attempt to make himself feel better about what he was doing”.

^ “Apple. Yoko Ono. 1966”. Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 11 January 2018.

^ Two Virgins liner notes

^ “Sharing the Dakota With John Lennon”. The New York Times. 6 December 2010. Archived from the original on 3 January 2022. Retrieved 19 April 2019.

^ Anderson 2010, p. 83: “The Bed-In stunt was ridiculed by the press”.

^ “John Lennons Convey Greetings via Billboards” The New York Times 16 December 1969: 54

^ “Hanratty: The damning DNA”. BBC News. 10 May 2002. Archived from the original on 5 April 2014. Retrieved 27 September 2014.

^ Lennon, John (8 December 2016). “Quote by John Lennon”. The Independent. Retrieved 25 June 2019.

^ Lennon, John. Richmond, Len; Noguera, Gary (eds.). “The Gay Liberation Book”. Retrieved 8 December 2021.

^ Richmond, Len. “The gay liberation book by Len Richmond – Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists”. Goodreads.com. Archived from the original on 5 December 2013. Retrieved 4 May 2013.

^ “John Lennon’s last public political statement. – Dynamic Tension”. Crowdog89.tumblr.com. Archived from the original on 5 November 2013. Retrieved 4 May 2013.

^ Wiener, Jon. “Bob Dylan’s defense of John Lennon”. Archived 2 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine The Nation, 8 October 2010

^ “Photo Copy of Bob Dylan’s 1972 Letter to the INS in Defense of John Lennon”. Lennonfbifiles.com. Retrieved 8 December 2010.

^ “Oh! Calcutta!”. specialsections.absoluteelsewhere.net. Archived from the original on 1 April 2015. Retrieved 2 January 2015.

^ “John Lennon and Yoko Ono launch art exhibition You Are Here”. The Beatles Bible. 30 June 2018.

^ John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band book by Yoko Ono and John Lennon, published by Thames & Hudson Ltd, October 2020, pp. 196-199

^ John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band book by Yoko Ono and John Lennon, published by Thames & Hudson Ltd, October 2020, pp. 202-203

^ John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band book by Yoko Ono and John Lennon, published by Thames & Hudson Ltd, October 2020, pp. 200-201

^ “Joint Yoko Ono, John Lennon, & Fluxgroup Project / Press Release — April 1, 1970”. Archived from the original on 21 January 2021. Retrieved 15 January 2021.

^ John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band book by Yoko Ono and John Lennon, published by Thames & Hudson Ltd, October 2020, pp. 212-213

^ “John Lennon drawings go on show in New York”. The Independent. 2 October 2012. Archived from the original on 13 June 2022.

^ “The Beatles Bible – John Lennon’s Bag One exhibition is raided by police”. The Beatles Bible. 16 January 1970.

^ Show: The Magazine of Films and the Arts. H & R Publications. January 1970. p. 50.

^ Doggett, Peter (17 December 2009). The Art and Music of John Lennon. Omnibus Press. pp. 230–. ISBN 978-0-85712-126-4.

^ “Oh Yoko: Four by Yoko Ono”. Cinema Project. Archived from the original on 9 March 2011. Retrieved 15 October 2014.

^ “Erection (John Lennon & Yoko Ono, 1971)”. Postiar. Retrieved 15 October 2014.

^ Levitz, Tamara (2004). “Yoko Ono and the Unfinished Music of ‘John & Yoko’: Imagining Gender and Racial Equality in the Late 1960s”. In Bloch, Avital H.; Umansky, Lauri (eds.). Impossible to hold : women and culture in the 1960s. New York: New York University Press. p. 233. ISBN 0814799108.

^ Prown and Newquist 2003, p. 213.

^ Appleford, Steve (6 August 2010). “Yoko Ono Discusses New John Lennon Documentary”. Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 14 June 2017.

^ Evans, Mike, ed. (2014). The Beatles: Paperback Writer: 40 Years of Classic Writing. Plexus Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8596-589-66.

^ a b “BMI Foundation’s John Lennon Scholarships”. Archived from the original on 15 February 2017.

^ “Exclusive: John Lennon, Yoko Ono Catalogs Sign With Downtown Music Publishing”. Billboard. 25 January 2013. Archived from the original on 24 September 2016. Retrieved 26 July 2016.

^ “Recent History and Current Developments”. Friends of Liverpool Airport. Archived from the original on 24 June 2012. Retrieved 10 February 2013.

^ “Monument to John Lennon unveiled in Liverpool on his ’70th birthday'”. The Daily Telegraph. London. 9 October 2010. Archived from the original on 19 October 2015.

^ “Unveiling of ‘Peace & Harmony’, European Peace Monument – Dedicated to John Lennon”. 8 November 2010. Archived from the original on 1 July 2013. Retrieved 10 July 2013 – via YouTube.

^ “Mercury Crater Named After John Lennon”. Space.com. 20 December 2013. Archived from the original on 14 January 2014. Retrieved 13 January 2014.

^ “Most No. 1s By Artist (All-Time)”. Billboard. Archived from the original on 22 February 2014. Retrieved 18 December 2014.

^ “Queen’s honours: People who have turned them down named”. BBC News. 26 January 2012. Archived from the original on 12 May 2015. Retrieved 27 September 2014.

^ The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum 1994.

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