John Lennon, the pioneering songwriter and a member of the most-famous pop group of all-time, would have turned 70-years-old on Saturday. Lennon famously claimed the The Beatles were bigger than Jesus. He also claimed that Christianity would fade.
Were The Beatles bigger than Jesus? I’m not sure. Has Christianity faded? Big time.
Aside from being an anti-authoritarian prophet and a man so famous he had to give up “public life,” he wrote incredible songs. And I’m not just talking about beautiful melodies and stirring arrangements — Paul McCartney wrote those, too. But John Lennon told stories, and these stories united people from all walks off of life. The union construction worker loved The Beatles as much as the undergrad war protestor. John Lennon wasn’t all bent about it this like my generation’s tepid hero, Kurt Cobain. It’s all the more inspiring that he wasn’t.
This weekend also marks the release of "Nowhere Boy," a movie about Lennon's adolescence in England. "Nowhere Boy" – which has been praised by no less an eminence than Yoko Ono – has received middling marks from reviewers.
In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Ono remembered that Lennon dreaded his 40th birthday; she said he would have been more relaxed about turning 70.
But she also said the state of the world today would have made her husband "totally angry.... He would have felt like he wanted to run somewhere and just bang something or strangle someone, you know? But then I think, I'm sure he would have relaxed and decided he should still be an activist. We need to really do something about the world. Otherwise, we're all going to blow up together," Ono said.
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John Lennon, frontman for the Beatles, was born October 9, 1940. Pay tribute to this politically aware musician by remembering one of his key phrases and ideologies: All you need is love. Well, love and an AK47.
